Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Streets

Am I the only one who doesn't give a toss about the Balearic Symphony Orchestra? Each morning (or so it seems), there it appears on news websites, fiddling on the streets of Palma while Mallorca burns and while I'm listening to Chris Moyles. Not that the Moylester plays much music, but that which he does certainly isn't classical.

I've never got the whole deal with classical music. It has no beat and you can't sing a long, unless it's that greater abomination - opera. Classical music discovered a nouveau-muzak audience courtesy of Classic FM around the time that supporters were unearthed who believed that football was acceptable because of Pavarotti. It wasn't the new rock 'n' roll, it was the new pretentiousness. Most listeners, I fancy, soon got bored and secretly tuned back to the Hairy Cornflake.

I have tried and it's not as though I consider myself a Philistine. There is even the odd CD lurking somewhere and gathering dust. But I can't claim to have ever parted with good money for a CD; someone was nuts enough to give me one.  

There were moments in the past, as with Blood Sweat and Tears and their version of Satie's "Gymnopédies", something of a precursor to ambient, or so I can now rationalise. "Pictures At An Exhibition" registered for a time but was promptly forgotten when the greatest horror in the history of music occurred - rock found Mussorgsky and other composers and it was called Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

So no, I really couldn't care less about the BSO. Its stunts of playing outdoors are clever bits of agitprop, but sympathy spreads thin when you consider that within its Moss Bros-outfitted membership there are some on a far from unappreciable wedge, one being funded out of the public purse, while it has been revealed that its management had left it in January owing about 1.3 million euros in unpaid social security and income tax. Now, it's going to lose around 30% of its funding from different authorities, and it's crying foul.

I am very sorry, but there are all manner of organisations and individuals losing funding, so the orchestra is just going to have to lump it. But faced with a loss of public finance, the propagandists are set to work, one line of attack being the tourist one. It attracts many tourists, blah, blah. Ok then, how many? Give us figures. And give us figures of tourists who are attracted specifically by the orchestra. They can't be supplied, because no one knows. Instead, all you get is some vagueness as to "many". How many is "many"? A hundred?

If it could be shown that the orchestra dragged in a tourist base equivalent to another branch of elitist tourism, e.g. golf, then the argument would be altogether stronger. Golf can prove its numbers, its specific numbers; they are around the 100,000 mark, which isn't bad. The orchestra won't attract anything like this number. It is a bonus for those who enjoy the classics, not an essential, and it costs public money to provide this non-essential. Golf, on the other hand, does quite nicely thank you, courtesy of the private sector.

The regional government says it has a cunning plan to help the orchestra, which is that the private sector can put its hands into its pockets. And so it should. We'll soon find out just how much the orchestra is valued, although don't underestimate the attraction to a sponsor of being associated with the orchestra, if only to satisfy the egos of company directors.

But the orchestra is part of the local culture, and the local culture should be supported because it is a "good thing" to support local culture. Shouldn't it? Absolutely, but the orchestra is not culture in a traditional Mallorcan sense. Musicians with folk groups have had funding slashed, and they are far more representative of local culture. Other parts of the arts have lost or are losing funds, the Pollensa Music Festival for instance. Unfortunately, and much as I would like to see all aspects of the arts, including the orchestra, being paid for by a generous public administration, there is, hasn't anyone noticed, a damn great hole in that administration's pocket. The orchestra can't plead a special case, because it has no special case to plead.

The tourism argument holds no weight. The orchestra can't enumerate its contribution, but other music on Mallorca can; you just have to count the guests at Mallorca Rocks hotel, for example. And where's the public money for this? The private sector is quite capable of driving culture in its widest sense if it can make money out of it. But of course Mallorca Rocks is Magalluf, it's youth, and it's rap rather than Rachmaninov.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.