Katy Hamilton

‘We all want to research, to discover,’ Elliot continued, puffing lazily on his pipe. ‘When what we really ought to do is simply remind people. They seem to forget so much, so very quickly.’

No, it’s not a line from some extremely distinguished author. I wrote that. Maybe one day I’ll actually get around to finish the novel from which it comes… who knows? But I can tell you this much: Elliot’s sentiment, expressed in reference to the events of the First World War, is not an original one. It is a shared sentiment, and has been in the aether – written or spoken – for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I know that, and you know that. The very point of Elliot saying it is that, as he correctly observes, sometimes we need to be reminded of what is really only very recent history.

So I confess I sighed rather deeply when I read both the press release, and the reviews, of the National Gallery’s new Soundscapes exhibition. Because we still appear to be rehearsing the same old arguments about art and music that have been knocking about for a century.

On 18 July 1922 – heck, it’s even the same month of the year – a concert was given at the National Gallery by a student string quartet from the Royal College of Music. The quartet played works by Haydn and Beethoven to a large audience in the ‘Dome Room’ (that is, the Barry Rooms) in the centre of the Gallery. The reception was sufficiently favourable that further concerts were planned. But the public reaction in the weeks leading to the concert were extreme, to say the least. How could a national institution submit to such ‘dumbing down’ by allowing music into its silent spaces?! Surely this was just a money-spinner, a means of providing distraction for those who couldn’t properly focus on the art. ‘It may indeed by possible to achieve a subtle harmony between the two arts, but we fear that the danger is that these side-attractions may in time come to constitute the main appeal, and that, after a while, the National Gallery may be so successfully “brightened” that the pictures may be forgotten,’ warned The Daily Mirror, which also carried a cartoon suggesting other possible gallery activities – afternoon tea, dancing, Punch and Judy, a fashion parade, a cinema, and badminton.

This performance was not, as far as I can tell from either the press reports or the RCM’s own papers, intended to react to the artworks – it was simply a new space in which music might be heard, as was already happening at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. A few decades later, Myra Hess’s celebrated wartime concerts were also meant as musical events, not as reactions to the paintings (most of which, in any case, were hidden in a slate mine in Wales at the time).

But more recently, the Gallery has hosted events and projects which explicitly draw connections between music and art. From the sound designs of students at Ravensbourne College to the Belle Shenkman Music Programme (tragically no longer running), in which students from the RCM either selected pre-existing repertoire after an inspiring session with an artist in the Gallery, or actually composed new works which drew on the paintings, this has been going on for years. They even had a DJ – the first at the Gallery. Of course, these concerts were free, and the composers students. Now that the Gallery is hosting a paid exhibition with works by established musicians, this bringing together of artforms has once again hit the headlines. Some writers have written warmly about the collaboration, and others openly mocked it. I haven’t yet been, so I can’t judge on the quality of the pieces themselves – but the rhetoric around the event compels me to make a few brief observations.

The publicity. The National Gallery has come up with the snappy strapline, ‘Hear the painting. See the sound.’ As very brilliantly demonstrated by Griselda Pollock, the Gallery’s marketing department is not actually very good at adequately representing what is going on in its exhibitions. Nowhere, in more detailed reviews and descriptions can I find any evidence that the one medium is meant to replace the other. Rather, the composers have been inspired by a painting to create a sound installation. Not quite sure what the problem is with that?

The captions. As I say, I haven’t been to the exhibition, so I can’t comment on their actual content. But following Tom Service’s wickedly funny parodies of pretentious artspeak (come on, don’t tell me you’ve never admired a piece at Tate Modern, read the caption, and burst out laughing at its explanation), it’s worth remembering that neither the artists nor the composers were there to provide captions. They were there to create art. So even if they do turn out to be a little eye-rolling, maybe we should listen and look before we read and judge.

And finally – the ‘concept’. It’s not new. Did I mention that already? It’s interesting, and every manifestation of it will of course be different because of the composers, performers, presence or absence of live musicians, paintings chosen, and so on. But it’s not new. If you want to bah-humbug the whole event and just look at the paintings in silence, then you can go at any other time of the year, or indeed decade, to see them. For two months, the Gallery is putting them in a different context. So why not leave the ‘dumbing down’ arguments to The Daily Mirror in 1922, and think about attending either this exhibition, or indeed any of the other musical events available at the fantastic array of galleries we can enjoy in the UK? Music and art are old friends, and that close relationship is evident up and down the land. Look – just have a listen.