<p>A</a> populist plea for classical music</p>
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The deepest love isn't always love at first sight. You can groove to a pop song instantly, but there is rarely a lasting relationship like the lifelong romance you can have with a masterpiece. Love takes time and a receptive frame of mind.
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<p>Nice article! I, too, often connect better to a piece of music if someone passionate about it has shared with me what they love about it, and often what to listen for. Which is why it’s such a shame that the role of the arts journalist and critic is going the way of the dinosaur in all but the most major markets (and even at places like the NY Times they’re shrinking their classical coverage.)</p>
<p>I’ve signed up to take an online course in April on How to Listen to an Orchestra - S4Mu <a href=“http://s4mu.springformusic.com/about-s4mu/-[/url]”>http://s4mu.springformusic.com/about-s4mu/-</a> focused on the Spring for Music series in NYC- because even though I’m a regular concertgoer I don’t feel like I hear music as well at first as my more musical family members. It often takes me a number of hearings before I really start to sort it out and ‘get’ it. As the author of this piece says happened to her when playing the Mahler 9.</p>
<p>Her love of the music and wanting to share it with her friends - I think this is essential and something special that all of our musical children can bring to this world.</p>
<p>Love the phrase “musical Stockholm syndrome”, in reference to this student’s fantasy of locking a friend in a closet with food and music to listen to.</p>
<p>I need to hear music multiple times. It is as if it first has to be “entered” into my brain, and only after a first hearing can I then really experience it. I have the same experience with dance. I really benefit from seeing a performance more than once and, if affordable, do.</p>
<p>Many music organizations are now offering educational sessions, often a lecture, and/or question and answer afterward. I like the preconcert talks the best, because they often play parts of the pieces we will hear that evening so I can at least “enter” those.</p>
<p>The Boston Globe had an interesting, very hostile letter from a patron of the BSO concerning the inclusion of “new music” in concerts. This writer is correct in observing that many orchestras and ensembles sprinkle in a little new music with more traditional programming, and the result is often hostility and even walkouts. In the midst of this somewhat venomous letter, was the suggestion that the BO educate audiences before the concert.</p>
<p>The emphasis on outreach and education that is happening almost everywhere may be the answer in ensuring audiences for classical music, whether traditional or “new.” If food is offered with the lectures, it would almost be like that closet the student envisioned!</p>
<p>Great article!</p>
<p>I think the article is a little naive, and also a bit culturally insensitive. Do you really think that anyone locked in a closet with a Debussy string quartet will learn to love it? Maybe, but what about Wozzeck? I find that some serious music becomes less tolerable after multiple listenings (i.e., I ripped my son’s box set of Phillip Glass onto my iPod–after a while, the repetition became excruciating). Also, people with no background at all in Western classical music–including people from other cultures–may not automatically start loving it by listening to it.</p>
<p>I think it is the case that you like music better if you learn about it–perhaps even Wozzeck. Just listening may not be enough.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is naivete or cultural imperialism with the fantasy of locking someone into a room to listen to the music. Leaving out ‘modern’ classical music for a second, there is something to western classical music that if people start listening to it, seems to transcend culture and so forth. Isaac Stern in his memoirs noted the passion the Japanese people had for classical music, yet Japanese native music had little in common with western music. We hear reputedly of a passion for classical music in China and Korea (which at the very least, has translated into kids from those countries going into music in a big time way), again whose traditions are quite difference. The answer is that romantic,classical and baroque music have elements that appeal to the same thing pop music and other non classical forms do, the harmonic and melodic structures appeal to human emotions and that can transcend culture.</p>
<p>One of the issues classical music faces is that younger generations have this perception it is music for snooty, stuffy, older people, that it is music to put yourself to sleep by (where do you hear classical music? In bus terminals and train stations, designed to keep the savage crowds at peace). They are almost afraid to approach it, because it has that image, and the fantasy in the piece is not far off. When orchestra break that image, it seems to get younger audiences. I recently went to a LA Phil concert, which was not even romantic warhorses, and it had an audience demographic that made me look old (I usually am a bad in the arms), and from what I hear, that is what they routinely attract, saw a lot of young people on dates there (I cracked my son up, said it was the first time I have seen high heels outnumbering orthopedic shoes at a concert), and that is encouraging, and I think it is because they have gone out of their way to dispel that image. I think pre concert lectures are great (if they had half a brain, the NY Phil would hire Robert Greenberg to do the lectures), but it also means having a conductor who actually talks to the audience, and giving the sense that rather then being an elite cultural institution condescending to play for the audience, that rather it is a group of friends sharing their love of the music with the audience…I think the LA Phil has done it, it is far removed from a local relatively high level orchestra, that has been described, truthfully IMO, as a bunch of sour musicians going through the motions, bored with the audience as much as the audience is bored with them… 19th century decorum might thrill some, but as Stowkowski proved, personality matters, too, as does Dudamel. </p>
