John Berger's life and death are being celebrated by the BBC today. His Ways of Seeing programme joins the BBC litany of works that "changed British culture".
The BBC's apparently guileless reporting disguises that fact that from its conception it sought to change British culture. In Music Mania I show how, 1 year after it was granted a Royal Charter, the BBC squandered £2,000 of public money to perform a work by Schoenberg. English composers were aghast that a German composer should be promoted instead of native talent. The amount of money was deemed obscene but was necessary to perform a work with 8 flutes, 5 oboes, 7 clarinets, 10 horns, 5 trumpets, 7 trombones, 6 kettle-drums (and other percussion), 4 harps, full strings, 5 solo singers, 3 male choirs and an 8-part mixed choir. In spite of criticism by the public, the BBC produced another Schoenberg work in 1930, even though in the eyes of the British public his name was "mud".
This set the pattern. Throughout the decades since, the BBC has promoted composers (and artists) whose work is regarded as too advanced for the general public, which is another way of saying that the English hated them. From giving a biographical programme to a young Peter Maxwell Davies to granting copious air-time to the evangelistic music work of Gareth Malone, the BBC have elevated those who believe in music until they are so much part of the cultural environment that we not only accept them as genii, but admit that our original criticism was wrong!
Don't forget that it was the BBC who from 1924 to 1934 taught all school music lessons. In terms of propagating a Humanistic belief in the redemptive power of art to stop people from placing their trust in God and his Word, the BBC are in the front rank of offenders.
Read more about the BBC's role in promoting the religion of music -
Music Mania: How the Victorians joined the cult of Classical Music and why England have never been the same since
by Abigail Judith Fox
"... it is significant that the British Government, which formerly had resolutely refused to follow the examples of other European Governments in subsidising music and drama, has now willingly undertaken the daily entertainment of the nation at large.”