BBC Proms boss steps down

Paul Hurt says:

Shockingly limited ambitions and a shockingly limited viewpoint. The ‘damage to the creative industries’ inflicted by the Nazis was of a different order, of course, a different order of reality. Well before the start of the Second World War, June 30, 1934, the beginning of the ‘Night of the Long Knives,’ (‘Nacht der langen Messer’), Dr Willi Schmid, the music critic of the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten and the founder of the Munich Viol Quartet, was playing the cello in his study whilst his wife was preparing a meal and his three children, aged nine, eight and two were playing. The doorbell rang, four men from the Schutzstaffel entered and took Dr Schmid away. Dr Schmid was executed. He had no political involvement. They had mistaken him for Willi Schmidt, who most certainly was involved in politics.

Bad as the situation was then, it became much, much worse later, of course, with devastating effects on ‘the Creative Industries’ [in the rest of this little piece, I’ll omit the inverted commas] and devastating effects on wider society, in the expanded Nazi circle of hell – damage, for example, in Austria as well as Germany, following the Aschluss, which included catastrophic damage caused by huge numbers of Nazi Austrians.

The Creative Industries have sometimes given active support to persecution. Very, very often, people in the Creative Industries have been weak, ineffectual, misguided in their response. In the middle of the Second World War, 60 of the 123 Wiener Philharmoniker players were active Nazi supporters. By then, there were no Jews left in the orchestra. All the Jewish players had been dismissed. Amongst the many millions annihilated by the Nazis during the war were some Jewish musicians who had played in the orchestra.

The Nazi attempt to starve Leningrad into submission – the plan was to exterminate more or less the whole population of the city after it had been taken – had an impact on the Creative Industries too, of course. Something like 1.5 million people in Leningrad died of starvation during the siege, musicians included. Most of the players who took part in the world premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 were suffering from starvation.

The Creative Industries are part of wider society. The creative industries and wider society are vulnerable if nothing is done or not nearly enough is done to deter aggression, to resist aggression, to overcome aggression. I’d call this a truism, or plain military common sense. Far too many people in the Creative Industries don’t find these issues congenial. They overlook them and ignore them. They tend to have no interest whatsoever in those very different industries which include the ones manufacturing the weapons and the ammunition needed for defence against unprovoked aggression, for instance, the weapons and ammunition needed by Ukraine in its defence against unprovoked aggression.

The Creative Industries, in any country, are potentially vulnerable at any time. The Creative Industries will be devastated when the country concerned is devastated or comes under the control of a hostile power.

I voted for Brexit for various carefully considered reasons, including this: I regard defence and security issues as amongst the most important political issues. At that time, the defence spending in most European countries was inadequate or grossly inadequate. The invasion of Ukrainian territory by Putin’s Russia has concentrated many minds in Europe and the situation is far better now, but not good enough in the least. The European Union countries which depend upon other countries to defend them include Spain, Ireland and Austria. The countries they rely upon include the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom needs to do more, far more in some areas, but its record is a record to be proud of.

A brief note on my background. A short profile of me was included in a piece in a conservative magazine (a magazine I went on to criticize severely): ‘Paul Hurt lives in Sheffield and is one of those working-class Conservatives you hear about. Voted for Brexit, of course, and drives a white van.’

My first job was as an unskilled builder’s labourer. Still do a lot of manual work, even though I’m in the older age group, but have acquired skills in metal-working and wood-working. Have a strong interest in comparative literature. Have translated from German, Dutch, French, Italian, Latin, Classical Greek Modern Greek and Hebrew (I’m not Jewish.) Before visiting Poland, learned enough Polish to avoid having to use English. Speak not just with a South Yorkshire accent but often in South Yorkshire dialect. This might be off-putting to some suave, sophisticated types. Perhaps this is enough information to serve as a defence against an accusation that all voters for Brexit are pitiful, parochial beings.

Perhaps this is difficult to credit, given my background, but I even managed to learn a string instrument, in fact, more than one. I began learning the cello at far too late an age and I switched to the violin and viola many years after that. My hands are big enough to cope with metal-working and wood-working but I didn’t think they were big enough to play the cello comfortably. I did manage to play the cello in an orchestra which included ‘the Lindsays,’ the members of the Lindsay String Quartet, before they moved to Sheffield.

And I did study with the Hungarian violinist Rudolf Botta. A young composer contacted me to ask if he could use an extract from a piece I’d written on an aspect of violin technique. He wanted to include it in a composition which included text as well as music, written as a tribute to Rudolf Botta. I agreed, of course, and the work had its world premiere at Proms concert 47, 5 September 2018: ‘Elgar, Prokofiev and Venables.’ That’s my one and only connection with Proms concerts, apart from attending one or two concerts.

My view: again and again, people with knowledge, skills, abilities which can be respected and admired come unstuck, they become dilettantes, when they transfer to a very different field, a field demanding concentrated attention, sustained study, very different thought processes.

Practising scales and arpeggios, acquiring high standards in vocal or instrumental technique, in fact all the knowledge and expertise and wider strengths of practising musicians, writers on music and the rest are of only the most limited help when they stray into vastly different fields to do with the realities of protection against aggression. The naive, ineffectual responses of so many people aren’t regarded as a cause for shame in the least. But naive, ineffectual, superficially enlightened responses do have this advantage: they may well promote the self-image they want to cultivate.

This is a much rougher, tougher world than the world of illusions and delusions that so many of these people seem to live in. They offer simplicities when the problems of the world involve, so often, grotesque contradictions, uncomfortable realities, hideous realities, terrible dilemmas, very difficult decisions.