Breaking news: Monteverdi invented the "leitmotif"

An extraordinary new light was cast upon the late works of Claudio Monteverdi (left) last night, when the Amsterdam University scholar Dr Pieter van der Oeugewalt revealed at last the startling result of secret research work he has been undertaking for the past five years.

The academic has issued a statement as follows:

"Monteverdi has long been regarded as the founding father of modern music. I believe that my discovery will prove that he was precisely such, yet in a more pervasive manner than we had hitherto imagined.

"Studying his opera L'Incoronazione di Poppea of 1642-3, I became fascinated by the presence of a recurring figure, a simple pattern consisting of a falling fourth followed by a one-tone dip below and return to this note. A close examination of the libretto reveals that this theme - as simple, skeletal and strong as any motif by Wagner - is associated on every recurrence with Poppea's greed and unstoppable ambition. Having checked and double-checked this association, I find it to be consistent and unfailingly so. Monteverdi's music sounds as modern today as it must have on the day it was written: this composer would spare no experiment in his determination to reveal through music all the secret depths of the human heart. There is no conceivable reason why he should not have thought of developing a means to associate a musical motif with one of the philosophical themes that drives the opera's action. It appears that we could now say, with 99 per cent certainty, that Monteverdi was also the father of what we term the leitmotif.

"I have spent years researching in the great libraries of the Gonzaga Palace in Mantua and in the Basilica San Marco of Venice. In November 2010, a letter came to light in the most extraordinary manner. Restoration work in the library at Venice, aimed at protecting this valuable collection from the likely rise of sea level in the years ahead, revealed a secret cubby-hole high in the wall in which several priceless documents had been stored to protect them from floodwater, possibly as long ago as the 18th century. Among these documents was one in a familiar hand and bearing unmistakeable content: a letter written by Monteverdi himself that has remained unread ever since its sequestering therein. Regrettably the date and addressee are not present, and where they should have been the paper bears what appears to be the marks of teeth belonging to a small rodent. But having authenticated the watermark and signature, and dated the document as 1643, I am pleased to offer my translation of its contents.

Monteverdi writes:

"My opera is done, and my life's work. I do feel my passion spent, my intellect drained of energy, yet sated also with the satisfaction of bringing to the sensibilities of my fellow man the vision that lay within me, calling for release: the message that love must triumph and even over death itself. To such an end I have implanted in this opera a new idea that doth unite the message with the music in a manner ne'er before attempted. Th'association hence between the notion of the theme and the theme itself shall not be divided. It is not an invention to boast thereof, yet I do believe it shall melt into the world of musical composition as if imperceptible and if applied with the power of which I do feel it capable, one day it may come to dominate the conception of many great men of the theatre. Others may have interfered with Poppea, adding or subtracting or otherwise mathematically manipulating its content to their own ends for the expedience of flamboyant performance. Nevertheless at heart the opera remaineth mine own, and above all this introduction of a quality that is novelty yet not mere novelty, seeming simplicity yet nothing simple. I commend my opera to thee and sign my name: 

Your 

Claudio Monteverdi."

Tomorrow is another day...

After yesterday, I've been hugely impressed by the attitudes expressed by those organisations who've lost their ACE funding yet have issued statements declaring their determination to carry on with their work. While certain bullish media commentators are desperate to portray them all as that magical invention of the school playground, "whingeing luvvies", I've not spotted a single "whinge" anywhere. There's disappointment, of course, and sometimes incomprehension about some of the decisions - but principally we note fortitude, resourcefulness and gratitude for the support thus far.

These are people who work extremely hard, often for little financial recompense, and commit to their various activities with dogged determination against a sea of ignorant, opposing twatdom. I am especially sorry to see that the brilliant charity Live Music Now is among those whose funding has been wiped out - you'll find their website in my Music Inspirations list, but here it is again. Others include beloved Riverside Studios, Dartington, Lake District Summer Music and the Rose Theatre in Kingston. As for the massive cut to the excellent Almeida Theatre, Norman Lebrecht has theories about this.

