"The tender balm of Messiah's opening lines for the tenor Comfort ye, comfort ye my people has rarely sounded more necessary and consolatory than it did this week. The austere solemnity of the oratorio's collective reprimand against the iniquity of us all felt very contemporary too, especially at the end of such a dismal, demented and dangerous year. Yet music and the arts are not secure in Britain today. Instead, they are becoming increasingly insecure, as well as more marginal and marginalised."
"There are lots of different reasons for this process. But there should be absolutely no mistaking that it is happening. It would be dishonest not to admit that the media's own steady marginalisation of the arts and culture, notably but not only at the BBC, is one of the important causes. Keir Starmer playing the flute at a Duke of Edinburgh awards ceremony in 1980."
A London performance of Handel's Messiah demonstrated music's enduring emotional power, lifting spirits and offering consolation during the darkest season. The oratorio's choruses convey shared security and rebuke iniquity, resonating with contemporary anxieties at a bleak year's end. Despite this potency, music and the arts in Britain face growing insecurity, marginalisation, and shrinking support. Media marginalisation, notably at the BBC, contributes significantly to the decline. Public debates over alleged cultural elitism and socially closed attitudes toward high culture exacerbate the problem, leaving opera and other art forms increasingly vulnerable and peripheral.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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