I had a music teacher at school who introduced me to my favourite Beatles song, Eleanor Rigby; who explained the opening sequence of Martin Scorsese’s outstanding 1995 film, Casino; and who told me, very cheekily, that Fabio Capello – the cultured manager of the England football team between 2008 and 2012 – had a name that literally translates into English from Italian as “fabulous hair”.
What I didn’t know then, but do now, is that the connective tissue between these intimate, but seemingly disparate, memories – a pop song, a gangster film, a football manager – is a subject that is often seen as alienating: classical music. Paul McCartney was listening to Vivaldi when he created the melody of Eleanor Rigby. The opening scene of Casino features Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Capello is a fan of the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev.
My music teacher was a late-middle-aged man dressed like the bassist of an amiable folk band: black T-shirts and charming bracelets. Our music lessons were in a small room that looked like an overstuffed camper van. I can still see the cloistered keyboards; I can still smell the pungent scent of overexcited early adolescence.
But this man and his lessons emphasised that classical music is not something sealed off from the rest of society. It is the thread that unites varieties of art and culture, high and low, music and film, sport and fashion, young and old. It is not elitist. It is democratic.
And it should remain so: it should be accessible to all members of society. But this open vision of classical music faces an existential threat. The forces that should be supporting it as a collective good – from the BBC and Arts Council England to the current Conservative government – are failing to do so. And as the managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra, Kathryn McDowell, recently put it, the study of classical music in schools is increasingly the preserve of the privately educated.
“Orchestras in the UK,” McDowell said, “have always benefited from being able to attract talented players from a wide variety of backgrounds … many of the players in the LSO come from relatively modest backgrounds and learnt to appreciate and play music in school or community groups, or from peripatetic music services funded by local authorities”. But this is no longer true. The idea that classical music is only for posh people is being turned into reality.
“We’re in danger of losing that pipeline of talent, that diversity,” she added, “if music education isn’t appreciated as a core element of the curriculum and properly funded. And, of course, children from disadvantaged families will miss out most because they lack the opportunities available to their better-off peers.”
Children from working-class backgrounds need classical music education more than children from affluent backgrounds. It gives them the chance to sit side by side with children whose parents can afford to pay for opera festivals and private piano lessons. Differences in economic capital are not the only thing that drives inequality in society. Cultural capital matters, too.
Making classical music accessible should not simply be down to schools. Other bodies need to play their role. But, sadly, this is not the case. The BBC, whose purpose is to educate, inform and entertain, tried to close down the BBC Singers, its only full-time chamber choir, in March. This decision was swiftly reversed after a massive uproar. Arts Council England, whose raison d’etre is to support the arts, has introduced devastating cuts to English National Opera and the Britten Sinfonia.
As the conductor Simon Rattle put it, in a speech in April: “When the two largest supporters of classical music in this country cut away at the flesh of our culture in this way, it means that the direction of travel has become deeply alarming. It’s clear we are facing a long-term fight for existence and we cannot just quietly acquiesce to the dismantling or dismembering of so many important companies.”
The Conservative party should not escape scrutiny. It is easy to complain about wokery destroying our cultural institutions. But if you cannot preserve the magnificent tradition of classical music in this country, pronouncements in defence of culture ring hollow.
We need to be doing more to promote the arts. Just compare us with our European neighbours. From last month onwards, 18-year-olds in Germany have access to a KulturPass – a voucher worth up to €200 (£172) that they can spend on museums, concerts, cinemas and bookshops. The French government announced a similar policy in 2021, which gave €300 to 18-year-olds to spend on cultural activities.
Classical music saturates everything from blockbuster movies to TV adverts selling cars. I first became familiar with it not through my education but by watching the cartoons Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry.
Sir Elton John, who headlined on the last day of the Glastonbury festival last Sunday, told the Classic FM radio presenter Tim Lihoreau in 2019: “I’m so grateful for my classical training. I played Chopin and Bach, and Mozart and Debussy. Without my training, I never would’ve been able to write the songs I’ve written.”
I attended a state school in south-east London renowned for its emphasis on the arts. This school also has a special relationship with the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in nearby Greenwich.
A couple of years ago, I attended a 50th anniversary celebration of the school. It featured dance and musical performances from current and ex-students. I made a speech expressing the profound gratitude I have to the spirit of creativity the school inculcated in me. But the crowning point of the evening was a choir singing a motet conceived by the 16th-century musician after whom the school is named: Thomas Tallis.
• Tomiwa Owolade is a contributing writer at the New Statesman