There's good news, too: among the big winners has been the Britten Sinfonia, with a massively increased grant that is very well deserved, and several famous early-music orchestras have won funding despite having existed perfectly strongly without it for decades, while the London Mozart Players is out of the picture altogether. (There is an early music enthusiast, or so, on the ACE board, as you'll note if you have a look at Norman's lavish commentary from yesterday.) More news here from the Independent.

It was entertaining to see Jeremy Paxman facing a team of theatrical manager, Tory minister and a highly intelligent scientist on Newsnight yesterday, and finding no dissent amongst them at all over the value to society of public funding for culture and research. The more he pushed the philistine mealymouth view, the more strongly and excellently they reasoned.

My husband still has a job: all the symphony orchestras have taken a roughly equal 11% cut. Many in other sectors of work across the country are less fortunate. As the libretto of Anna Nicole says: "There but for the grace of your deity of choice..." Never think that we don't know this.

As far as the UK's cultural life is concerned, there's much to celebrate. Many creative and resourceful people work in this industry; it's now going to be up to them to find alternative ways forward. The arts here take just a sliver of public funding - notable when you compare it to other departments and see the returns that investment in the arts can bring - and the "mixed model" of funds-gathering - a sort of hedging approach with a bit of public, a bit of private and a lot of commercial nous - is currently proving its worth. It's a bit like freelancing: you're not dependent on any one company for your income, but on many different ones, so it is unlikely that you'll lose the whole lot at once (as I have learned over a sometimes difficult but often rewarding patch of 18 years to date).

And so, as Scarlett O'Hara says, tomorrow is another day. Keep calm and carry on.

A far greater danger than ACE cuts is the tearing up of culture and education by the grass roots, in the shape of university tuition fees and local authority budget-slashing. That is a topic for another time.

'National Portfolio Organisations'

Here is the database of the arts organisations across the UK that have become National Portfolio Organisations with ACE funding.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/lv?hl=en&hl=en&key=tNqPxvivkg4P8A27Cy8UqZA&type=view&gid=0&f=true&sortcolid=-1&sortasc=true&page=2&rowsperpage=250

It is only part of the jigsaw puzzle, but quite an important part.

Music While U Wait

The ACE is busy sending those emails even now. Results are filtering through on Twitter with the hashtag #ACEfunding. So far early winners include Tete a Tete Opera and the Manchester International Festival. It's worth pointing out that some organisations that have never received ACE funding before are now getting some - a fact that's been a bit overlooked by many of us - though there will be losers too. The Guardian has rolling updates here and you can set the page to refresh automatically: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/culture-cuts-blog/2011/mar/30/arts-council-funding-decision-day-cuts

Let's have some Bach while we wait. This is the piece that the MD used to play in the office when he was doling out clear-your-desk-right-away redundancies in a company I worked for in 1989. But it wasn't being played like this...

ROBERT TEAR (1939-2011)

Extremely sad this morning to hear about the death of Robert Tear, one of the greatest singers and 'characters' in the British opera world over the past half century. He was 72.

[Update, Tuesday 29th, 6.45pm A Telegraph obituary is now up on site here]

I've been listening to Bob singing for as long as I can remember, but certain occasions stand out as utterly unforgettable. His Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw can scarcely have been bettered: while his presence could emanate sinister power almost effortlessly, the beauty of his voice gave the character its essential extra dimension of seductiveness. At the opposite end of the spectrum, he was in Glyndebourne's Die Fledermaus a few years ago singing Dr Falke the lawyer - a production which included a little coup-de-theatre in the last act when Falke's cloak was pulled off him, abruptly revealing that he was wearing a petticoat. "What's that?" bellowed Eisenstein. The reply: "It's my Freudian slip!" And at the UK premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane at the RFH in 2007, Bob sang the short role of the Blind Judge. His was the finest voice on the platform.

