Though creativity can breed intensity, it’s no excuse for bullying
Several weeks of (one hopes) calming reflection have passed since that moment in France when Sir John Eliot Gardiner came offstage after conducting Berlioz’s The Trojans and punched bass soloist William Thomas. Gardiner, who is 80, has publicly apologised and withdrawn from engagements. His agent tells us that he has sought counselling for his mental health. Thomas, 29, also withdrew from the final performances in The Trojans tour (including the BBC Prom), telling colleagues that the media pressure had become too much.
So is that the end of the matter? If I write ‘I hope not’ I might be accused of spinning out a juicy story for low journalistic reasons. That’s not true. Some aspects of this cautionary tale – for instance, Gardiner’s sometimes abrasive behaviour and his highhanded treatment of the musicians in his ensembles – have been dissected in the press and (more viciously) via social media over the past few weeks. There’s no point in continuing that. If and when Gardiner returns to conducting it will be up to individual musicians to decide, all things considered, whether or not they want to work with him.
However, the incident has raised much more general concerns about the way the classical music business works, or ought to work. First, conductors with wealth (or access to wealthy friends) have always, in effect, bought themselves orchestras. Thomas Beecham virtually bankrolled the Royal Opera House and several London orchestras for decades. Richard Hickox owed his early success to the terrific players he recruited for the modestly named Richard Hickox Orchestra (I don’t deny that, in later life, he delivered many fine performances). There are young conductors and opera directors today who are equally privileged and equally adept at using their access to wealth to buy themselves interesting projects that get noticed in the press. Gardiner is not unique in having generous patrons. Indeed, you could argue that schmoozing is an essential part of the job of running any arts organisation, particularly when public subsidy is scarce.
That need not be a problem if the conductor is also a decent, genial, fair-minded human being. The problem comes when the power to hire and fire colleagues, almost on a whim, is used as a weapon that enables abusive behaviour. That happens in all sorts of workplaces. I have seen it often enough in the newsrooms of even quite civilised broadsheets over the past 40 years. But the checks and balances put in place by other industries over my lifetime don’t seem so apparent in music. Arrogant and off
