Out of his Depth

What’s it like to play with the big boys and girls? Real tough, says Stanley Middleton; Harris’s Requiem a sad tale of social gaucherie. Don’t dance in hobnail boots if you partner is wearing velvet slippers….

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Art is easy, until you try to sell it. Aesthetics becomes politics, and the authoritarian intellect - Il Duce of page and score - turns diplomat: you need tact and charm to win over those with the moneybags. Music alone will not put Thomas Harris into the musical pantheon. He needs the likes of Cooke to promote his work; the skills of Brand to play it, and the virtuoso Sir Stanley Gilbert to persuade the public to believe in its quality. Only Sir Stanley to get Tom a standing ovation at Nottingham’s Albert Hall.

‘Yes,’ said Brand, ‘because music’s in the hand of tinpot Buddhas like your husband.’

‘Tinpot what?’ said Cooke. ‘Such language.’ He laughed till he rolled in his chair. Harris was astonished at Brand’s outburst. Perhaps Mrs. Cooke’s hint was right, that the man was jealous. He himself felt goodwill to all men.

Cooke controlled his shaking.

‘I’m sorry, John,’ he said, and began to laugh again. ‘But you really are too much.’

‘Go on, giggle away, you oversized parasite,’ said Brand.

‘And what do you make of that remark?’ Mrs. Cooke asked Harris. She spoke quite clinically, perfectly composed and utterly beautiful.

‘He reminds me of my father,’ said Harris. ‘He’s always saying uncouth things about people. He exaggerates terribly, but…’

‘Go on, Mr. Harris,’ she said.

‘There’s often an element of truth in what he says.’

‘It’s true, ‘said Mrs. Cooke, ‘that my husband is rather large. That’s true. But in what way is he a “parasite”?’ Her voice was cool. 

‘I don’t know, ‘ said Harris. ‘I expect Brand just meant that your husband annoyed him and so he called him a rude name.’

‘Then you were speaking foolishly when you said there was some truth in it?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Harris, bewildered.

‘No, no, But you implied it.’

‘You’re trying to catch me out,’ said Harris, ’I’ve reason to be grateful to your husband.’

‘And yet you were abominably rude.’

She sat quite straight in her chair, her hands on the arms. ‘This is the first time I have met you, Mr. Harris,’ she said. ‘Charles had spoken very highly of you and your talent. But, to be frank, I cannot say I like you.’

This is inexperience, and he’s been caught out. Poor Tom. So innocent! Though there’s more to his error than simple naivety. Why isn’t he more circumspect? Where’s his instinct for survival?

Servitude is not easy to accept. We’ll try any means of wriggling out of it. There’s the Romantic notion of the artist, which has condemned too many to poverty and oblivion. You know the story: the man alone, authentic and principled, who carries an elemental force…quickly blown out if there is no infrastructure to retain it: without pianos to play, rooms to listen in, or an audience, even Beethoven is forgotten. Sad fact number one, the artist is a slave to circumstance. One reason, no doubt, for the rise of the genius myth: the more dependent they became on others - the Victorians’ industrialisation of culture - the greater grew the fantasy of self-reliance and artistic tyranny. Tom Harris has a touch of this. The northern gruffness, allied to working class chip, doesn’t help: too much pride, and too ready to assert his liberty and independence. This is not how to make it in the upper bourgeoisie, whose easy life requires everyone fit in. To rub down the edges of one’s ego while burnishing everybody else’s, so that all the fenders shine with an equal sheen, this is the art of success. The occasional joker like Brand is allowed, but then they all know it’s a joke. Being one of them, his words, wholly detached from his lifestyle, carry no bite, because they have no serious meaning. Telling the truth? It’s just a game; all know it. Salt to an insipid sauce.

Tom threatens such cosiness, for his words are intimate with his character and style of life. Not just words, but tethered to fact and truth…. Alas, Tom lacks the sense to pull up the anchor.

