Golden Oldies Rachel Johnson

As Barenboim explained, the orchestra was created not as a political vehicle, but as an invitation to listen. ‘Sensitive talking and painful listening’ combined with the dignity that a shared passion for music and music-making can bring.

‘Listening’ was the subject of the second Reith lecture, broadcast from Chicago, where Barenboim was music director of the Chicago Symphony. It was entitled The Neglected Sense and concerned the importance of the ear and its marginalisation in modern society.

Barenboim has long advocated what he calls ‘active listening’. Background music is something we’ve had to get used to, but its advance is remorseless. We hear it even on heavyweight Radio 4 programmes such as File on 4, where private testimonies, often harrowing in their detail, are routinely accompanied by musical underlays that are as weird as they are banal.

Classical music in advertising has always been problematic. Barenboim cited the American company that appeared oblivious of the fact that the ‘Lacrimosa’ from Mozart’s Requiem might not be the best thing with which to promote a newer, cleaner lavatory.

There have been some notable exceptions. I think of the ad for Hamlet cigars, made famous in part by Jacques Loussier’s Bach arrangement, or Hugh Hudson’s dazzling use of Figaro’s entrance aria from Rossini’s Il barbiere for the classic 1979 ad ‘Fiat Strada hand-built by robots’. And there’s that eerily atmospheric seven-note horn call from Mahler’s Seventh Symphony used by a leading patron of cultural life in this country, BP, now one of the arts world’s Great Unmentionables.

In the mid-1980s, Woolworth’s trendy new ad agency chose the Joy theme from the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to advertise washing machines. Christopher Fildes, the Spectator’s City man at the time, devoted half his column to the outrage, comparing it with Lloyds Bank’s use of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to sell credit cards. ‘Sleepers, wake, a voice is calling: this Lloyds Bank ad is quite appalling’ was his own succinct riposte.

The final audience question in Barenboim’s Chicago lecture was posed by Alfred Brendel, who’d been stopped by a fan who had ‘seen’ one of his concerts.

‘Might we change that usage?’ Brendel enquired. ‘And can we hope that some of the people who are coming to our concert tonight might listen to – and even possibly hear – what we are doing?’

Amen to that.

Bryan Ferry with Roxy Music at the OVO Hydro, Glasgow, October 2022

GOLDEN OLDIES RACHEL JOHNSON ROXY MUSIC ROCKS

On the Tube to the O2, a Glaswegian detained me to tell me about his lifelong love of Roxy Music.

This was the sixth time he’d seen them, he said, recalling the time he’d belted up Sauchiehall Street in 1982 to the hotel the band were staying in, found the lead singer and told him he’d thrown a sickie to see them play the Apollo.

Bryan had ticked him off for slacking and then said, ‘Well, seeing as you’ve taken the day off work, let me buy you a drink.’

The Glaswegian spoke of this evening’s upcoming gig, I noted, as if it had already happened, which maybe – in one way – it had.

Though there are rumours that Bryan Ferry will take it to Worthy Farm for a teatime slot on the Sunday of Glasto, the season finale of the sell-out Roxy Music tour strongly brought to mind another of the world’s recently departed all-time greats.

I went to the O2 twice in October. The first time was to see Roger Federer’s last match as a hitter of balls. The second was for Bryan’s last gig – in this tour, at least – as crooner of hypnotic, heart-tugging songs.

Both men have animal grace, economy of movement and a supple, feline, fluid style – just compare the way they both wave to the crowd; this is a huge compliment to Bryan Ferry as he is more than three decades Rog’s senior.

Of course, Ferry’s career has been longer, but the comparisons don’t stop there. Both dress immaculately. Both have spent their entire careers at the top of their game. Both have amazing hair and chiselled features – though, at 77, Bryan has the cheekbones that slice my heart open. Both are sublime performers and perfect gentlemen.

But what was the gig like? It was knockout. First he played the old stuff and then, halfway through, broke out the hits and we rose to our feet for Dance Away, More Than This, Avalon, Love Is the Drug and Jealous Guy – a dozen hits on the trot, ending with Do the Strand and Bryan then saluting each corner of the crowd, just the way Djoko does after he’s won Wimbledon.

At the after party, the band came into the bar, and Bryan sat kingly on a sofa and courtiers came to kiss the ring.

His handsome sons, friends and bandmates – among them lead guitarist Phil Manzanera in a floral shirt – came up to tell him he had done great as he sat, swaddled in a scarf, holding a small bottle of Evian.

‘Do I curtsy?’ I asked.

‘If you like,’ he said, giving me a brief smile.

What a beautiful man. Thank you for the music, Bryan Ferry.