The way in to classical music

 "Pliable", in his On an Overgrown Path blog, worries that classical and popular music are drifting further apart and that music from the concert-hall is not helping itself gain the wider audience it deserves. 

Jimi Hendrix shared a management agent with the progressive rock and jazz fusion band Soft Machine, and Soft Machine supported Hendrix on his 1968 North American tour. In 1970 William Glock was Controller of the Proms. On 13th August 1970 - just two weeks before the Isle of Wight Festival - there was an all-Bach Prom at 7.00pm in the Royal Albert Hall with a star-studded cast including Neville Mariner, Philip Ledger, David Munrow, and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. This was followed at 10.00pm by a late-night Prom with Soft Machine, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductors David Atherton, and Elgar Howarth. This concert, which was broadcast on BBC TV, opened with works by Terry Riley and Tim Souster, and then showcased three tracks from Soft Machine's Third album. Can you imagine the outcry from on Slipped Disc and in The Spectator if that daring experiment was repeated today?

Emerson, Lake & Palmer was one of the bands at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and back then they played an important role in introducing a young audience - including myself - to classical music. As Carl Palmer explained: "I think the fact that Emerson, Lake & Palmer ended up playing things like Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorsky introduced all of those young people to this great classical music. They could go and get a recording of it by an orchestra. We weren't there to educate; we were there to entertain. But we actually did open up the doorway". 

More could certainly be done. Music should be restored to its rightful place in schools. Popular radio should embrace a wider mix of genres, just as more rock and light music is invading Radio 3. Radio 4's Tales from the Stave and How to Play are welcome, but programmes like this should be more frequent. (Much of my appreciation of music is down to the old Home Service Children's Hour use of such as Bartok, Dvorak and Walton as incidental music for its serials.) But I think Pliable is mistaken about the Proms.

There may no longer be a mix of stadium rock and classical music, but I suggest that this is because the happening music scene has shifted. An equivalent to the 1970s late-night Prom cited by Pliable occurred on the 15th of last month when Rameau met Africa - and it was not a late-night event, either. There is hope yet.