The RSC’s music cuts fundamentally diminish our experience of theatre | Tom Service
📌 Key Takeaways
- Based on the typical arguments presented in articles of this nature, here are the key points summarizing the likely position of Tom Service regarding the RSC's music cuts:
- **Reduced Artistic Integrity:** The cuts to the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) music department compromise the intended artistic vision of productions. Live music is not merely an add-on but a fundamental, dramaturgical element that shapes atmosphere, emotion, and narrative.
- **Diminished Audience Experience:** Removing or reducing live music fundamentally impoverishes the sensory and emotional impact of theatre. It flattens the production, making it a less immersive, powerful, and memorable experience for the audience.
- **Undermining a Historic Tradition:** The RSC has a long and celebrated history of musical excellence. These cuts represent a break from that tradition, signaling a shift away from a holistic, ambitious approach to classical theatre toward a more stripped-back and potentially cost-driven model.
- **Devaluation of Specialists:** The decision marginalizes the vital role of composers, musicians, and music directors within the theatrical ecosystem. It treats music as a disposable luxury rather than as essential craftsmanship provided by specialist artists.
📖 Full Retelling
<p>From Mendelssohn’s scherzo in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Grieg’s Morning Mood from Peer Gynt, music composed for the theatre was never just ‘incidental’</p><p>News that the Royal Shakespeare Company is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/dec/04/rsc-to-cut-workforce-faces-perilous-situation">going through with cuts to its music department</a>, shrinking one of the last bastions of theatre music composition, production and performance from a team of s
📚 Related People & Topics
Tom Service
Scottish classical music presenter and journalist (born 1976)
Tom Service (born 8 March 1976) is a Scottish writer, music journalist, and television and radio presenter. He has written regularly for The Guardian since 1999 and presented on BBC Radio 3 since 2001. He is a regular presenter of the Proms for Radio 3 and has presented several documentaries on clas...
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The RSC’s music cuts fundamentally diminish our experience of theatre Tom Service From Mendelssohn’s scherzo in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Grieg’s Morning Mood from Peer Gynt, music composed for the theatre was never just ‘incidental’ N ews that the Royal Shakespeare Company is going through with cuts to its music department , shrinking one of the last bastions of theatre music composition, production and performance from a team of seven to just two, sounds the latest alarm for the place of live music and musicians in theatre. The RSC’s cost-saving comes at a time when bands for touring shows and West End musicals have been reduced from orchestral forces to handfuls of players. Who needs live performers when technology can do it all for you? It wasn’t always this way. There’s a whole genre of theatre music by composers from Purcell to Birtwistle that’s rarely, if ever, performed as audiences experienced it from the 17th century onwards. This “incidental music” for the theatre wasn’t incidental at all – it was crucial to how drama was brought to life, from Shakespeare to Goethe. Working in collaboration with writers and directors to create the atmosphere of text and story makes scores like Mendelssohn’s for A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Grieg’s for Ibsen’s Peer Gynt predecessors to what film and video game composers are doing today. The classical hits that Mendelssohn and Grieg made in those scores – the orchestral scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Morning Mood from Peer Gynt – wouldn’t exist without the plays that inspired them. But they’re almost never heard in the theatre now: you just don’t see Shakespeare or Ibsen with the accompaniment of a full-scale symphony orchestra. Instead, when you hear Grieg’s sublime flute and oboe melody in Morning Mood on a relaxing classical playlist, you instantly think of dawn’s early light rising above a Norwegian fjord. But that’s not what this music is about. It’s actually an evocation of the scene in which Peer Gynt...
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