After close to sixty years of teaching, reviewing and, it has to be added, jury service, I remain the opposite of jaded but rather the need for a wider view. Prompted by D.H.Lawrence's words, 'comes over one the need to travel' (from his 'Sea and Sardinia') I too need to travel though on a particular and different journey to that great if blessedly controversial novelist. The need to look at the many and difficult issues thrown up by music and particularly by the so-called music profession. Ever anxious that music should not be seen unrelated to the other arts and indeed, to life itself, I would like to look at a wide variety of topics and even re-visit my first career as a university lecturer in English literature. When a friend wrote soon after I had commenced my autobiography asking if it would be about 'your life in music' I was quick to reply in the negative; it would be about 'music in my life.' Music viewed exclusively academically and by dry- as- dusts belittles its vital life and scope, denying it's profoundly human element.
While continuing reviewing(impossible to resist when there is so much on offer) I wish to add, as it were, further colour and substance. My readers have requested articles on many of the great pianists I have interviewed and with some of whom I have later formed enduring friendships. My memories of my time spent with Vladimir Horowitz Artur Rubinstein and Claudio Arrau, giants of the past but ever present, and with Alfred Brendel, Krystian Zimerman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Maurizio Pollini, Geza Anda etc remain indelible, all of them willing to open their minds and often their souls in conversation concerning the fierce and unpredictable demands of the concert pianist's life, it's inevitable ups and demands, joys and disappointments so close to the surface of a outwardly glamorous life.
Yet I am also bearing in mind a letter I received from that great pianist Annie Fisher following my paper's request for an interview. With all of her typical and admirable candour she confessed that she would not know what to say, that music rather than words was her true medium. If I wanted to know who she was I should come and hear her play; her truest biography.
The ever-expanding competition circuit(recently savagely and acutely questioned by Pavel Kalesnikov) cries out for discussion(for Bartok 'competitions are for horses') and so too does the role of the music critic, more often derided than praised. I can still hear the composer Michael Tippett's repeated question to me, 'what do you think you are doing,?' 'what do you think you are doing?' And while I would never wish to cross swords with figures such as John Carey(eminent Oxford professor of literature whose book 'Are the Arts God for You' stirred up a hornet's nest, and Hans Keller whose 'functional analysis' seems in retrospect a desperate attempt at validity I would like to question their acute and necessary but, I believe misleading dismissal of the critical function.
For me this will be a new and exciting expansion of activity and I wish my readers and also viewers on U Tube an ever-present engagement with subjects that cry out for constant re-assessment.
Bryce Morrison