On meillä kuitenkin parempi vessapaperi
Rule, Britannia! (But Finland has the best toilet paper.)
Tuoreimman Gramophone-lehden kansi ärsyttää se verran, että pitää oikein miettiä, mitä varten se niin ärsyttääkin. Siinä julistetaan brittimusiikin vallankumousta: "When British music plays, the world now listens". Kun brittiläinen musiikki soi niin maailma kuuntelee.
Kysymys on siitä, että Gramophoneen kirjoittavan Philip Clarkin mukaan Britannia on vihdoin julistanut olevansa jotakin aivan muuta kuin Brahmsin luonnehtima 'maa ilman musiikkia'. Minua ei ärsytä niinkään Clarkin artikkeli, joka (vaikkakin on osin ajastaan ainakin kymmenen vuotta jäljessä) osoittautuu tarkemmin tarkasteltuna analyysiksi siitä, miten nykypäivänä brittiläinen nykymusiikkikenttä on jokseenkin erilainen kuin Brittenin Peter Grimesin päivinä. Enemmän minua ärsyttää se, että tämä analyysi on pitänyt pukea niin nationalistisiin muotoihin ja väreihin, että jalkapallofanitkin tuppaavat jäämään toiseksi. Rule, Britannia!
35-vuotiasta Thomas Adès -ressukkaa muuten nimitetään jutussa edelleen ihmelapseksi. Toivon että ironisesti mutta pelkään että ei.
Mutta palataanpa kannen sloganiin. Nimittäin muistelen lukeneeni, että nationalistiset puhetavat yleistyvät mediassa erityisesti silloin kun yhteisö tai yhteiskunta on jonkinlaisessa käymistilassa, ulkoisen tai sisäisen uhan alla. Ensimmäisen kerran kiinnitin asiaan huomiota Suomen Suuren Laman aikoihin. Niiltä vuosilta jäi erityisesti mieleen kaksi pehmopaperiteollisuuteen liittyvää mainosta. Toinen oli lyhtypylväskampanja, jossa Serlan nenäliinoja mainostettiin sloganilla Suomalaiseen nuhaan. Toinen mainoslause taas oli vähän kansainvälisempi - merkki on nyt päässyt unohtumaan, mutta kysymyksessä oli tv-mainos, jossa Eeva Elorannan äänellä kohkattiin Missään ei ole niin hyvää vessapaperia kuin Suomessa. Gramophonen otsikointi on minusta ihan samaa sarjaa.
***
Above, I am raging about the layout of the most recent issue of the Gramophone magazine. In it, there is a lengthy article about the rise of British contemporary music. Thomas Adès, as usual, has had to take on the role of the 'wunderkind' (the composer is 35 but then the article is about 15 years too late). To be fair, the article is actually a kind of analysis about how the British contemporary music scene has evolved since the days of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. And I am actually not as irritated about the article itself as the cover of the said magazine. "Thomas Adès and the British Music Revolution" it screams. "When British music plays, the world now listens." The colours, pictures and the headlines together would make the most patriotic British football fan proud. It has been a while since I have seen something quite as nationalistic in the contemporary music context.
In fact, the headlines brought back memories from Finland in the early 1990s. This is when Finland was suffering from a serious economical depression, with about 500 000 unemployed people (and there were about five million of us). They say that during difficult times, when a society is under an internal or an external threat or pressure, the use of nationalistic discourse is on the rise. Well, in early 1990s, they advertised even toilet paper with the slogan: Nowhere do they have toilet paper as good as in Finland.
Comments - Kommentit
Hi Anni
It wasn't the jingoistic ranting that got to me - I reckon the Gramophone has always been an uncritical puffer of English product and English "values". No, it was the madness they've unleashed on the cover discs. The cover discs used to give you complete movements, songs, arias, or substantial chunks from new releases. They were quite useful in helping you to decide whether or not to spend up on a new disc. Now each track is mostly talk, talk, talk.....Two minutes of chatty introduction to a one minute snippet of music. Given that the magazine reviews the bloody discs, why do we need more text on the CD?
I won't even start on the new visual production values in the magazine - but what a testimony to the short attention span.
Gosh - hope this doesn't sound too much like the harrumphings of a retired Anglo-Indian colonel!
Posted by: Colin Gray | August 16, 2006 11:15 PM
Harrumphings is such a good word. "Discombobulated" is another fantastic one I heard today!
You know your country's in trouble when you are asked to feel patriotic about the standard of... never mind.
A few weeks ago I went to a music-hall extravaganza called "Victoriana" put on by St Pauls College; the singalong was fun but the rousing chorus of "Land of Hope and Glory" with everyone on their chairs waving sparklers was a little disturbing...
Posted by: Angharad | August 17, 2006 12:43 AM
To be a "wunderkind" at 35 is a great achievement. Or have British journalists finally lost any sense of the meaning and derivation of words (even "foreign" ones)?
Denis
Posted by: Denis | August 17, 2006 11:23 AM
Colin, these days we get two Gramophones in the mail - one says 'Limelight' in the cover but the stories are all the same. Had you noticed?
I agree about 'harrumphings'. It's a great word.
I wonder when one stops being a 'wunderkind'. I mean, theoretically, I could just still be one at 38. I just have to figure out my special talent.
Posted by: Anni | August 18, 2006 08:41 AM
Yes, I was trying to work up a separate harrumph about 'Limelight'. Search as hard as I can, I can not find any attribution for the source of many of the articles in Limelight, namely Gramophone and BBC Music. Quite insulting, really - and I don't like paying for the same content twice over, especially when I imagined I was supporting Australian writers, etc. And I wonder how they (Limelight) get away with it - surely they're not just pinching the articles? If so, let's dob them in to Media Watch.
I'm planning another harrumph soon - about TV programs not acknowledging the classical composers they rip off. For example, last night's story on the 7.30 Report, about the veterans of Long Tan, used Mahler's 5th. Was it mentioned anywhere in the credits? Hah! (is that short for harrumph?)
Posted by: Colin | August 18, 2006 05:01 PM
Oops! Just started to read the September Limelight, only to find that they have come out as a "sister publication" to Gramophone. Well, that explains the last couple of months, and there goes the Media Watch fantasy. Great for Australian reviewers and music journalists, though, eh?
Posted by: Colin | August 19, 2006 07:15 PM
Yes, 'sister publication' is a very sneaky way of putting it. I think you should write a letter to the editor as it would not occur to most readers that most of the content of their 'Australian' arts magazine is created in the UK. And what happened to 'the arts' bit, I wonder - I mean arts other than classical music? Not that I care that much, I'd just like to see one decent, Australian, general readership music magazine in this country.
There are many young journos out there that would love to contribute and there are hardly any forums (is there a plural for forum) for them. I would have thought there'd be enough readers but apparently not.
Posted by: Anni | August 20, 2006 07:18 PM
And when it comes to what is short for 'harrumph', I trust Angharad will be able to help us there!
Posted by: Anni | August 20, 2006 07:19 PM
HUOM: kommenttispämmistä johtuen kommentointi tähän postaukseen ei toistaiseksi ole mahdollista.
NOTE: Due to comment spam, comments have temporarily been disabled on this entry.
Posted by: Anni | August 30, 2006 10:46 PM