The R.T.O.

By Carl Nielsen

Several years ago the then editor of Church & Life printed an article of mine entitled "Bad Art." Had I known at that time of The R.T.O.´s existence I would certainly have mentioned it, for it is a splendid example of bad art of the funny deliberate kind. There are two sorts of bad art, the inadvertent kind and that presented on purpose. Both can be very funny.

By now you might like to know what "The R.T.O." stands for. It stands for Really Terrible Orchestra. Although its founder is unknown to me, its most famous member, playing the bassoon, is Alexander McCall Smith of Scotland, the author of many books including the best-selling series starting with The No. 1 Ladies´ Detective Agency. Read it and you will devour all the rest.

Many of us music lovers and one-time players of instruments would be easily entitled to join The R.T.O. because it exists for people like me who really wanted to play but can not do so very well. In an essay entitled "And the Band Played Badly," Alexander McCall Smith describes what it is like to join the R.T.O. and be a performing member. He recalls the inherent frustration between people who are good players and those who, like me, are not. That is precisely why the R.T.O. was founded.

There is of course no audition prior to joining, but at one point a negative audition was considered in order to exclude those who were too good. For this there were no applicants. The lone professional is the conductor provided he or she has no formal attire and possesses a sense of humor and great tolerance. Several rehearsals were necessary before the first public performance, and this led to the vexing question of whether or not to charge admission. This idea was abandoned, however, as was the suggestion of paying people to attend.

Instead, it was finally decided to give attendees several glasses of free wine, an idea that, in Smith´s words, "helped a great deal."

Music critics have been unkind to the R.T.O. One wrote "How these people presume to play in public is quite beyond me," and another one simply said "Dire." Smith retorts that critics like these miss the point completely because the R.T.O. never claimed to be more than it is: an opportunity for the relentlessly untalented finally to do what they always wanted to do. Never mind that the R.T.O. plays irretrievably out of tune, or that upon occasion members have played different pieces of music at the same time. The R.T.O. is what it is, even if some think it dire.

But not so dire as to rule out an invitation to perform soon in New York City. This we learned from a recent television announcement, so I hasten to Inform Church & Life readers of the event, which is bound to be really enjoyable -- and really terrible.