<p>Some argue that it is the warhorses orchestras play…and while I think there is some truth to that, I think that is people pushing their own agenda. As one music blog (there was a link on here someplace) put it, in most forms of music, ‘new music’ is eagerly anticipated, in classical music it is often met with dread…why? Frankly,because most of the new music that is being commissioned tends to be music that music critics and music professors can appreciate, it doesn’t have what prior generations of music have, the ability to move people automatically, it is ars gratia artis. Composers and critics are all enamored of tone rows and in the pure essence of minimalism, but it also can be difficult for audiences to attach to it. Put it this way, I have heard time and again that there hasn’t been time for people to learn to appreciate this music, that Beethoven and Mahler and Stravinsky had trouble getting some of their stuff accepted, but that leaves out something. Beethoven within 20 years of his death was being played routinely, including his late string quartets; the rite of spring (happy birthday!) supposedly caused riots, yet within 10 years of its premiere, it was routinely being performed…whereas, for example, 12 tone music has been around roughly 100 years, and has a hard time finding a regular audience. I think part of the problem is ideological rigidity, the idea expressed by Babbit and others that you totally had to throw away the past; it is why composers like Joan Tower and Jennifer Higdon and John Adams and Phillip glass have done well, it is because they (admittedly so), have thrown out the ideological fervor and write what they hear inside…I have read articles how the ideological wars have been fought and lost/won, how ‘anything goes’, but that isn’t what I hear in the concert halls, and I have heard over the past number of years, quite a few new pieces, and you could fool me that the rigidity is gone, someone is programming it. </p>
<p>Actually, I think where pop and rock music might be valuable is in teaching people just how much pop and rock share with classical, that for example a lot of rock music is basically a pasacaglia, or that in some of Boston’s songs there are some pretty clever keys being used, musical illusions, to give it the sound they had…maybe if they realize what they are listening to has a lot in common with classical music, it might get them curious. </p>
<p>It isn’t that learning about music is a bad thing, Aaron Copeland in his book "what to listen for in music’ highlighted the difference between ‘sensual listening’ and ‘informed listening’, and how it can be so much better to have a deeper understanding of a piece (and I don’t disagree, at all, I love listening to Beethoven, but I also have come to appreciate what he was doing musically). The problem is, if a piece needs to be understood only on its technical cleverness, on how the tone row was constructed, on the chord structure or that this represents ‘shifting the chord an augmented 5th above the root key’ (which could be gobbledygook, it is for illustration only)…if the beauty is in the structure only and the ears cannot hear it, it is going to have trouble, which has been the problem with modern music in a lot of cases. Critics may like Wozzeck and music professors, but many audiences,even if you explained to them how Berg used unique chord structures to achieve the weird sound, will not want to hear it twice. </p>
<p>To be honest, I described modern classical music as being the last vestiges of soviet style demand economies, where those programming and writing the music are telling you this is good for you and therefore this is what we are going to give you (I cracked my son up, I showed him the old Wendy’s commercial satirizing the Russian economy’s version of freedom of choice in the soviet era "Evening wear’ , “Day wear”, “Beach Wear” , where it is all the same outfit…_). Yes, I realize that art often isn’t easy, that it is supposed to be controversial, but the problem is, unlike Milton Babbit, I think music without an audience might be art, but it isn’t a performing art then, it is esoteric art.</p>
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I guess I just don’t believe this is true.</p>
<p>What don’t you believe is true, Hunt? That classical music is transcendent? Or that “modern” should not be excluded from the assessment?</p>
<p>That any kind of music is “transcendent” with respect to people from other cultures. I certainly think people can learn to like it, but I don’t think it’s any more inherently transcendent than, say, gamelan music or the monkey chant.</p>
<p>All I can say is the record is there, that classical music has spread into a lot of non western cultures, has been embraced by them, China, Korea and Japan. It isn’t unique to classical music, western style pop music has likewise spread to many corners of the globe, for similar reasons I think, and I think it is there are things in the music that touch people emotionally that yes, transcend cultural background. Like I said, Japanese traditional music is way, way different than classical music, yet the Japanese have a fondness for the form. </p>
<p>And with the internet, with the access to so much music of all kinds, the fact that other forms haven’t crossed that divide says something. It could be because a lot of music is ‘folk music’ that tends not to transcend barriers easily, I am not sure, folk music is very much a ‘local form’…</p>
