p17) One of the disadvantages of our present concert scene is the way in which the pressure of making box-office receipts balance costs has been relaxed. A combination of well-intentioned, yet, often ill-conceived, government subsidies and the proliferation of alternate forms of entertainment has made it impossible for routine symphony concerts to pay their way.

Such changes have also wrought wonders in the mental approach of promoters and conductors, once the sole financiers of orchestras. (From the orchestral players' point of view, one of Sir Thomas Beecham's most endearing features was the way he paid them.) The roles have been reversed: today it is the orchestras who employ the conductors.

Before theleading orchestras became as dependent on their annual fix from the Arts Council, etc., as any thin-faced junky, matters were somewhat different.

At one time in the late 1940s, Sir Thomas was talked into mounting a concert in the Empress Hall, a vast exhibition centre not unlike Earls Court. A couple of days before the concert Sir Thomas was told that bookings were dreadful, with no more than three or four hundred people likely to turn out to hear the Royal Philharmonic in their great barn. The crafty knight, mindful of potential losses, worked out a plot to starve off disaster.

As soon as he walked into the hall for his first rehearsal, he took one look and announced, 'I'm not conducting in a place like this. You can't expect artists to work here. It's too cold.' He stalked out. 

A well-placed mole soon leaked the story to Fleet Street. 'Sir Thomas walks out.' Will he do the concert?' ran the headlines.

Of course, Beecham had arranged for someone else to rehearse the orchestra in his absence. His scheme worked: several thousand people braved the weather to see if he would turn up and, if he did so, whether he would say something controversial.

Beecham directed the entire proceedings - he was not likely to miss a good house. Would any modern conductor think so positively, so constructively or, dare one say it, commercially?

p86) In the late 1950s Leonard Bernstein's most notable work, [i]West Side Story[/i], was due to open for the first time in the West end. The promoters, naturally enough, wanted the best possible orchestra in the pit. 

One of the most accomplished jazz drummers in London was Phil Seaman. He was asked to play for the opening few weeks of the production and he agreed, but on one condition - that he could have his dog with him.

The management argued with him, pointing out the requirements of the byelaws, but he continued to insist on being accompanied by his dog. Eventually they capitulated and swore the rest of the players to secrecy.

An American conductor had been engaged to direct this star-studded orchestra. When the rehearsals began Seaman was sitting at one end of the pit, surrounded by a comprehensive drum kit, the dog's lead trapped beneath a chairleg. Soon after the beginning of the first rehearsal, the dog yelped. The conductor looked up.

'A dog.' he exclamed, 'I heard a dog.'

The players looked at each other.

'You did hear a dog, didn't you?' he inquired, a little anxiously.

'A dog?' queried a saxophone player, 'what dog?'

'I didn't hear a thing,' confirmed the trumpeter.

The conductor looked bemused. Slowly he took up his baton and began uncertainly to rehearse again.

The next day the dog barked again. But the players continued to deny any knowledge of its existence. Only the conductor seemed able to hear the phantom canine. Some days and several barks later, the conductor felt so uneasy about his mental state that he began visiting a psychiatrist to discuss this worrying new problem. The wretched man spent hours delving into the half-remembered days of his childhood.

However, soon after [i]West Side Story[/i] opened, in the middle of a public performance the dog decided to free himself from his drumming owner and to speed the length of the pit in pursuit of an innocent trombonist's leg. As it ran between the musicians' chairs it gave little yelps of delight. The conductor looked down, fearing for his sanity. But when he saw a real dog and heard the sharp cry of pain from the lips of the assaulted trombonist, he tossed his baton high in the air and threw up his arms in gratitude.

'A dog,' he yelled with relief, 'there is a dog. I knew there was a dog.'

p116) The problem of introducing new music to audiences has become steadily worse for many years and indeed, now seems insoluble as composers strive for originality at the expense of communication. The irony is that the greater the means of expression available in the concert hall, the less appears to be communicated.

In common with politicialn, lawyers and doctors, composers generally support each other when under attack from outsiders, although, as with the other professions, they have been known to set about each other.

At the turn of the century Schoenberg was beginning to become well known and had written his String Quartet No. 1 in D minor. Fortunately for him, it was taken up by the famous Rose Quartet, although it received a hostile reception at its first performance.

Sitting in the audience was Gustav Mahler (at that time best known as a conductor), who had himself suffered a good deal at the hands of the conservative Viennese. He turned to one of the people hissing the loudest and told him to stop.

'There's no need to get excited,' the man replied. 'I hiss Mahler too.'

-Stick to the Music, Scores of orchestral tales, Collected by John Boyden.