Richard Morrison
The Royal Philharmonic Society could be the mouthpiece we need
Why the Royal Philharmonic Society needs to change
It’s heartening when a venerable but sleepy organisation rediscovers its va-va-voom. And one encouraging aspect of British musical life over the past 25 years has been how the Royal Philharmonic Society has crept back into relevance.
Even I, a totteringly ancient music critic, had trouble remembering what the RPS did before that. Of course there was its illustrious history: commissioning Beethoven’s Ninth and Mendelssohn’s Italian symphonies; inviting Wagner and Tchaikovsky to conduct in Britain; presenting its famous gold medal to some eminent musician every now and then. But for most of the 20th century it seemed a spent force.
That started to change in 1989, with the inauguration of the RPS Awards: an annual dinner at which the British classical music business could celebrate its own pacemakers and trendsetters. Then came a plethora of schemes helping young performers and composers. By 2000 the RPS was back in the game.
And now – doubtless spurred by the zestful James Murphy, its new chief executive – the society has launched what could be a transformative new membership scheme. It has four levels, from £60 up to £1,000 a year. The perks vary too, of course. But for just
£5 a month you can get access to an impressive programme of talks and other events and the chance to nominate contenders for the RPS Awards.
It’s a good idea but, in my view, just a start. What holds classical music back from being a truly popular artform is the troublesome old taunt that it is ‘elitist’.
It’s an insidious misconception, often peddled by people and newspapers that should know better.
How do we combat that? Let’s look at a similar field. Stately homes are very definitely elitist, in the sense that few of us will ever own one. Yet the National Trust, which was set up primarily to ensure the survival of hundreds of stately homes, now has five million members, each paying a subscription. It has acquired this vast following (and income) not by dumbing-down the stately-home experience – well, not much – but by making its members feel that they ‘own’ them, in the sense that they can visit them whenever they want.
So this particular elite has effectively been widened from a few thousand aristocratic owners to the five million people who now regularly visit stately homes. That’s the extraordinary conjuring trick behind the National Trust’s 125-year success-story, and the reason why so many other specialist trusts have also converted themselves into mass-membership organisations, including the Royal Horticultural Society, English Heritage and the Canal & River Trust. The idea is to make people feel that they are not just passive consumers of what the trust represents, but stakeholders who can help support and expand the trust’s work.
This is surely the direction in which the RPS must head. Classical music is at least as popular as stately homes, but it lacks clout as an artform because there is no central body with five million members that can speak for its practitioners and consumers as one entity. Yes, there are excellent trade organisations – the Association of British Orchestras, Incorporated Society of Musicians, Musicians’ Union and so on – but they represent particular facets of the classical music business. And they exclude the very people on whom the whole edifice of professional musicmaking depends: the audiences.
But how do you get those thousands of regular concert-goers to sign up for RPS membership? Perhaps by emulating the remarkable recent success of the
Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund), which has attracted 140,000 members by offering a National Art Pass: a card giving its members free admission to 200 galleries round the UK and discounts on dozens of exhibitions.
It’s surely not beyond the wit of the RPS and Britain’s orchestras, opera companies and venue managers to devise something similar. Yes, it would require some competitive beasts to co-operate, but everyone would benefit. Most importantly, however, mass membership would give the RPS the authority to speak for classical music, especially in dialogue with government.
It’s an urgent matter. Whatever happens on 31 October, Britain faces the toughest economic challenge of our lifetimes. Those who love classical music will need to fight to ensure the artform isn’t swept away in the gathering storm. Speaking with a united voice is vital.
The RPS could play a central role in achieving that.
How do you get thousands of concertgoers to sign up for RPS membership?