It was on that occasion that I met him for the first time. I'd just been in France for the premiere of my play about Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Bob became very interested since he had known Messiaen well and worked with him. He said that he was winding down his singing career (and his last operatic appearance was in Turandot at the ROH two years ago), but was still interested in performing as an actor or reader. The upshot was that he and I gave the UK premiere of the play together at Lake District Summer Music 2008, in the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick.

It was astonishing to be on stage with him. The stage is not my natural environment and appearing alongside such a legend is a tall order. But he was such a strong, reassuring, comforting presence - able to inhabit a role so entirely, even when simply reading - that I was able to "lose myself", forget nerves and respond with all I could muster. With his wife, Hilary, and our team of musicians including Charles Owen and Philippe Graffin, we had a ball in the festival, too, huddling together for warmth in Lake District pubs and watching the rain...

Bob was not just a great singer, but a Renaissance man, fascinated by literature, art and issues mystical. His favourite pastime seemed, indeed, to be painting and he also wrote some amazing texts, short stories which I was privileged to read; his poetry also featured in a Christmas carol, 'Winter's Wait', which was performed at King's College Cambridge last year. He was a vivacious and irrepressible dinner guest, regaling us with hilarious stories from his time as a larger-than-life figure in a larger-than-life profession; and his West London home seemed to buzz with the spirits of all the creative powerhouses who had passed through its portals over the years.

I phoned him just before Christmas to ask whether he would be interested in doing another reading of the play this spring. He told me he wasn't taking on any more work of any kind and mentioned that he hadn't been very well, but if this was in fact a serious illness he gave no indication of the fact. My thoughts today are very much with Hilary and their two daughters.

And here is his official biography from his agent's website.

Robert Tear was born and educated in Wales, and became a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge.  Throughout his career he has shown his versatility and great talent as one of  the world's leading tenors and has worked with many eminent conductors.

He has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on a regular basis since his debut in l970. In 1988/89 he made his debut with English National Opera in The Turn of the Screw and the following season included his highly successful debut as Aschenbach in Death in Venice with the Glyndebourne Touring Company, later filmed by BBC TV.

Robert Tear has worked on many television projects, including the Jeunesses Musicales’ War Requiem performances in East and West Berlin to celebrate the City's 750th Anniversary in l987,   and more recently, a performance at the Wigmore Hall in which he performed Britten Song Cycles and Out of Winter by Jonathan Dove to Robert’s own texts.

He has made well over 250 records for every major recording company, including Bach Cantatas, numerous recital records, Victorian ballads with his friends Benjamin Luxon and André Previn, Britten's Serenade and Nocturne with Giulini for DG, and all the major choral works. Other recordings include Britten's War Requiem, Mahler's Das Klagende Lied, both with Sir Simon Rattle, Die Winterreise with Philip Ledger, and the first recording of Schoenberg's arrangement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde for BMG Records with Mark Wigglesworth and The Premiere Ensemble. His recording of Dyson's The Canterbury Pilgrims with the LSO and Hickox for Chandos was released in 1997.

In 1985 Robert Tear made his US conducting debut in Minneapolis and has subsequently worked with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, London Mozart Players, Northern Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta and Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Recent opera performances have included Opera National de Paris Bastille (Marriage of Figaro), Los Angeles Opera (Tales of Hoffmann), the Royal Opera House (Falstaff & The Bartered Bride), Welsh National Opera (Eugene Onegin), Bayerische Staatsoper (Saul), English National Opera (Sir John in Love) and Glyndebourne (Die Fledermaus). In early 2009 Robert made his final singing performance at the Royal Opera House as Altuom in Turandot.

Robert is in increasing demand as a speaker/narrator. He has most recently read a selection of Mozart’s letters accompanied by music at Kings Place, and Stravinksy’s A Soldier’s Tale with members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Wigmore Hall.

Robert Tear is married with two daughters and lives in West London. From 1992-94 he was Artistic Director of the Vocal Faculty of the London Royal Schools of Music, and he is currently a visiting professor of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music. He is an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and in l984 was awarded the C.B.E.