This year Weidenfeld and Nicholson is publishing a superb new book: The Triumph of Music in the Modern World by Cambridge Professor T.C.W Blanning. (I say ‘superb’ from experience as I read the book prior to publication). In this lively study Blanning traces the change of status both of musicians and music over several centuries, especially since the mid-18th century. His overall thesis is that music has never had it so good. It is now by far the most pervasive and popular of the arts, and some of its practitioners are paid way beyond what an artist, even a David Hockney, or a novelist, such as Martin Amis, might in his wildest dreams hope for. At its dizzying height stands (to date, as far as I know) the $80 million recording contract offered to Robbie Williams. With unwitting foresight Walter Pater wrote in the 1870s ‘All art constantly aspires to the condition of music’ – all we have now is to add that all artists aspire to the condition of some musicians’ bank balances!

Further down the salary scale performing musicians can earn a more than reasonable annual income, even though many complain bitterly. But it must have surprised some when nearly twenty years ago the Labour leader John Smith proposed a surtax on the top 10% of earners, which at the time included anyone making over £20,000 per annum. Almost at the same time it was revealed in the fly-on-the-wall documentary The House that orchestral players at Covent Garden earned in excess of £30,000, considerably more than what nurses or, even, barristers or accountants earned at the time at the outset of their careers.

Blanning’s grand historical perspective helps us distance ourselves from our daily gripes to see a broader picture. Composers and performers were much less valued and paid in the 18th century than they are today. When Haydn’s employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, died in 1790 his orchestra was sacked without a pension and with no guarantee of any future employment, though Haydn was protected by a pension from the Esterhazys, and what has enabled musicians to be much more secure today: the public domain. In London Haydn became rich as a freelance, not something he could have done in the differently organized musical life of Vienna.

Haydn died in 1809, the same year that Mendelssohn was born, and the difference between their two professional careers is interesting. Whatever else, both illustrate one aspect that has ensured the ‘triumph’ of musicians over the last two hundred years: adaptability. Mendelssohn was a model of the adaptable, versatile musician, equally skilled at composing, conducting, playing several instruments and exploring the history of his art. In his wake conservatoires, and later university music departments sprang up high mindedly devoted to promoting such versatility as a goal, Professionally, Mendelssohn would have survived well in any age; it was his health and temperament that betrayed him.

But triumphs can all too easily be followed by falls. Popularity is fickle, money can get tight and tastes change. Can the hopeful students of today’s universities, specialist schools or conservatoires still claim to be Mendelssohn’s heirs? And if not, is it because Mendelssohnian versatility is being systematically removed from young musicians? Is the replacement of wide historical knowledge by narrow specialisms or brute ignorance, or the growing lack of understanding of the basic grammar of music more sinister than just an ideological shift? Is the systematic removal of Mendelssohnian adaptability enjoyed by such musicians as Shostakovich, Britten or Adès a move to undermine the potential survival of all musicians, who look to their education to provide them with what they will need to secure their futures? Can music still triumph if would-be professional musicians are denied Mendelssohnian ideals and skills? I hope so, but I watch with eagle eyes for the harbingers of the end, not resigned like Wotan, but with sword in hand.

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