Like a boat detached from its moorings, words are expected to float free of their referents amongst Cooke and his coterie. Poor Tom! He has arrived too quickly to understand these odd people and their curious mores. In this new, strange place he’s not sharp enough to pick up the nuances. It will be a long time yet before he masters the vacuity of the spoken word. What is fine for Brand - because decontaminated by his posh background - is toxic for Tom Harris, who risks playing the class stereotype. They know he means it. Thrust into this alien society - the provincial upper-crust, whose leader, Cooke, has decided to be Tom’s patron - our hero lacks the plasticity to adapt quickly to its complex social codes. He is too stolid for this place; lacks the quicksilver mind which catches the subtleties of repartee; that gap between phrase and meaning, the distance of both from the emotions. Words play a sophisticated game of smoke and mirrors. When Mrs Cooke asks him to clarify, Tom should have picked up the signals: this is a test of his character. Too slow! She doesn't want facts. Mrs Cooke wants abeyance. The correct answer is the studied circumlocution; it is diplomacy that is required, moulding words to an audience, who want to be flattered and entertained. No wonder she is angry. Suddenly Mrs Cooke is exposed; here is somebody who doesn’t submit to her beauty. She has lost power. To regain it she must make her superior position explicit. This is not done in polite circles. Tom has polluted this place. In such a milieu words are only ever signs to social relations: they signal if one is either in or out. This is too subtle for Tom, who hasn't had time to learn. Though in many ways middle-class - the job, the culture, the educated background, his talk - traits from his boyhood - his father is a miner - remain. Much of this class personality is sloughed off as he rises up the social scale, but that pride and independence - so important to the lower classes for their dignity - retains its hold; it is the last thing to go. Then, of course, there is the literalism of the schoolmaster.

Poor sap. He’s an amateur amongst top flight professionals. In the big league you have to compete with a different quality of class.

Up to now this hasn’t been his concern. Tom’s personal life - all his ‘leisure’ time is given over to music - is kept separate from the school, where he exists on auto-pilot. Tom Harris is a good but not exceptional teacher. The job, a continuation of his own schooling, has given him decades to adapt to the culture of the lower professional classes. Then the fixed rituals of the classroom, together with the authority of the teacher - the pupils not so different from crotchets and quavers on a score - provides both independence and control. Surrounded by people not so different from himself - we forget just how scholarly and cultivated was once the teaching profession - this is a comfortable life. 

Tom falls out with his friend Winterburn, who although clever is a hopeless teacher. A mind out of place. When things go wrong - they often do - he is apt to sulk, and vex his colleagues. This is a man who cannot learn the professional graces. Lack of success makes him stand upon his dignity; the reason for the irreparable breach with Tom. Ashamed of his failure, friend turns foe, and Winterburn accuses Tom of conspiring to sack him. In fact, his friend has persuaded the headmaster not to call in the inspectors. Winterburn is a fool. He hides his passivity and incompetence by projecting malevolence on those around him. Lucky the conspiracy is benign. It gives him time to secure a more senior post in a better school; although his contentment will be short-lived. Teaching is not for this man. It cannot fulfil him. Then there is the strain of doing a job that is beyond you….

Winterburn is a warning. It is too oblique to influence our hero, who, anyway, has the ideal life: a job he doesn't have to think about, and a vocation which consumes his immense talent. If only success would ring the doorbell…. Yet, writing music to which no-one listens, might be better for the creative faculty than having thousands clap it at the local concert hall. This paradox easily explained.

As the spring came on, however, and the day of the concept approached, he found he was giving less time to creative work and more to introspection, to consideration of what would happen if Staleybridge said ‘no’. He didn’t meet Staleybridge; Cooke and Attenborough were uniformly sanguine as to prospects, but within three weeks of the concert Harris found himself at a standstill, unable to work because of his anxiety. The wheel had come full circle. He was thrust back to his thesis. He was now the representative of his beat generation, waiting, unable to fend for himself, his bowels watery, waiting for authority to speak one way or the other. According to his friends, authority, Staleybridge and Co., was certain to come down exactly where it should, firmly in favour. Harris could not believe it. He found himself suddenly shivering in the classroom, when talking to his colleagues, pulling Sanderson’s leg.

