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Ian Bousfield article

This article appeared in today's UK Daily Telegraph.  Not strictly about
brass bands, or even about Bousfield himself, but may be of interest to
some.

Alec


ISSUE 2000 Wednesday 15 November 2000

  Top brass paid for top brass

Norman Lebrecht reports on the changes afoot in the upper echelons of
orchestral society

THE next time you hear the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (they play in
London on December 7), watch out for the trombonist - he's British. For the
first time in almost 160 years, the self-selecting and not famously
cosmopolitan members of Europe's most elite ensemble have offered one of
their gilded seats to a graduate of the Darwinian school of cold showers and
funding scrums that makes British orchestral players the hardiest on earth.
Ian Bousfield, trombonist of the London Symphony Orchestra, was solicited
earlier this year to audition for Vienna's principal position. He blew away
14 competitors in a screened audition and has played so sweetly ever since
that the VPO has shortened the usual probationary period from two years to
four months and, all tones being equal, his installation will be confirmed
in January.

A small step for one man, but it signifies a mighty upheaval in the upper
echelons of orchestral society. The Vienna Philharmonic has traditionally
passed its positions if not from father to son then from teacher to pupil.
There are names in the band that have remained constant since Gustav Mahler
was chief conductor.

The register is dotted with Czech, Slovak and Hungarian suffixes from former
imperial provinces, and it is generally assumed that the inimitable Vienna
Philharmonic sound is preserved in much the same way as Camembert keeps the
taste of its cheeses - by having them manufactured by the same sort of chap
in the same sort of way. The bitter struggle to resist the admission of
women players is a token of how fiercely VPO members value the immutability
of tradition, and how greatly they fear demographic change.

That change is steadily being thrust upon them. There are now three
Australians in the orchestra, one of whom, Toby Lea, is a principal
viola-player. There are also two Americans, a Canadian, and both harpists
are French. Over the next four years, seven viola-players are due to retire
and it is a safe bet that most of the newcomers will be foreign and probably
female.

The pressure for change has come primarily from guest conductors who,
accustomed to industrial-strength precision playing in American orchestras,
have complained about Viennese frailties - notably the trombones and tuba -
without recognising that those wavery underpinnings were part of what
audiences identified as the Vienna Philharmonic sound. In reinforcing the
bottom line, the VPO are trading a pfennig of distinctiveness for a
schilling of excellence, but they are also giving the green light for an
acceleration of orchestral homogeneity and inequality.

Musicians born before the age of recording relate that it was possible to
travel from Hamburg to Hanover and hear the same Beethoven symphony played
in completely different ways. Once comparisons became easily available and
conductors turned into commuters, few orchestras kept their distinct sound.
Among the US Big Five, only Cleveland still yields an identifiable timbre.
In Europe, the last defenders of distinction are Vienna, the Concertgebouw,
St Petersburg and Leipzig, and resistance is crumbling.

Like football teams, big orchestras are now expected to buy talent if they
cannot raise it. The New York Philharmonic, richest of US bands, habitually
poaches principals from its rivals. Vienna's entry into the transfer market
is bound to transform the European rules of play.

Bousfield was, by all accounts, happy at the LSO, but it paid him barely
40,000 a year before tax and he was having to work up to 60 hours a week.
In Vienna, he will work 39 hours a month at the opera for the same salary -
topped by fees for Philharmonic concerts, which can be as much as 12,000 a
head for the globally televised New Year's Day gala and 18,000 for a
festive month at Salzburg. A musician does not have to be mercenary to spot
the difference.

What we are witnessing is the emergence of a three-tier system, in which a
handful of wealthy Champions League orchestras will snap up all the top
players, the national leagues will wither for want of charisma, and the
regional orchestras will stand no chance at all. The welcome triumph of a
British player in Vienna will sound the death knell for British orchestras,
unless they are sensibly funded.








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