In today's (London) Sunday Times
If it lacks the drama of The House, The Phil sheds much
light on the lives of players, says HUGH CANNING
Facing the music
One would have thought by now that television's seam of docu-soaps
had been mined to exhaustion - after all, the bottom of the barrel
was, surely, well and truly scraped with the series on critics - but
no. Even though The House, the BBC's six-part documentary on the
Royal Opera House, almost certainly proved the catalyst for hostile
political and media scrutiny of Covent Garden (mis)management and
the humiliating fiasco of the theatre's closure period, our arts
institutions just can't get enough exposure on the small screen.
Now it is the turn of the Philharmonia, one of the four independent
London-based symphony orchestras, to face the camera's pitiless,
probing eye in a three-part Channel 4 series, The Phil, which begins
tonight at 8pm.
It is indicative of the desperation of our classical institutions to
parade themselves to the masses on the box that the Philharmonia can
dream up a catchy, popular-sounding nickname - The Phil, not to be
confused with The Bill - for themselves. Nobody, but nobody, in the
classical music world would refer to this orchestra by that name.
If there is a Phil in London it is the London Phil(harmonic) - as in
Berlin Phil and Vienna Phil - and given that this TV series is, in
part at least, designed to distinguish the Philharmonia from its
three London rivals, this corporate restyling seems calculated to
add to the public's confusion. Audience surveys repeatedly reveal
that the four orchestras' identities are not easily distinguishable.
Identity is, however, not the only problem facing our valiant hero,
Phil. As with all arts institutions in this country, orchestras live
on a knife edge, financially. As the Philharmonia's sponsorship
manager says on camera, it costs about 60,000 to put on a concert
at the Festival Hall, in London, where the maximum "take" at the
box office is a mere 20,000. Part of that shortfall is met by Arts
Council money - 735,000 "core" funding, 180,000 for the Philharmonia's
South Bank residency, 120,000 for developing work in the regions -
but it is nowhere near enough to maintain British orchestras in the
international first division.
The three films devote much of their camera time to the Philharmonia
management's efforts both to make ends meet and to remain in the
ranks of the world-class orchestras. Not an easy task: it is getting
much harder to raise significant sums in sponsorship. According to
the Philharmonia's finance director, the orchestra will be lucky to
meet a target of 350,000 in corporate and private donations for work
in Britain this year. It is not insignificant that the Philharmonia
has been forced to seek subsidy abroad - in the form of a residency
at the Chatelet theatre in Paris - in order to fill the the diary
with top-level work under its principal conductor, the aristocratic
(and expensive) German maestro Christoph von Dohnanyi. It can't be
much help, either, that the Philharmonia's chief benefactor and
president, the French philanthropist Vincent Meyer, is languishing
in a Swiss jail on a charge of child molestation. (Happily, he is
bailed to attend a donor's Christmas party in episode three, when
the camera gives him the opportunity to protest his innocence).
Unfortunately, not all of the programme's themes are as exciting as
this: the Philharmonia's board, orchestral committee and players
meetings lack the venomous contretemps of their counterparts at the
dear old Royal Opera House. Nor, alas, does the orchestra boast a
villain among its ranks: there is no phone-throwing, back-stabbing
Keith Cooper figure masterminding mass redundancies at the tightly
run ship above a dress shop in Great Portland Street that is the
orchestra's administrative base.
Still, if it lacks the thrills and spills of The House, there is
sufficient "human interest" in The Phil to throw light on the joys
and hardships of classical music-making in Britain. Even though
there is a lot of whinge-ing among the players about money, it is
pretty shocking to learn that a rank-and-file orchestral player earns
a basic wage of only 25,000 a year, barely more, according to the
film's narration, than maestros von Dohnanyi and James Levine or a
leading soloist gets for one concert. And it is fascinating to see
the contrast in the lifestyle of the orchestra's co-leader, the
vio-linist Christopher Warren-Green (50,000 for half a year's work),
and those of less starry players: while Warren-Green shows us around
his lavishly appointed farm, Keith Bragg, the orchestra's piccolo
player and chairman of the council of management, lives in a modest
family dwelling on a Harlow estate.
To scrape a decent living, the players work every hour God gives,
often with disastrous results to their family lives. Broken marriages
are endemic - we watch as the viola player Mike Lloyd, a reformed
alcoholic, wonders whether a shoulder injury will finish his career
and bluntly says he would discourage his son from being a musician.
One of the biggest problems musicians face in this country is the
proliferation of new talent coming out of the colleges. The personnel
of British bands lacks the continuity of the great established European
orchestras in Amsterdam, Berlin and Vienna. The competition for work
keeps wages low.
Few of the players - Warren-Green being the obvious exception -
seem happy with their lot, but there is the odd ray of light. Every
docu-soap needs its Dot Cotton, and in The Phil it is the flautist
Ken Smith's mum, whom he visits at her Wolverhampton home for a
tinned-salmon tea after a gig in Leicester. Mrs Smith has excellent
taste: she likes Beethoven and she doesn't mind Ligeti, but she
"can't stand Messiaen!". A woman after my own heart and the star of
the show.
Tony Duggan
Staffordshire,
United Kingdom.
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