What is classical music for? This month, the BBC Proms starts in London. It has long been one of the world’s most popular, accessible and affordable music festivals, allowing listeners to explore a wide range of music for the price of a sandwich and coffee. But classical music has now developed two grim social functions.
For some businesses, it is the aural equivalent of homeless spikes, deployed to shift or subdue targeted undesirables; for the rich, events like the Proms provide status experiences that will convey bragging rights with fellow have-yachts. Burger franchises from London to San Francisco are among institutions reporting that piping classical music reduces antisocial behaviour. The thinking is that homeless people in doorways disperse if you play Vivaldi loud enough, and that classical music stimulates the release of dopamine, calming customers who might otherwise become restive if they queue too long for fries – unless playlists include Stockhausen’s opera featuring four hovering helicopters or John Cage’s silent 4′33″.
Meanwhile, the Proms has joined Ascot, Wimbledon and Glyndebourne as a magnet for conspicuous consumption. People who own Royal Albert Hall seats are reportedly reselling tickets, with a pair of stalls seats for the Last Night of the Proms going for about £2,500. Harrods Estates is marketing a 12-seater box in the same hall, available to buy on a leasehold of more than 840 years, for £3m – a snip if you want to avoid rubbing shoulders with cheap-seat plebs.
The philosopher and composer Theodor Adorno wrote: “Art keeps itself alive through its social force of resistance; unless it reifies itself, it becomes a commodity.” In this sense what he called the culture industry (including Hollywood movies, pop music and TV) has done a reverse takeover of what Adorno called serious music.
Some argue that classical music’s particular problem is the way it harks back, rejecting innovation in a way that audiences for the visual arts or literature have not. The unwillingness of many audiences to expose themselves to the shock of the musically new is more acute today because most of the output of Britain’s three classical music radio stations is devised to be unchallenging. When Simon Mayo-fronted Scala Radio launched in March, it postured as an insurgent force taking on two complacent titans, Classic FM and Radio 3. But Scala’s playlist features 70% popular classics and 30% “surprising” music (the latter including Thom Yorke of Radiohead’s soundtrack to horror film Suspiria). Similarly, Guardian critic Andrew Clements laments that this year’s Proms features too much easy listening, but little to challenge the ears.
Beethoven, and other dead white men whose once-revolutionary works make up much of the classical canon, wrote music to be heard appreciatively, not used as audible spa treatment, still less as tools to neutralise delinquency. They deserve better.