Well, friends, this is turning out to be a very long one, so here’s part one. I haven’t written out any of part two or its inevitable successors, but I feel like this gives you plenty to think about in the meantime. Hopefully discussions resulting from this entry will shape its successor(s). Oh man! So much more to say. This barely scratches the surface.
Classical music has a problem. In fact, it has a big problem. I would say that it is dying, but I don’t think that’s correct. Classical music is already dead. It’s not being written anymore. It lives on only through performance; so when I say classical music has a problem, I really mean that the performance of all music directly linked to the classical style has a problem. This is what is truly dying, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s understand this point and just say that classical music is dying. (Let’s also limit this to this country - mostly. I don’t really have much insight into what’s going on elsewhere.) Trust me. It will be easier this way. If you are unwilling to accept that classical music is dying, it’s time to wake up; however, I don’t think it is yet time to call in the undertaker.
I think it’s important to talk about this problem and express any ideas you may have about it. We need someone with a spark of inspiration and a new idea. Who knows who that will be? That person might be you. I know a lot of people who either have or are in the process of devoting their life to classical music or jazz and it would be foolish of me not to admit that I am in some ways inextricably linked to its fate as well. So, this is important. Let’s think this through. What is the current state of things? What caused this? What is being done to fix this? Is there anything we can do? I don’t pretend to think that I can answer all of these questions or even one of them completely, but I’m going to throw everything I’ve got out there. Maybe we can make some sense of this.
While I mention it, I think it’s important to get something straight about jazz. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not stretching the truth to lump jazz into the same category as classical music. Really, it’s not faring any better than classical music, and it shares many of the same problems. If you disagree, please show me otherwise. That would make me very happy.
So, shall we?
If I had to describe the problem with classical music with one word, I would choose stubbornness. Cluelessness is right up there too, but really, I think stubbornness is the way to go. I want you to stop right now, follow this link and read this article:
Really, if you are ignoring the link, go back and read the article. I just stopped writing to re-read it, so you should go read it too. Good article, right? There’s some really interesting stuff in it. Now, what’s the first thing that strikes you? I made several friends read it in front of me so I could secretly gauge their initial response (yes, I’m occasionally evil). The most common first response was: “I didn’t know Mahler came to Rochester!” Even after discussing the article with these friends, my own initial response never came up without me mentioning it. What got me right away is that in 106 years, it seems that the vast majority of orchestras, both major and smaller city orchestras, have not fundamentally changed the way they program music. Look how much the face of music, both orchestral and otherwise, has changed in the last 100 years, and ask yourself if this makes any sense at all. Hasn’t anybody thought of a way to improve on this or at least make it more relevant to our current day lives? Maybe someone has. I have not gone through a complete survey of orchestra programming, but in my experience I haven’t seen anything that different from Mahler’s vision. Maybe the person who had a brilliant idea was shot down in favor of the old traditions? What an interesting topic for study.
The important point is that, largely, programming for orchestras has not changed in 106 years. Guess what? Neither has the repertoire (largely). I’m beginning to sense a pattern. I firmly believe that it’s more an overwhelming send of pride and stubbornness that’s preventing innovation in the orchestral world. I don’t believe for a second that there haven’t been brilliant musical ideas since 1907. I do, however, believe that the majority of those running orchestras or conducting orchestras today believe that classical music is somehow more intellectually important and correct than other types of music and thus the well-thought-out traditions governing it should be preserved for the betterment of mankind. Furthermore, I think the result of this is that many of these orchestral bigwigs believe that the right approach is to wait until the public magically decides that the stuffy old people were right all along and classical music is really the way to go. I’m building to an analogy, so let’s bring Europe into this very briefly. This is one of my favorite ensembles:
It’s the Vienna Philharmonic (credit Terry Linke). Take a good look. There are men and lots of them. Not 100% men, but seriously, that’s a lot of men.
Analogy time! Putting this all together, we have an organization largely dominated by men in important roles, unwilling to change, absolutely sure they know what’s best, secure in its high-mightiness, and holding out until the rest of the world discovers that the old ways are really the way to go. This in the context of a world that has, arguably, changed more dramatically in the last 125 years than it has during any other period during that last several thousand years. If you take these last two sentences out of the context of this blog, I bet most people would think I was criticizing the Roman Catholic Church. I have very strong opinions about this church, but I’m going to try to keep most of that out of this. I simply want to point out a couple of things. Many people are losing faith in the Roman Catholic Church (especially in this country), especially young people. Meanwhile, the church clings to old traditions (like not allowing women to become priests, not allowing priests to marry, and clinging to the idea that celibate old men are experts in natural, human sexual conduct) and people become further alienated. If that goes too far for some of you I apologize, but I want to state my case as clearly as I can. Anyway, people are leaving the faith in droves and the result is that churches are closing. There are less people willing to preach and less people willing to listen. The church will always go on I’m sure, but if things don’t change, I really think the Roman Catholic Church will become far smaller and far less powerful than it is now. It’s a new time with new problems and new ideas and people are looking for something that is in tune with these new principles, not something that tells them they really need to go back and re-evaluate everything around them in favor of the old ways.
This is exactly the problem facing classical music. The traditional approach may be fine for the faithful, but it’s not going to work for a more mainstream audience. If things don’t change, the audience will not come. I am one of the faithful. Personally, I love classical music as it is. It’s pretty pitch perfect for me (see what I did there?), but I am not a mainstream person. At the same time, I know it is downright suicide to defend classical music as it stands. If I want it to go on, I need to encourage it to change, and I need to help it to change. I’m reminded of the title of a musical about the nature of relationships that I’ve never even seen, but it’s a perfect expression of how I feel towards classical music:
“I love you, you’re perfect, now change.”
To be continued…
