Thank You For The Music

Classical music taps into the British psyche in our darkest hours, as well as the good times. The BBC’s ambitious new season aims to reflect its place in social history and engage with a new generation.

- Pippa Cuckson 

THERE is one huge difference between our understanding of music of the past 100 years and that of the eras before it: we know exactly how composers wanted their work to sound and how audiences responded, thanks to the invention of film and the phonograph.

The BBC holds probably the most comprehensive archive, which it has plundered to offer its boldest classical-music programming to date outside the Proms: ‘Our Classical Century’, a lavish season of documentaries and performances, begins next week.

This is much more than a cultural retrospective, explains radio 3 controller Alan Davey. ‘In a frantic world, classical music provides a way to understand others and the human quest for innovation and creation. I believe we’re at a tipping point, in an increasing genre-less age, where young, curious minds are open to discovering this.’

The past century has been notable for the use of music to stir the national psyche. episode 2 has some especially moving footage, including the impact of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, written in 1941 during the 900-day siege and now enshrined as a tribute to the 27 million Soviet citizens who perished in the Second World War.

There’s also rare film from Dame Myra Hess’s 1,500 morale-boosting concerts at the National Gallery at a time when many London theatres and concerts halls had closed. her memoirs recall her astonishment that people queued right around the building for the first one—a young Joyce Grenfell volunteered to make the sandwiches.

Another programme in the complementary ‘Discovering…’ series explains how Britten’s evergreen Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was commissioned in 1945 as a Ministry of education film, aimed at instilling optimism in the population as Britain adapted to peace—and austerity.