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I was recently interviewed for the post of director of music at Trinity College, Cambridge, in succession to Richard Marlow, who has been there for 38 years. Eventually, the job was given to Stephen ‘Sid’ Layton. It would be demeaning for me to comment further, but in the end the problem for the assessors remained the same: what could reasonably be asked for under the title of musician?
Thirty-eight years ago, it was more straightforward: Dr Marlow was first and foremost an organist who could train a choir and teach in the faculty, as Dr Stanford had been before him. More recent experience has suggested that organists are not necessarily good choir-trainers, or not good enough in the cut-and-thrust recording world of today, and may not be good teachers. The profession has become more specialised, with the profile of those who are outstanding in each category correspondingly higher, but it remains the case that a musician is expected to wear several hats; the question these days is the pecking-order of the hats.
So there were hard questions about recording and touring and choral repertoire, alongside harder questions about the disciplines one was qualified to teach, the place one has reserved for music in worship, one’s capacity to encourage keyboard specialists when one has no keyboard skills oneself, and how one intends to revive the fortunes of the music society, which will mean conducting amateur orchestras. To satisfy the examiners, one needs to appear immensely solid in every department; to satisfy the students, one needs solidity tempered with charisma and, if possible, fame.
I wonder if there is another job on earth which has so many requirements and so few guidelines. I suspect that each college trying to find a director of music will come up with a different mix of all these ingredients, which no doubt will give rise to considerable disagreement as academics, priests and administrators visit on the candidates their view of what their college should be. Yet the requirements are not unreasonable, since they all come under the title of musician. If I ever thought that simply waving my arms about in the hope of sparking a memorable interpretation of a masterpiece was enough to qualify me for a job in music I realise now that I was being simplistic. I should have remembered that final exam at Oxford. And have undertaken some space travel.
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