We’re back in Bradford again after reversing our earlier drive up the Welsh borders, and all the way I’ve been pondering on a question left in my mind by last night’s final of the Singer of the World competition. It seems that the same issues arise in both painting and music. As is always the case, the adjudication of the competition was controversial. People who go to that event love to debate the outcome, and sometimes quite heatedly. The overall winner was declared to be Nadine Koutcher (the young soprano from Belarus) and the award voted by the audience went to the Mongolian baritone, Amartuvshim Enkhbat. The contrast is interesting, because it would appear that quite different qualities are being rewarded in each case. We thought that in her case the judges were impressed by her undoubted technical brilliance, although her choice of programme gave little room at all for the development of real character or depth of feeling. His performance, however, seemed to be distinctive for the superb quality of his voice. Left to myself, I would have rewarded the Korean bass, Jongmin Park, and the things that I know have impressed me in his performance have had to do partly with his power of communication and characterisation in an operatic role. So we have three quite different ways in which “good art” might be recognised in this context. It is conceivable that yet a fourth criterion might have been taken into consideration, and that would be the consistency of performance sustained over the entire competition, but in the nature of the case this could not have been a factor here.
Of course, an analogous debate might take place in relation to painting. There are people who are technically impressive, even if you don’t particularly like what they do. (Bill Redburn, whose work is discussed elsewhere in this website, might be such a one.) On the other hand, one might be much impressed by an overall sense of the natural feel for such aspects of aesthetic pleasure as colour and quality of the painted surface. My former mentor Graeme Willson comes to mind here. Finally, there are those painters who just draw you into their work by either the vividness or perhaps the subtlety of their capacity for communication through paint.
I suppose that most artists of any quality, either musicians or painters, are likely to embody in varying measure all of these qualities. I do find it curious, however, that in an event such as Cardiff Singer it would have been possible, had one or another of these criteria been formally and explicitly prioritised, to arrive at a very different result. It does seem to be the case that when people talk about “good art” they could be meaning very different things.
One remarkable and very thought-provoking incident in Cardiff was the singing of the Welsh national anthem at the end of the event. The proportion of Welsh-speakers (or at least, people who knew the words) must have been very high in the audience. It was the quality of their participation that was striking. I can’t say that I have ever heard God Save the Queen sung with heartfelt enthusiasm. It is sung as an act of duty, with a kind of solemnity and even, on occasions, a degree of embarrassment. My wife was reminded of an incident several years ago, at the birthday p[arty of one of our granddaughters, who lives in Scotland. After the birthday cake was cut all the children spontaneously and enthusiastically burst into singing Flower of Scotland. Surely these things tell us something quite interesting, and probably important, about the differing relationships of people to nation and state.