If I had that kind of money...

[steepholm]

... I wouldn't spend $140,000,000 (£73 million, then) on a Klimt, $104,000,000 on a Picasso, or even $60,000,000 on a Cezanne. Not because I'm stingy or hate art, but because I have another use for the cash, one that used to be common amongst Very Rich People but has fallen into inexplicable disuse. Even at today's low interest rates, the income from that kind of sum would be ample for my purposes.

What I'd really like is to employ my own small chamber orchestra - or, if money were really tight, a consort of viols. Then, whenever I felt melancholy or had friends round for dinner I could make like Duke Orsino, clap my hands and cry "Music, ho!" And, either in a corner of the orangery or possibly from behind a Coromandel screen, the strains of Dowland or Gibbons would well up, bringing tears of pleasure to all who heard. The pictures on my walls might be reproductions, but the music would be the real thing, and different every time.

Is this not an enchanting vision? It was common enough in the Renaissance, and there are plenty of people who could afford it today. But who does? Unlike a dusty canvas sitting (like as not) in a bank vault, it would give continuing employment to jobbing musicians, and allow me to become the centre of a salon like the patrons of old, whether or not I had any talent myself. Alas, musicians, unlike old masters, do not appreciate with age, and I fear that most rich people's love of art is more than a little tainted with a love of investment potential - but I say, come on Charles Saatchi, pull your finger out! Make like a good investor and diversify your portfolio! Give the other muses a chance to shine! (And by the way, if you want any children's stories for your collection, PM me.)

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Hmm... The thing that worries me is this: what would your orchestra do when you weren't feeling melancholy or didn't have friends around? What if you lived in a state of contended solitude for three weeks on end, happy to enjoy no more music that the singing of the birds? Would your orchestra have to sit in a state of permanent readiness, unable to eat to drink in case the cry of "Music, ho!" should happen. I imagine they'd have to sleep in shifts with a "ho!" monitor listening for the summons, or maybe they'd become experts at reading the subtle clues in your mood that indicated whether music was imminent. ("We're currently on an amber music alert, so have upped our watchfulness.")

Um... Sorry for totally missing you point. It's just something that's always niggled at me when I watch historical films or read historical novels.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize - it's an excellent point. You're quite right, if I want twenty-four hour ho-service (now that does sound a little dodgy) then I'll have to arrange my consort in shifts. I could have consorts A, B and C - each "on call" for a certain number of hours at a time. When I'm not actually requiring their services they'd be expected to rehearse and maybe also to make commercial recordings in my private studio, to the proceeds of which I would of course be entitled; but otherwise I'll just install cable in the converted stable block where I'm planning to house them (next to the troupe of tumblers), and let them chill.

Occasionally, though, I'll gather the lot of them together and get them to play from my barge as we ply our way up the Thames. It'll be awesome.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

You could probably also hire them out to follow romantic heroines around, ready to play surging string music when she has an epiphany on a wind-swept moor, or finally falls into the arms of her one true love. Romantic costume dramas always make me worry about the welfare of the orchestra that follows the heroine around. Do they ever catch their death of cold while hiding behind picturesque rock formations, waiting for the heroine to have her epiphany? Does a heroine crossed in love ever take her fury out on the viola section? Do we have territorial disputes between the orchestra of heroine A and that of heroine B if the heroines are busy achieving their awakening on adjacent moors?

So, um, anyway... It would be a public service, it would bring the joys of music to a wider audience, and it would give employment to your off-duty consorts. What's not to like?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I could also hire out individual musicians to announce people by way of a distinctive personal theme. A plangent trill from a tin whistle for the red-haired colleen, a few cumbrous oompahs from the euphonium for the Comedy Fat Bloke, and so on. Never again need one enter a room unnoticed!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

And wouldn't it be useful if everyone we met had a personal musician playing their own distinctive personal theme? You'd know instantly who to trust, and who was secretly a moustache-twirling villain underneath their smiling exterior.

However, I fear that this is veering into Brave Sir Robin territory...

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I think it's a better idea. Or even just ... something a bit more philanthropic, like a wing of a museum, or a donation that gave one a special permission to visit a museum at will.

You could have the musicians AND offer free concerts with them...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You could have the musicians AND offer free concerts with them...

See my answer to ladyofastolat above! The Barge Concerts could quickly become the stuff of viol-consort legend.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

yep! One of my favourite uses of government arts money in the us was a ballet company that took fair wages, hired an orchestra to record the music for performances, and then used the bulk of the money to subsidise ticket costs in order to attract a 'non-traditional', i.e., 'can never afford to go to the ballet so have never gone' audience. I think tickets were $8 for adults and $5 for kids. This was in Atlanta, and I went twice. The audience was predominantly African-American families, mostly just mothers or grandmothers and kids.

[paulathomas.livejournal.com]

For me the application would have to have scientific purpose.

Catherine the Great, in common with many other rich people, particularly heads of state, at that time employed a mathematician. In her case it was the greatest of the time, and possibly of all time, Leonhard Euler.

I'd like to bring that tradition back and one of her jobs would be to teach me, but plenty of time and resources would be devoted to research.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

An excellent idea! Though we must be careful: didn't Descartes catch his death from tutoring the queen of Sweden in the chilly early mornings? And I seem to remember that Tycho Brahe's end resulted from his being too embarrassed to get up from the banqueting table of the Emperor Rudolf to go to the toilet, with fatal results to his bladder.

I will be far more considerate of Professor Hawking.

[paulathomas.livejournal.com]

Yeah but Descartes' day job was mercenary soldier so I have no sympathy really.

Tycho Brahe is more complicated he probably died of mercury poisoning from the medicine he used to try to treat himself for the bladder infection which, indeed may have been caused inn the way you describe.

A second option would be to follow in Belgium Industrialist Ernst Solvay's footsteps and found a conference once a year at which he was able to exchange ideas with the greatest physicists of his day.

It was at the 1927 conference, attended by Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, De Broglie, Marie Curie, Dirac, Planck, Lorenz and the distinctly unpleasant Pauli, that the Bohr-Einstein debates occured.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Wow - I'd completely not taken in that Marie Curie was still around at that date. And in fact was only 60.

(Curious fact about Dirac - he went to the same Bristol primary school as Archibald Leach, aka Cary Grant. Could this be the only time that an Oscar winner shared a primary school with a physics Nobel Prize winner?)

[paulathomas.livejournal.com]

Ah yes Cary Grant now their is a family story about him. Many years ago when my sister, who is now in her sixties, was in a push chair she was with my parents in a narrow footpath in Borhemwood when Cary Grant was walking in the opposite direction. Now what was Cary Grant doing there? Well Elstree film studios was nearby.

Oh and my sister later married a TV exec.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love your plan.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

A chamber orchestra would be delightful, but what about a household poet, to recite occasional poetry on demand? If the poet could play lute, then you'd have a musician AND poet who can both serenade you and record your deeds in verse!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Might that be seen as giving myself airs? ;)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

*groan*

[owlfish]

I love this idea!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

"Music, ho!"

My mind automatically adds "Such as charmeth sleep!" which might be counterproductive.