<p>As far as new music goes, the reason it doesn’t do well isn’t because people aren’t exposed to it, it is because people are exposed to it and it simply doesn’t hit them the same way the earlier era music did, it became more of a mathematical and technical construct then one based on emotions…I don’t know how new music goes over in concert halls in Japan, for example, but I would be willing to be that ‘modern’ classical music of the type I am talking about probably doesn’t go over well. What is cool is that some modern music, being written by people like Bright Sheng and Tan Dun, are incorporating other music forms into classical music, and i think they are going to be more popular then a lot of what has been put out there. </p>
<p>BTW, before someone gets their nose out of joint, I am not claiming classical music is ‘superior’ to other forms, or other forms shouldn’t be played and enjoyed, what I am saying is that for whatever reasons, Classical music (and western pop music, too) has elements to it that have made it popular, and I don’t think it is about ‘learning about it’. Like I said, 12 tone has been played a lot in concerts ,been out there 100 years, and it is still not liked by the majority of classical music audiences.</p>
<p>I think there are other explanations for why Western art forms have spread around the world. Western movies are much more popular than movies from elsewhere, and I don’t think many people thing they are superior artistically.</p>
<p>It is very hard to say why anything is popular and why it isn’t, and there is sure no science really behind it. With music, actually, there is a little bit, if you read someone like Daniel Levitin, whose book “your brain on music” talks about how the brain processes music, there may very well be a scientific explanation for why one type of music resonates across groups and another doesn’t. The other thing is, there are always exceptions, western style classical music hasn’t been particularly popular in India, and it could be in that case it simply is India had quite an extensive form of ‘classical’ music of its own, whereas in other places, where music was primarily folk oriented, that it left a big hole that western music filled somehow, resonated…</p>
<p>Hunt makes some good points, as do others. I am glad that many music curricula now include ethnomusicology and, at least at the colleges I am familiar with, students also have a chance to work with instruments from cultures with different musical sensibilities and systems/scales and so on. Don’t know how much of this the writer is experiencing at Juilliard, but these experiences, including travel, are opening up some cool vistas for composers and musicians.</p>
<p>This article was evidently written by a very young person who is studying at one of the most elite conservatories, which may even be lonely for her. The article seems to just express a desire to share what she loves with friends who aren’t willing to slow down and listen. The fantasies certainly express a high level of frustration, but it may also be that bereft feeling we get when our “passions” start to separate us from friends and family.</p>
<p>Repetition and education help me absorb and enjoy music, but Hunt is right, there are times when you don’t want to hear a piece too many times!</p>
<p>I think the article is very good. More young musicians should put their views out there.</p>
<p>While it is relatively easy to classify baroque, classical, romantic etc. styles, “modern” music is all over the place. My daughter is currently performing a concerto written in 2009 that sounds in part from the Romantic era, and is very emotional. As a classical saxophonist she enjoys playing Phillip Glass, but would not want to hear it repeatedly because, it is already repetitive.</p>
<p>My daughter enjoys listening to and performing music by Takashi Yoshimatsu, a living Japanese composer. He is the composer of the “AstroBoy” theme music, but has also composed a number of saxophone pieces which are popular throughout the world. I’m sure his training is based on classical music, but I’m told that aspects of Japanese folk music are blended in to his works.</p>
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<p>I don’t know how much opportunity Juilliard students have to study ethnomusicology or other instruments and systems of other cultures. My daughter has not found an opportunity to do this, and has looked outside of her immediate environment to learn to play her own instrument in alternative styles. But, Juilliard does help support many student-led initiatives to many countries. My daughter traveled twice to Guatemala with Juilliard students with a project that brought music to children in Antigua. [url=<a href=“http://www.symphonynow.org/2012/06/rayos-de-cancion/]Rayos”>http://www.symphonynow.org/2012/06/rayos-de-cancion/]Rayos</a> de Canci</p>
<p>It is interesting that we are told one of the reasons classical music has in getting an audience it the lack of music in school kids have these days, yet what the article implies is that kids who once studied an instrument aren’t even listening to it, because they are put off by it, they are told it is culturally elite music, you have to have a degree in music to listen to it or a million bucks in the bank, that it is kind of like the great books, quoting Mark Twain “Great books are the books people think they should read, but don’t want to”…it is sad, because of course almost everyone does listen to classical music, without realizing it. Most people know the opening of Beethoven’s fifth, they know the ode to Joy from Beethoven’s ninth (aka the ‘die hard them’ <em>lol</em>), they know bachs toccata and fugue, and a lot of movie music, too (Shore’s Lord of the Rings music comes to mind)…</p>
<p>I don’t think people should listen only to classical music or that it is ‘better’ then other forms, I am saying that they lose something if they never experience it, that’s all. On the other hand, I also find sad people who want to call it ‘dead white men’s music’, if for anything, music is music, and as Ellington said, there are only 2 kinds, good and bad.</p>
