Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIII, no. 2 (Summer 1997)
Letter from Britain
Among the many splendid papers given at the Seattle conference, one which caught my particular
attention was Susan Key's, given during the Sunday morning "Mechanical Music" session and entitled
"New Medium, New Music: The Columbia Composers Commissions." Drawing on a variety of published and
unpublished sources, Key charted the rise and all-too-swift fall of a bold and imaginative two-year
series of CBS commissions during the later 1930s. Between May 1937 and November 1938, the Columbia
Symphony Orchestra, under Howard Barlow, premiered on the "Everybody's Music" radio show no fewer than
twelve new American works. Among the commissioned composers were William Grant Still (Lenox
Avenue), Aaron Copland (Music for Radio), Howard Hanson (Symphony no. 3),
and Nathaniel Dett (American Sampler). One ofhte points made by Key was that the degree to
which the various composers attempted to write specifically for radio varied very considerably; some
produced wsorks which were simply broadcast concert works, while others came close to creating what would now
be termed (in Europe at least) horspiele--literally radio plays. (A prime example of the
latter is John Cage's rollicking Roaratorio, which was commissioned by Klaus Schoning
and first broadcast by WDR in Cologne in 1979.
The subject of Key's paper immediately made me think of two things: first, the stark contrast between
the CBS initiative in the 1930s and the more usual absence of such programs in the American broadcast
media; and second, the equally stark contrast between the situation on your side of the pond and mine.
Throughout Europe--and especially in Britain--radio (and even television) networks commission large numbers
of new pieces every year, from the widest possible spectrum of composers. A specific illustration of
this type of activity would be the commissioning policy operated by BBC Radio 3 (which styles itself
"the classical music patron"). As luck would have it, an old college chum of mine--Andrew Kurowski--is
Head of Radio 3's New Music Unit, and so I was able to get a first-hand description of the policy as it presently
operates. Each year, an average of between twenty and thirty new works are commissioned by the BBC; however, the
numbers can rise dramatically on occasion. During the year-long "Fairest Isle" celebration of
British Music (which I reported on in volume XXI/2 of this Bulletin), seventy-five
new pieces were commissioned and broadcast! Around seventy percent of the pieces are commissioned on
behald of the BBC's own performance bodies, which include the London-based BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC
Singers and the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic. Some pieces are recorded in the studio and others
premiered in public (for instance at the Proms, which every year includes around half a dozen BBC
commissions), but all are broadcast at least once.
The basic commissioning policy is very flexible and inclusive in approach. The main criterion is that of
enabling the creation of music which might otherwise remain unwritten, for whatever reason. (My own BBC
commission--a cantata entitled Jerusalem which daws on the work of William Blake-- was just
such a piece; forty minutes long and conceived for the unlikely combination of solo soprano, double chorus and
double-wind band, there was no way in which it could every have come to life with BBC patronage). Works are
commissioned from international figures (such as Elliott Carter and Pierre Boulez), major British composers
(including Michael Tippett and Harrison Bartwistle) and more local writers associated with particular orchestras
(for instnace pieces composed for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra by Scots residents Lyell Cresswell and
James Macmillan). Commissions are awarded by the Controller of Radio 3 (presently Nicholas Kenyon) on advice
from the Head of the New Music Unit and other members of a commissioning board. The majority of new pieces
are concert works in the traditional sense, suitable for public performance as well as broadast; but there have
also been a number of horspiel-like commissions of material specially formulated for
radio (and in some cases specifically designed for reception via stereo headphones).
But before you all start writing to your Congressmen and radio chiefs complaining of the unfair way
in which we in Britain and Europe get such a wonderful cultural provision via our radio stations,
and you in America don't, remember this: everything costs! In the case of Radio 3 and its
commissioning policy, the expenditure is huge; composers' fees are paid according to a scale agreed
between the BBC, the Composers' Guild, and the Association of Professional Composers; rehearsals and
performances take time, space and personnel; recordings and broadcasts require considerable technical
resources; and in cases where the composer has no publisher, part copying may have to be covered by the
BBC as well. Who pays for all this? We The People--regardless of whether or not we actually listen to
Radio 3--through our television and radio license fees, which currently run at well over 100 (around
$160) per household per year--not much to the average earner, but a great deal to a retired person or
someone on state benefit. The license fee has been a political hot potato for years (well, the last
eighteen anyway, if you catch my meaning) and the uses to which the revenue is put (and the efficiency
with which it is used) have been the subject of increasingly severe internal and especially external
scrutiny. To the average man in the street, the considerable sums spent on the commissioning,
part-copying, rehearsal, performance, post-production, and broadcast of a "difficult" work by an
obscure composer (mea culpa!) might seem completely unjustified in the broader context of
sports coverage being increasingly taken away from the BBC by richer--and less publicly-spirited--
commercial satellite and cable stations, who will have their own charges for programmes. Investment in
the art of the future may yet be stifled by pressure to provide for the transitory needs of the
present. But, for the time being, composers in Britain will continue to benefit from the
enlightened patronage of the BBC, just as their American colleagues did in that brief but
glorious period during the 1930s when CBS ran its Composers Commissions program.
--David Nicholls
Keele University