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]

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...