Among our more irritating conceits is the notion that we are an intrinsically musical people. The falsehood is perpetuated by the great success of a relatively small number of musicians and singers, and by the ready availability of traditional music. But these are beguiling misrepresentations of the real picture.
The bassooonist and musical researcher Rachel Nolan, a.k.a. the wife, quotes a teacher in her admirable thesis on the provision of music in Irish schools, as follows: "Right at the moment, I'm running this service out of the boot of my car, we don't really have anything, we don't have a hall, we rehearse standing up in a closet. . .Music is hugely expensive - I've stolen most of it. . I've borrowed and photo-statted it, so basically nothing is there - it's just done because I want it to happen."
Different picture
And that is essentially what music education is in Ireland - the informal, uncoordinated expression of various hardworking individuals wanting it to happen. The picture is dramatically, indeed humiliatingly different in the other regions Rachel studied for her MA: Denmark, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Denmark - a country most comparable to Ireland is terms of size, autonomy and wealth - provides a humbling comparison. There the state provides 235 musikskoles which organise instrumental tuition for all students who want it. Access to such education is regarded as being so central to the educational culture of the country that it is provided regardless of ability.
In Ireland the situation is so pathetic as to be beneath contempt and beyond description. As Rachel points out, though the Department of Education and Science asserts its commitment to the arts, there is scant evidence of any interest in music. Ireland has just two music inspectors of music at secondary level and none at all at primary level.
In essence, then, there is no music policy - merely a vast musical vacuum which is occasionally interrupted by the gallant improvisations of a few dedicated individuals. There was never a stage in the history of this State when this was excusable; today, when musical culture is not merely an expression of the artistic values of a country, but has huge diplomatic and political dimensions to it as well, it is perfectly unforgivable.
And into this desert next week arrives the International Symposium for young people and music, somewhat tweely and incorrectly entitled, "When I grow up to be a musician": for the point surely is that these young people gathering here from different parts of Europe already are musicians. What will they make of this musical wasteland? And how did Young European Strings choose Ireland of all countries to host such a symposium?
Commitment
This is nearly the equivalent of having an Israeli Arts Week in Baghdad or a flower festival in Antarctica. Maybe we can lay on a real treat for our visitors by stuffing and mounting our two musical inspectors in the National Museum, and the Finnish and Spanish musicians coming here over the next few days can inspect in a single glance virtually the entire commitment of the Government of the Irish Republic to music education in our secondary schools. The dedication to music in our primary schools can be adequately represented by a hole.
There are brave individuals who strive to compensate for this central cultural delinquency. Who cannot but admire the dedication of people such as Dorly O'Sullivan, who runs the Donard Youth Orchestra in Co Wicklow, or the conductor and 115 members of the Mullingar Brass and Reed Band, who survive by individual dedication and local sponsorship? And how much more local music might there be if we had a properly co-ordinated policy towards instrumental teaching in Ireland?
Some indication of how they do these things elsewhere should be embarrassingly evident in next week's symposium, which is being opened by Sile de Valera, Minister for Arts, Islands and Uncle Tom Cobley and All, Possibly Even Music, at the National Concert Hall on Wednesday afternoon. It certainly wouldn't be fair to blame her for the appalling condition of our music education; but what will she give her lecture on? On the problems of preserving two stuffed and mounted musical inspectors in the National Museum? Or on "Government Policy towards Music Education in Ireland and Pig Farming in Iran: a Comparative Study"?
The next day, Thursday, January 11th, Jouko Koivukoski, Director of the Central Institute of Kotka, Finland, will present a salutary lecture on Finnish government policy towards the 104 professional music schools in Finland. How many? One hundred and four - the equivalent of four schools per county in Ireland.
Scandal
I don't mind that we're not able to launch a space shuttle, or that there is no Irish flag on Mars. I can take with remarkable equanimity the certainty that we could not have won the Gulf War unaided, and that we would have a hard time repelling an invasion by the Isle of Man. And I digest with stoic calm the certainty that we are as likely to win a World Cup as Chad is to put a camel on the moon.
But that we have neglected musical education so shockingly seems to be one of the great and incomprehensible scandals of self-government: for do we not imagine ourselves to be a vibrantly musical people? Maybe on Sunday, January 14th, at 3.15 p.m. in the NCH, we will be given an object lesson in teenage musicality when The Violin Kids and The Young European Strings Chamber Orchestra perform the premieres of works by Ireland's Raymond Deane and Spain's Tomas Marco. Enquiries to Maria Keleman at 01-4905263.