<p>As far as composition being all over the place, in terms of what I see in the world of orchestral music, it doesn’t seem all that varied. Orpheus had their orpheus 440 program, and the people who won it all were in the mode of 20th century orthodoxy, and I have been in a lot of new music performances, both professional and young orchestras, and I can count on half the fingers on one hand pieces that were not in the 20th century new orthodox mode. When the NY Phil choose s composer in residence, they chose Magnus Lindberg, not someone along the lines Tan Dun or Bright Sheng or any number of composers who are experimenting with mixing music forms, and I think that said something. It is pretty sad that in the classical world, that ‘new music’ is equated to chalk on a blackboard in many people’s minds, but that has been their experience, and quite frankly, with some exceptions, mine. I can understand why academic music appeals to composers and to musicians and musicologists and critics, but as my son said about Webern, he is a lot more fun to play than to listen to.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with you about Project 440. None of the winners were mid century academic modernists - which is what you keep referring to. Maybe one… Although I certainly wouldn’t put Magnus Lindberg in that school. I’d say Orpheus probably picked some of the safer choices, and ones which were easiest to perform without a conductor. And have you heard Andrew Norman? He’s fun! And lively! Not at all difficult listening. (In full disclosure, my son was one of the finalists for that competition, so I may be skewed in my perspective. But my son certainly doesn’t write tone rows. American Vernacular is more often a description applied to his music. And it’s full of emotion, and a pleasure to play and hear.)</p>
<p>I have the feeling you may not be going to the most fun concerts! There are others out there beyond the NY Phil. A good calendar source for NYC concerts is the site [I</a> CARE IF YOU LISTEN<em>|</em>A blog about new classical music, art, and technology.](<a href=“http://www.icareifyoulisten.com%5DI”>http://www.icareifyoulisten.com). Reviews too. [url=<a href=“http://www.newmusicbox.com%5DNewMusicBox%5B/url”>http://www.newmusicbox.com]NewMusicBox[/url</a>] is another interesting forum for reading about the new music scene.</p>
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Well, that might put it a little stronger than I would, but I do think that forms of art with a lot of financial support are likely to push out those that don’t, and this may or may not relate to quality.</p>
<p>My son is also interested in writing music that people actually want to hear–which can sometimes be an issue in the world of academic composition.</p>
<p>Hunt, you characterize art music as “having a lot of financial support.” Most musicians and composers I know would be amused by that statement. </p>
<p>“My son is also interested in writing music that people actually want to hear.” Good for him-- he is pragmatic. Unlike all the young composers bent on writing music that no one wants to hear.*</p>
<p>The point of the original article quoted below is that classical music is seen something requiring effort and study to enjoy, whereas that is truly not the case. You immediately brought up Wozzeck, a ridiculous example, and not in the spirit of the essay. And you also started on about non-western cultures being unfamiliar with western tonality. Why reach for such examples when your real point is that you have a gripe with the current state of composition departments in the academy? You picked on the wrong essay.</p>
<p>I’m not an as much of a new music expert as SpiritManager, but I do sometimes write on these issues for magazines, and I understand what you are saying about academe-- a common observation that has been true for more than a century. I agree, art is often more robust and more daring when it’s created outside of a setting controlled by the reigning generation. Of course, this is a complex question not adequately addressed in a few sentences here.</p>
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<p>*I was being facetious, although I did recently attend a lecture/demo on electronic music featuring unpublished video clips by Milton Babbit, Mario Davidovsky, Bebbe Barron, Paul Lansky, and others, and was struck by how generally unconcerned these groundbreaking composers were with the actual listenabilty of what they were producing. However, this was a function of the groundbreaking technology shifts that were occurring. Much of the technology was terribly unwieldy-- so-called composers had to wait days to hear what they’d actually composed–they were preoccupied with punch-cards, and busy driving back and forth to Bell Labs to convert what they had written. In the interviews, the composers admit, with amusement, that the music was awful. But they were driving by novelty and the exhilaration of possibility. How exciting to be poised at a frontier, even if one’s pioneering work is only laying groundwork for what is to come. This season I’ve heard concerts of all-new electronic music (and yes, in a university setting) that is highly accessible.</p>
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Again, I’m not sure I agree with this. I don’t think there is something inherent to the music of Bach or Debussy that makes them enjoyable to anybody, irrespective of cultural background. Just think of how few people enjoyed “The Rite of Spring” when if first came out, and how normal it seems to many of us today. This is what I think is wrong with the initial essay–just that it goes overboard, in my opinion, with its claims about the universality of Western classical music.</p>
<p>My son was involved in a mini-controversy with some composition faculty about whether a composer should care about whether performers enjoyed playing his music. He thought that was important, but some composers disagreed.</p>
<p>Note: I do wonder why when the inaccessibility of 20th-century music is discussed, the counter-example of Leroy Anderson is rarely mentioned. There’s a guy whose music is enjoyed by everyone. I’m not sure if I’m kidding about that or not. His stuff certainly gets played more often then most contemporaneous music.</p>