At no time was he happy. Only when he became interested in a lesson, or a snippet of common-room scandal, could he forget his fear. His Requiem was laid by permanently now; he did not want to do anything at it.

Malevolent authority had done its stuff.

He discussed this with nobody. He felt morally bound to carry his fear on this own. This was perhaps a confession of weakness, an acknowledgement that what trouble there was lay not with authority but with himself. Dredging this to the surface brought no relief. Grin and abide was the word. At least he could abide.

Tense. Not just about the performance, but about its future: if a hit with the audience Lord Staleybridge might commission the full requiem for the city’s festival. Suddenly, the music is secondary to its social results, damming the free flow of inspiration with anxiety and self-consciousness. The side-effects of success. A tension absent before; Tom to survive if only he devises some modus vivendi that enables diplomat and artist to share the same body. If he is to succeed our hero must train himself to become a virtuoso of the social round. 

He is too class-bound to realise it. And too slow off the mark…. 

When talking to Mrs Cooke Tom speaks as if his words have no social import. His conversation that of an equal when he is yet to earn that egalitarian right. A paradox indeed! To belong to the elite is to enjoy the luxury of not speaking the truth: there are more subtle ways of getting the point across. Irony. Tact. The word not said. These people have taste; hard fact and brute veracity too coarse for such fine palettes. Truth! This is not school now, my boy. Nor a university seminar. It is not a café argument between two artists; that verbal boxing match where the bruises fade by morning. In this milieu everything has a value in social terms, so words must be played with a cool finesse.

No sooner in the inner circle than Tom is pushed out of it. His patron loses interest: it’s hard work having a boor around, especially when he upsets the important people upon whom one’s reputation depends. For when the crisis comes - Tom’s father dies the same day he is to meet a local bigwig - Tom funks it: he doesn't think to call Cooke and let him know. Cooke assumes it’s an attempt to stand on his pride: he’s read the signs wrong. He backtracks later, when he learns the facts; but it is too late, an impression has formed that sticks. Also, by denigrating his protégé, Cooke has exposed himself in public; a stain not to be removed if he continues to promote the young composer. Suddenly Cooke’s life has become complicated - best cut loose this tiresome problem…. 

So unfair! you shout. 

Yes, it is. But different rules apply at the very top. To stand on the tip of the pyramid you must forever keep an eye on your footing. Forget everything else. Even when his father dies Tom must think of himself. Success at the very highest levels requires terrible sacrifices. 

But it is worse than this, surely….

You are right, my friend. No longer composing our own, we perform to someone else’s tune.

Why Harris’s Requiem? After all, the novel ends on a happy note. Tom, celebrated at the concert, returns in quiet contentment to his flat, where the steady work of musical composition seems assured. All’s well that ends calmly, no? 

You’re an optimist, I can see. Think of the long-term effects of not winning the highest prize: that hamster on the wheel: if only I’d acted a little…. 

The regret of the nearly man? 

Yes, that’s part of it. He didn't get the commission for the festival; too gloomy, according to Lord Staleybridge. It’s his one chance at the big time. 

A bit unlucky….  

Well, not quite. Think of the lad’s naivety - a requiem for what should be a celebration. 

No sense of the occasion, I see; that obdurate streak again. A bit of a fool, then…. 

Maybe. But if Cooke had really pushed the piece, especially on the back of that stupendous reception at the Albert Hall, Staleybridge would surely have accepted it; or asked Tom to submit a more upbeat work. His rejection is a sign of things to come. Harris is not to be the next Benjamin Britten. Cooke is blunt: in Britain there are thirty other composers equally as talented, and all depend on impresarios like himself for immortality. The music isn’t enough. Tom, given his chance, has blown it. 

He lacked class.

It’s a way of putting it. It’ll be the pauper’s grave for this composer: no headstone - those concerts - to keep his name alive in music’s cemetery.

A poor sod, then. 

Yes. At least he’s got the miners. 

True. They’ll always play the Blidworth March at the annual gala. 

(Review: Harris’s Requiem)