Marmite

If you are reading this anywhere other than the UK, ‘marmite’ probably won’t mean anything – though Antipodeans will recognise its southern-hemisphere counterpart Vegemite. It’ s a dark brown savoury syrup sold in small jars, a by-product of beer fermentation formed from yeast, tasting somewhat like the familiar beef extract Bovril. You can spread it on buttered toast, or throw a spoonful into your bolognese sauce to add zest. You either love it or loathe it, so a ‘marmite’ experience is an accepted term in the UK for something that sharply divides opinion. In my own household there’s a good example with the once-popular Benny Hill show, still being shown on graveyard TV channels late in the evenings. Its ineffable silliness reduces me to helpless giggles while my wife sits stony-faced on the sofa ostentatiously reading a book.

            There are certainly marmite composers, but I never thought of my old school chum the late Sir John Tavener as one of them until last week. His epic eight-hour work The Veil of the Temple opened the Edinburgh Festival, its large vocal and instrumental forces gathered in the Usher Hall, performing in shifts while the audience was free either to remain throughout or come and go as it pleased. Probably because of its mammoth time-span and unusual forces this was only the second complete performance, the première having taken place at London’s Temple Church in 2003 – the Temple Music Foundation had commissioned it.

            Unable to be there in person, I was interested to read the reviews. The Observer critic Vanessa Thorpe called it ‘an epic act of devotion’, describing the different parts of the work in admiring detail, concluding that ‘it was wonderful indeed’. Turning to The Spectator (which I receive free, having occasionally written for it) I found their critic Richard Bratby telling a different story. His review – more of a rant, really – was headed ‘The excruciating tedium of John Tavener’, and his first paragraph ends ‘I’d never much minded the music of John Tavener. By the fifth hour of The Veil of the Temple I was beginning to detest it’. He gives due credit to the performers, but describes the work itself considerably less admiringly than the Observer critic does.

We live in a polarised society. At least we are free to express fairly extreme views in the cultural if not the political sphere. And yet . . . is it a good idea to review the work of a composer whose music you cannot relate to? We all have blind spots: I would never attend, let alone review, a concert of (for example) Carl Nielsen, an excellent composer whose music I just don’t get. I tend to blame myself for not connecting with or understanding a particular composer, and with composers I actively dislike – there aren’t many of them – I reflect that we are more fortunate with music than with architecture: you can easily avoid music you dislike, but you may have to walk past an awful building every day. De gustibus non est disputandum, roughly translated as ‘it’s pointless arguing about matters of taste’ should be a consolation to composers receiving a bad review. My late father-in-law believed André Rieu to be the greatest living violinist, and I found it wisest to stay silent when he expressed this view. I’m all for freedom of expression, but is it helpful or kind to review a concert of a composer of whom the best you can say is ‘I never much minded’ their music? Maybe silence is golden in such cases.