Redcliffe-Maud and its Implications

Extract

Apart from suggestions that such pioneering chamber orchestras as the Fires of London and the London Sinfonietta ought to receive regular grant-aid, and that ‘The Arts Council should initiate discussions between the four subsidised London orchestras and the BBC, in the light of recommendations made in the 1970 Peacock Report, of subsequent experience and of present and future shortage of funds available for music’, Lord Redcliffe-Maud's report on Support for the Arts in England and Wales contains few specific proposals calculated to have an immediate impact on the fortunes of contemporary music in Britain. It is not that sort of report. Properly enough, Maud has deployed his wide knowledge of and enthusiasm for particular arts fields not as a topic in itself, but as background and justification for a much broader consideration of how those arts are and ought to be supported in this country. So even if the immediate impact is limited, the longer-term effect of his views will be of vital interest for all of us who are concerned with the welfare of music today and of musicians today.