The Doctor’s Orchestra concert – more reason to clap for the NHS
Clap your hands for doctor heroes! We all did it in early Covid lockdown days. That already feels like prehistory. The Pleistocovidcene era. This time, clap on 20th September, not in the street with pot banging, but at London’s Cadogan Hall. Online too. Meet The Doctors’ Orchestra, back on the concert platform after being silenced by social distancing measures. The quality of the timpani will be significantly improved.
Topping the bill, Matt Hancock, former Health Secretary. He’ll be belting out “I Wanna be Sedated” – a cover version of The Ramones’ 1978 pharmaceutically inspired hit. Fooled you! Of course, he isn’t, but with “Nothing to do, nowhere to go, oh” in the lyrics perhaps he should be.
The actual billing is: Smetana – “Overture, The Bartered Bride”; Brahms – “Symphony No.2”; Dvorak – “Cello Concerto”. A romantic German composer sandwiched between two Czechs. Both the Czechs highly patriotic; Brahms, from the less nationalistic school of German music.
The balance is intentional. Conductor, Stephen Brearley, a vascular surgeon by day, puts much thought into selecting programmes. So, a Wagner belter would be a no-no clash of Mittel-Europa cultures.
To Hitler, Brahms was iffy. In 1933, Adolf having recently become Chancellor, Brahms festivals in Hamburg and Vienna were disrupted by Nazi-inspired racist incidents. Wasn’t his name derived from the Jewish “Abrahamson”? The Fuhrer’s house conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, attempted to cast Brahms as a supporter of the Nazi “Volk” culture in two essays, but with little success. Off most concert bills.
The upcoming concert is for the charity Freedom from Torture. Composer choice is sensitive. With a full house, the medics hope to raise north of £40,000. Over their series of concerts, more than £250,000 has been donated. Freedom from Torture is not a pressure group. It is a practical care provider, giving therapeutic care for survivors of torture who seek protection in the UK.
Since it was established in 1985, over 57,000 survivors of torture have been referred to the organisation for help and it is one of the world’s largest torture treatment centres. That practical intervention motivates the members of the orchestra. So, it’s plain why Wagner spear waving might have been an iffy choice.
The programme is of broad appeal but carefully avoids cliché. A great balance across the light Smetana overture, refreshingly pastoral Brahms and the deep romanticism of the Dvorak concerto. None of these pieces are, technically, an amateur walk in the park. This orchestra will have to be at the top of its customary excellent form.
Full disclosure. Stephen Brearley is a good friend; always passionate about music, an interest indulged with great practical effect alongside his professional duties and an earlier spell as a leading light in the British Medical Association. I have long envied his baton-wielding exploits. Own up! We’ve all wanted to. It’s not well known, but I finally laid down my baton while unsuccessfully conducting an orchestral 78 RPM version of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No2. I fell off the kitchen chair, aged 5. Brearley persisted, to great effect.
This is his medic band’s twelfth concert. It is quite an achievement to herd a bunch of hard-pressed medics into a serious ensemble capable of attracting professional soloists to the same platform. Gemma Rosefield will perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto. She is a catch.
Gemma won the Pierre Fournier Award in 2007 and made her debut at the age of 16 in Oslo where she won first prize in the European Music for Youth competition, playing the Saint-Saëns concerto. Her many concert appearances attract universally rave reviews, and her discography has been well received.
She has been entrusted with the Prince Regent’s cello, made in Naples in 1704 by Alessandro Gagliani, apprenticed to Nicolo Amati and Antonio Stradivari, famed violin makers of Cremona. The Prince Regent – surprisingly a skilled cellist – was given it by the King of Spain. Gemma borrows it from the Royal Pavilion collection in Brighton. She will have it with her. When you see that cello gleaming warm red in the Cadogan Hall lights on the night, you will be in doubly exalted company.
There are lots of Doctors’ Orchestras out there, so many it’s confusing. Brearley’s Orchestra is upper case, THE DOCTORS’ ORCHESTRA (TDO). He also plays in the European Doctors Orchestra (EDO) but does not conduct it. Dodgy gig now that Brexit has kicked in. Then, there’s The London Doctors’ Orchestra, a group of medics who studied at Imperial and wanted to keep playing together afterwards. They seem to have gone to ground.
Some history. TDO is an offshoot from EDO but independent of it. EDO was asked to put on a concert in support of Freedom from Torture – then The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture – in 2010. This did not fit in with EDO’s existing schedule, so Brearley formed a “scratch band” of largely UK based EDO players plus pals. I remember that inaugural concert – all Beethoven – as an amazingly accomplished performance.
All TDO players are doctors, except for a few medical students and the odd guest. There are some doctor-harpists and tuba players but not many. Those instruments don’t go well with an itinerant career. Soloists are all professional and paid.
Several members of TDO were professional musicians before they took up medicine, including current orchestra leader, Rebecca Hirsch. She won most of the violin prizes at the Royal College of Music when a student, led the London Sinfonietta for a while, was also a soloist and has had several concertos written for her by living composers. Don’t expect to find a scratch surgery band.
Why do doctors do it? It is easy in these times when hard statistics reign omnipotent to forget that the practice of medicine is an art, based on science. Too often these days the science cart gets ahead of the art horse. In a tightly managed cost-conscious service with an emphasis on outputs, outcomes and box-ticking it is too easy to misidentify doctors as merely rude mechanicals.
In the 1990s, the then Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales, Sir Kenneth Calman, set up a small group to rekindle the connection between medicine and art. It was a gesture, but, I thought, an important one that got government support.
The Cadogan Hall Doctors’ Orchestra concert is a timely reminder that the professionals we admire and rely on so easily have their own hinterland. Reflect that the sentiment inspiring their playing in the concert hall infuses their practice on the ward. Music and medicine are not just about technical skills. Enjoy the concert they are thrilled to perform. There will be reasons aplenty to clap these players to the echo.