Robert Peters writes of Barbirolli's regret at the "highbrow" mentality:

>I find these words profoundly true.  It is very easy to bash the ignorant
>mass (who hates to be lectured) but it is not so easy to give up the
>attitude of being a better and more noble being just because one loves
>classical music.

Alas, the Highbrow's war against the Ignorant Mass was lost many years
ago in Barbirolli's England.  Now we all guiltily cultivate Neanderthal
foreheads and prognathic chins, simply to avoid being lynched by the LCD
mob.

Of course, Robert is profoundly right to lambaste the Morally Improved
School of Music Lovers; but I wonder whether Sir John would have uttered
such sentiments seventy years on? Rather, is it not the Ignorant Mass
itself - as patronised by its tribunes the Press, including the so-called
"quality" end of the market - which thinks music has this morally superior
effect, and despises it accordingly.

It is only natural to be pained by this, and try to argue the point, but
better to do what we do and get on with it - works will convince more than
words.  Contrariwise, better not be lured into believing the pastoral ideal
of the Common Man with his own innate nobility is anything other than an
instructive metaphor.

Mozart, as ever, is a shining light.  It would never have occurred to him
to glorify himself for the good luck of his musical taste.  Such an idea
would have seemed risible to him.

There is a marvellous interchange in Pushkin's "Mozart & Salieri", when
Salieri says how much more moral a place the world would be if only all
could feel the power of music as deeply as they do.  Mozart laughs and
says:

   " ... no. If that were so
   The world could not go on; for none would then
   Take heed of all the many cares of living,
   If music claimed all people for her service.
   But we, the lucky ones, The Muse's chosen people,
   We sacred idlers let the world pass by us,
   For we are priests who serve at Music's shrine."

Wise words.  Without full-time devotees art dies.  But devotees should
always remember that they are at best "sacred idlers" who can only practise
their art on the back of the toil of others.  If everyone were to play
Bach's "48" all day the world would pretty soon grind to a halt.  Regret
our isolation though we may, our only recourse is humility - and that
laughter which Mozart teaches us to cultivate.

Vaughan Williams astutely regretted the fact that due to the gramophone we
were becoming a land of "music appreciators" rather than "music makers".
The amateur spirit, without which there is no deep renewal, is dying a
death in our time and place.

Take Mozart's professionals and Vaughan Williams amateurs together,
and society might conceivably get the balance right.  Don't lecture the
"ignorant mass" about moral ennoblement.  Do give everyone instruments to
play and choirs to sing in.  Above all, write new music for us to perform.
The museum mentality, the pantheon of "Masterpieces of the Great Classics",
kills art even quicker than the idea of moral ennoblement.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"