So you are not too keen on exercise on Sunday mornings, Alistair! What Uncle Henry and I would both like to hear is more of your music. How about a performance broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, perhaps from the Proms or something like that?
That is all very well - and my exercising habits, such as they might be, are of no concern to members here - but the latter sentence should be read in the context of the fact that, over the past few weeks, you have aired on this public forum what appeared to be your intent to commission a work from me; had you instead put this project of your own sole devising to me in private correspondence I would accordingly have confined my response to a private one but, in view of the circumstances, it seems appropriate to account here for the events relating to this, even though its only conceivable connection with the thread topic "Education" might be that what I am about to relate be educative of the forum membership as a whole in respect of one of its members.
The history of this matter is as follows.
You announce on this forum your intent to commission from me an oratorio-like work for voices and orchestra on a Biblical text that you suggest, with a view to having it premièred in a BBC Proms season by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra without first approaching that orchestra about it and without, as it turns out, having any contacts within that orchestra in particular or BBC in general with whom to discuss it.
You ask if I accept this commission and I politely decline on the grounds that the text does not appeal.
You than ask if a purely orchestral work would be in order instead; I state that I see no reason why not.
An approximate duration of 25 minutes for such a work is agreed and you ask what fee I would require for writing this work; in response, I provide some general information to you about orchestral commissions.
You then advise that you will be sending to me a cheque in a specific sum of your own choice for this, despite no contract having first been drawn up for this commission.
Next, you ask if I have cashed your cheque before any such cheque has been received; I advise you accordingly.
You assure me that I will receive it very shortly.
It arrives and I mail it to my bank which credits it to my account.
Two days later, your cheque bounces and is marked “refer to drawer”, which usually indicates insufficient funds on the payer’s account.
I notify you of this; you assure me that there
are sufficient funds and that, as you have no idea why the organisation with whom you have an account has nevertheless declined to honour your cheque, you would contact them to ascertain the reason for this.
You ignore for a time my suggestion that a direct bank transfer is the usual way to send such funds as it is faster and far more secure; instead, you write of sending a second cheque.
In the absence of explanation as to why your cheque had not been honoured, you eventually advise that you will indeed make a bank transfer.
In the meantime, you make comments on the forum that suggest that I hold the view that the sum sent is insufficient for such a work and wonder if I might instead write something for smaller forces; I had made no such statement and it would have been both exceedingly rude and inappropriate for me to do this.
No bank transfer materialises; you assure me that its receipt is imminent despite the fact that such transactions are usually completed on the day on which they commence.
Despite all of your assurances, you then state that you are tempted to abandon this project on the grounds of insufficient interest in it, without stating whose interest you might have expected to elicit in a project which had from the outset been yours alone, it is perhaps unsurprising that, in so doing, you make no request that I return your payment to you upon receipt of it, for reasons that are by this time blindingly obvious.
Throughout this saga, I have taken you and your project in good faith and corresponded with you accordingly. Accordingly, I have planned out the work in some detail and engaged the services of a typesetter to prepare the finished product, including the extraction of orchestral parts, upon completion.
I have no idea what kind of conduct you consider this to be or whether you have previously done anything similar but, considered dispassionately, it would be hard to regard it as other than bizarre, unprofessional and misleading at best and thoroughly dishonest at worst.
This has all caused considerable embarrassment which appears nevertheless to be of scant concern to you, not least in the light of your recent forum post in which you blithely write
"What [another forum member] and I would both like to hear is more of your music. How about a performance broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, perhaps from the Proms or something like that?"…
I have no idea what other members here might think about the above but, as far as I am concerned, this sorry tale speaks all too eloquently for itself.
In the light of the above, my continued membership of this forum might seem questionable, but that is in the first instance a matter for the Administration, as indeed might be the retention of this post on the forum.