The visit, we are told, served "to validate the town's importance as an artistic centre and to assuage any anxieties of provincialism". And, if their curators were so intent on making the connection, then why not do it in a way that was genuinely provocative rather than via this half-baked excuse for an exhibition?It is hardly as if the works are unavailable. But the very fact of these words confirms the abiding impression of St Ives as having just such a character - an impression created largely by the cultural imperialism of the American critic Clement Greenberg and supported, albeit unwittingly, via the acceptance of the laurels handed to Rothko and his fellow abstract expressionists by not only Lanyon, Heron, Scott and the St Ives painters, but by such French tachistes as Georges Mathieu. A relevant painting by Kline already hangs, isolated and unconnecting, in the gallery's atrium. Rather, the reason is that the American question is just too controversial and exciting a subject for a gallery increasingly characterised by its evasiveness and diffidence - a gallery that would rather devote half of its space to children's art workshops (an admirable impetus, but surely in moderation).There is nothing in the Rothko display or the catalogue that dares to challenge the received orthodoxy that modern abstract art was made in America. Rothko is repeatedly referred to as "the visiting dignitary" - "a great man" - and we are asked to marvel at how this messiah could actually exhibit human tendencies "He is remembered to have enjoyed himself dancing" [No!] .. "and finally, helping with the washing up" [Gasp!].
Surely, though, the Tate St Ives is the very place for such a confrontation - the evidence of our eyes being the most persuasive argument. The result is a polite nod at an emotive subject and, in effect, an embarrassing admission of a connection that cannot be ignored but that - one has the impression - is thought better left well alone. For over 20 years, the St Ives artist Patrick Heron has been banging away on the subject of "Who did it first?" Did the Americans or the St Ives artists "invent" and refine the form of abstract expressionism prevalent in the late 1950s? Did Morris Louis produce horizontal stripe paintings before Heron, or vice versa? Was Peter Lanyon influenced by De Kooning, or vice versa? How does William Scott relate to Robert Motherwell? Heron has produced detailed evidence to support his pro-Cornish theories and this is not the place to support or counter these in detail, save to say that they do give good pause for thought. Quite what the Tate thinks it has achieved with its elegant but minimal showcase of three works by Rothko, from its own London collection, is still unclear to me. Presumably we are supposed to draw parallels between Rothko and the St Ives artists of his generation. But if this is the intention, it is thwarted by the fact that the Rothkos are hung together, on their own, several rooms away from the works with which they would make the greatest sense when read in conjunction. To explain the reason for this American infiltration of its apparently otherwise solely Cornish collection, the Tate has produced a few explanatory plaques and the aforementioned catalogue. This disingenuous exhibition will not tell you anything you don't already know.
But before you set off on a long train journey to the Cornish Riviera, be warned. "In August 1959, the American artist Mark Rothko visited St Ives". This bland statement opens the slim catalogue for "Mark Rothko in Cornwall", the Tate St Ives's latest display. But then wild and wacky is all but written into its heaving sound masses, its seismic brass and siren-led percussion Rites of passage to new worlds What a blast for the NYO And us.. And the band way too big, of course.Still, I've heard professional bands swing less convincingly ("slap that bass" and give the player a round) Invaluable lessons in style were plainly being learnt. But when the lessons are over, something has to give, and even as the big guns came out for Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, you couldn't help thinking that, having worked so hard to get these fearsome notes under their fingers, they might have been encouraged to live more dangerously - outlaw caution, excite rhythm This Rite was sound, not irresistible Varese's Ameriques was.
Perhaps if she'd tried simply singing instead of "performing" them The whole sorry set was embarrassingly counterfeit. I hate to be a party-pooper, but don't even think about playing fast and loose with classic Gershwin songs unless you're sure of your credentials Burgess is a talented singer, but she's no jazz singer. Chic in a sequined figure-hugger, she certainly looked the cabaret queen, but what was she doing with her voice? It's like she had no idea where to place these songs. The mix wasn't working, the raspy chest tones came and went like crashed gears The amplification stank. What kind of Charleston is it that doesn't kick up its heels? It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.Someone should have told Sally Burgess. Conductor Paul Daniel gave them plenty of room for reflection, sleek oboe and cor anglais solos (and one deliciously sleepy tuba) lending enchantment. And yet, while the spirit occasionally moved (pretty decent trumpet blues, though not nearly enough curling saxophone), there still remained a sense that these youngsters were up past their bedtime.
The eponymous American in Paris occupied the centre- ground of this gaudily ambitious programme - just the job for harnessing the energies of so much young blood. "Harlem always had more churches than cabarets," said Ellington, and as the drums slammed and trumpets stopped up to scream-threshold, it was as if those churches had simultaneously emptied their colourful processions on to the streets around Kensington Gore.Meanwhile, in Saturday's National Youth Orchestra Prom, Edgard Varese and Georgc Gershwin were on cultural exchange - somewhere between Ameriques and La Belle France. Duke Ellington's steamy, pile-driving orchestral tone-poem had the BBC Symphony stretching and bending those big-band tuttis like this is what they did after hours. A broken string in the finale only served to contribute to the general air of disquiet.And then Harlem came to town and blew us all out of the ball park. Lampooning it on the organ was Charles Ives's favourite boyhood pastime - almost as much fun as a ball-game, he later recalled. Perhaps someone should have persuaded Simon Preston (gainfully employed to cry havoc in Copland's youthful Organ Symphony) to take a home run at it on the Albert Hall organ.