Rootless

Rootless

For centuries the 'national' element in music has been a crucial tool for composers. It does not necessarily need to mean loud patriotism or nationalism but it is the soul of a nation's culture, its language, its ancient folkloric melodism. In the music of Finland's Sibelius and Russia's Rimsky-Korsakov, for example, the melody and rhythm of their native languages and the essence of their tradition were absorbed into highly innovative music; their homeland became their music.

Now the epidemic of what I call 'Mid-European avant-garde' is spreading. Folklore is dying; hardly anyone collects it. Atheism is spreading, killing ancient church music (another huge source for national schools of composition). Europeans have become just that - 'Europeans', not Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, Slavs. But a composer without a national element in his music is like a homeless man.

Folklore truly is dying and this is a tragedy no less important than climate change or pollution

Mid-European avant-garde is a living corpse and a clichéd style of music that was finished by the 1980s. Great composers always looked forward and many manage(d) to be highly innovative yet keep their nation's voice. They had land under their feet, not hot air.

I am lucky and proud to have two fatherlands: Russia and England. Both inspire me - from Russia's expansive northern forests to England's Chiltern Hills. But folklore truly is dying and this is a tragedy no less important than climate change or pollution. We have a duty to preserve our culture for the future. In England and all of Western Europe, except the Celtic countries, it is too late. In Scandinavia there is a chance and in most Slavic countries folklore is still a living tradition. But there too it is dying.

Why? It is the gradual spread of certain elements of western culture: popular music, the behaviour of so many youths, the general bacchanalian atmosphere of life. The further east you go, the more traditions are kept. A good example is Finland where, because it has chosen the general Mid-European path recently, folklore (save the very north, where there are more Saami than Finns) has almost died, while in neighbouring Russian Karelia, Finnish folklore has survived.

Culture is a people's soul. Folk music contains the soul of a nation because it contains elements of every century's culture and atmosphere in it. Often when I listen to north Russian folklore, I hear texts and music that obviously go back to our heathen past.

Isolation makes folklore stagnant, making it artificial and in effect killing it

Unfortunately the only way to save folklore is artificial isolation. Isolation, however, makes folklore stagnant, making it artificial and in effect killing it. It's a vicious circle. The only reason folklore has survived so well in Russia is because the villages in the north are so sparse and isolated.

In southern regions of Russia where western 'civilisation' has penetrated the culture, the result is so-called folk songs that are closer to light western music than to ancient folklore, yet people mistake it for Slavic folklore. Songs like Kalinka are announced as folk songs, when they are a grotesque mix of pop and cheap tavern music.

Even where folklore survives, most of it is confined to old ladies and - especially in instrumental terms - old men.

To save folk music, we must remind people of the full circle of social and spiritual traditions and thus we must learn it ourselves. In so doing, we can understand the music better, conserve it better and composers can add more colours to their pallet.

When the European composers have learnt about their culture and other cultures, they will stop this epidemic. Of course national music is not only in the folklore. Landscape is important (especially for Scandinavian composers), religious music is important - but folklore incorporates all of these.

Music can only exist if it is needed. Folk music will exist in some everyday form if harvests continue, if festivals remain to be celebrated - and they will, so there is hope.

People don't go to concerts of Mid-European avant-garde composers because there is nothing to remember

Classical music on the other hand relies on attracting an audience made up not only of specialists. No matter how sublime the form or original the material, if no one wants to hear it, it does not exist: it is simply lines on paper. And the reason people don't go to concerts of Mid-European avant-garde composers is because there is nothing to remember, nothing to be touched by, no image to see.

Music must contain an image, something to remember - usually some form of melodic line - and these are professional criteria, these are things that can be obtained only by having a strong national foundation.

Notice that halls are packed for concerts of the great innovators of our time: Ligeti, Boulez, Stockhausen... This is because they are national. Ligeti reflects his native Hungarian rhythms, Boulez has a subtle French perfume, Stockhausen is German in his grandeur, his harshness. The fact that they are national does not stop them being innovative.

To keep people attending concerts, and to save classical music, we must stop finding excuses and start writing and performing inspiring music. To create a national school, every country needs a national opera. Some already do, others don't.

'National' must be on epic, traditional or historical subject matter

I have put in front of myself two aims in my work: reviving Russian and general Slavic epic-heroic opera; and creating an English (Anglo-Saxon) national opera. 'National' must be on epic, traditional or historical subject matter and must draw on the melodism of the land, the landscape, the folklore, the religious music, the language. Every musician, composer, conductor and orchestra has a duty to help in this.

We, as a planet, must take it upon ourselves to save traditional music, and doing so save classical music. But we must first learn about it, love it, live it, defend it.

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