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…
Well, talking down on classic music and roman catholicism is kind of my deal, so yeah.
ReplyDeleteI think the way it's made available to audiences is pretty important - there's an argument made in a book I have called "Music & the Mind" (sort of pop BCS) that really talks about how our musical tastes form. Let's be honest here - I never got any sort of exposure whatsoever to classic music when I was young and I'd be happy to suggest that as a reason why I can't deal with it now, but would rather listen to indie, rock, chiptunes, big band, etc. I'd be interested to pass that book on to you and see how it influences this feeling of yours.
Also, jazz does have something of a similar problem, or at least the Wynton Marsalis Jazz as a cultural heritage project. There are a few people still making new interesting stuff like Brad Mehldau, but it isn't overcoming the notion for some people that jazz is a tradition and not living music (which is what any good genre needs to be).
Lulz, roman catholicism. What a sinking ship.
The impression I get from the article is that Mahler's programming was geared more toward the living qualities of classical music, and that it was actually Toscanini who favored the more traditional approach that has most noticeably prevailed in America. Do you think that we need to pick up where Mahler left off, or were they both wrong?
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the stubbornness of orchestras/classical musicians against change, and it reminds me of something Mark Lusk always says:
"You can't expect your music to mean something to someone else if it doesn't mean anything to you."
As long as musicians continue to play the standard repertoire long after they've lost inspiration, these problems will continue. If they also don't care about the music that's being written now, audiences cannot be expected to care about it either.
Mahler's reason for coming to America was to find less prejudiced audiences and more responsive musicians. I wonder if they haven't already moved on?
- a pretty sad panda
That's really interesting Ben David! There is both subtlety and complexity here that I'm going to need to think about.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the Mahler article, the impression that I got is that Mahler was successful over Toscanini and his model was largely adopted for programming. I feel that at some point between 1907 and now Mahler's model stopped working and nobody really bothered to fix it.
So, in the end, Mahler saw a problem with the Toscanini model. He saw that it was out of date and needed changing, so he changed it. I believe that Mahler's model is now out of date and needs someone to come and change it.
I don't think Mahler was wrong; in fact, I think he was perfectly correct for the state of classical music during his time. Due to reasons out of Mahler's control, the state of classical music has changed so dramatically that Mahler's model has broken down.
Briefly, here's where I think things started breaking down:
- Mahler appears to put equal weight in the opinions of critics and the public. That may have worked 100 years ago, but in today's society, the public always holds more power than the critics. Look at movie box office numbers.
- The model breaks down when the public abandons you. Clearly, much of the public has abandoned classical music. I usually place blame for this on the Second Viennese School, but there are plenty of other factors. If the public does not appreciate what new music is being written, then Mahler's model/thoughts suggest that you stick to the old repertoire. Fast forward 80 years or so, and I think that is where we are stuck.
Really I think another blog entry is going to need to happen addressing more of this stuff!