But there's so much that is musically surprising in many countries. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it was until a few years ago, that no French orchestra has ever played Elgar's Second Symphony. Tristan und Isolde wasn't premiered in Japan until 1964/5 - barely a decade after the premiere of Bruckner's Eighth (by Karajan no less). Elgar's First not until the 1980s. On the other hand, it was one of the first countries to perform Mahler's Eighth back in the 1950s. Japan is a bit of an anomaly though.
I think the next big composer anniversary is Bruckner's in 2024. That's most unlikely to be ignored in the UK. Xenakis's centenary fell this year and had Proms concerts devoted to his music - much to my surprise not emptying the Albert Hall, even when it was on the same program as Harrison Birtwistle. I don't recall anything for Pettersson back in 2011 (and if/when we get to 2030, the 50th anniversary of his death, will there be anything I wonder).
I think as you rightly say people won't get to hear new music if it isn't played in the first place. That applies to existing music as well as to new music. The BBC is better than many broadcasters in trying to do this, I think. YouTube might have displaced it in some ways. But perhaps the responsibility also lies with critics and writers to promote new music as well as music at the fringes of the repertoire. We can hardly criticise others for not reinforcing the point that music is worth discovering if we aren't prepared to do it ourselves.
That fact about Pettersson is a shocker given his undoubted stature. There are whole countries' worth of composers under/never represented at the Proms but that reinforces my point about opportunity rather than the idea that the music itself does not "travel". Pettersson is a pretty knotty composer full stop and about as un-nationalistic as you could get but without it being heard how will any new audience develop except in the niche world of CD collectors. For me this does underline the importance of organisations such as the BBC who can choose to perform/broadcast Art not solely based on the economic/commercial consequences of those choices.
Colin Davis and the BRSO performed both the RVW Fourth and Sixth in Munich. The audiences either lacked enthusiasm, or struggled with both works. But these are by no means RVW's easiest works for any audience. While he repeated Elgar symphonies with German orchestras, he didn't do this with RVW ones.
And clearly some music doesn't travel well to the UK, either. Allan Pettersson, if not Sweden's national composer, but certainly one of its greatest, hasn't had a single work played at the Proms.
The narrative that RVW does not travel well is a false one. Of course it is easy to make especially if one is pushing the "cowpat" theory to boot (I loath that simplistic and ignorant description).
For example take Job - which I think is fairly considered one of his true masterpieces but could be argued to be a very specifically "British" work . However, in Nigel Simeone's recent excellent book on Vaughan Williams and Boult he relates Boult conducting that work literally around the globe including Vienna, in Amsterdam with the Concertgebouw in Boston and Chicago as well as Geneva, Brussels & Monte Carlo. In Vienna, Bruno Walter came into to the artist's room after the concert with tears in his eyes saying "this is the most wonderful music".
It is NOT that this music does not travel or is parochial to the UK. It is that this music is not given the opportunity to travel. This is such a common occurence - in the UK at the Proms there are a host of Latin American composers who have never featured there. Is it because their music does not travel? Of course not!
Another idea that there is a substantial tranche of "pompous" or empire-celebrating music is equally false. There is a small amount of occasional music from Handel's Fireworks music to any number of Coronation marches that have an association but that is/was their function nothing in the music itself inherently "says" that. The trio of Pomp and Circumstance No.1 would JUST be a fantastic tune if someone had not attached "Land of Hope and Glory" (which Elgar disliked) to it. If the listener has issues about religion or empire or anything else that is THEIR issue and choice of extra-musical interpretation the music stands alone and independent of that.
I hope readers were pleased with the collection of reviews celebrating the birth sesquicentennial. I wonder if anyone shares my irritation at the constant references to Vaughan Williams as a primarily "pastoral" composer. For all that he was a collector of folk songs, loved the English countryside and expressed that love in his music, so much of it is far more challenging than the justly famous "lollipops" like Dives and Lazarus , the Lark Ascending and Greensleeves - all of which which I love, but they are not the bulk or core of his work. The "Pastoral" symphony and the Romanza of the Fifth (which does not actually have much to do with the English countryside) notwithstanding, you have only to listen to his symphonies as a whole - especially nos. 4, 6 and 9 - to hear why the composer was irked by that label.
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