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The end of classical music?October 28th, 2008
This topic has already been discussed extensively: classical music is a thing of the past and is thus doomed to extinction. Don’t you see all those “white hairs” in concert halls?
Thanks to a post in muse affiliée, I’ve recently discovered an article by conductor Leon Bolstein, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
Against all expectation, this article was published in the Wall Street Journal and confirmed what I was thinking: no, classical music isn’t dead, but quite the opposite, concerts are going well. The number of concerts has exponentially increased during the last forty years, the number of professional orchestras too. More and more young people learn to play an instrument. “An ageing public” you’d say? Classical music has never been a young people’s affair until now, and efforts made to rejuvenate the image of classical music and get new audience have just begun to bear fruit.
Would the sound reproduction be an impediment to the live concert? Would the multimedia change the culture consumer’s behavior by allowing him to do his own home-concert? Though conceivable, this trend won’t grow and won’t be harmful to the concert, but quite the opposite. No hi-fi system will replace the unique experience of the live performance. On the contrary, discs and mp3s can make a new audience go to concerts.
These days, live performance is going well, even if we’d have to find a more flexible concept of concert allowing an audience less accustomed to the concert ritual to swell the ranks of classical music lovers. Hard to please a potential audience without dissatisfying the existing one, but with time we will make it.
And now a question for you, dear readers: how should we improve classical music concerts?
05/5/10 - 15:05
Hi
I think it’s important to note that there is no new classical music, certainly none that is any good. Classical music ended, for me after the minimalism of Glass,Reich et al.
To improve concerts I think Classical music performers should share the stage with musicians from other music genres. Of course this has been done (Nyman, etc.) but it should be done more often. “World music” is important as well and tends to get overlooked.
Simon
05/9/10 - 22:55
The classical music repertoire is so deep and rich. Furthermore, while the giants have been performed, recorded, and analyzed greatly, there are many lesser known Baroque, Classical and Romantic composers waiting to be discovered. Furthermore, I think the modern repertoire has yet to be explored fully by the audience. Bartok, Stravinsky, Ravel and Prokofiev are giants of the 20th century and yet only a handful of their works are explored. There’s also minimalism, which I have no really listened to. But just from Bach to Bartok lies vast repertoires just waiting to be unleashed. I don’t know if we really need “new” classical music to continue its popularity.
05/9/10 - 22:58
Rather I think it’s the marketing. Classical music is holed up behind ivory towers and younger people do not think it’s accessible to them. If everyone was exposed to someone playing, say, a Paganini caprice, they should at least be mesmerized by the virtuosity, which will lead to higher curiosity about classical music.
06/25/10 - 18:49
While many orchestras (such as the Atlanta Symphony) are making great strides in the department of adding exciting new works to the repertoire, I think few are addressing the underlying barriers to concert attendance. I don’t mean ticket prices, since those probably can’t go much lower and many orchestras have many free ticket outreach programs. What I mean is the sheer formality of the event. What is so horrible about clapping after an exuberant and well played first movement? Why shouldn’t the players come meet the audience members after the show? Why must the orchestra wear tuxedos? While I believe that great art deserves respect, and therefore there is necessarily some ritualized formality to be observed at concerts, I think that many possible enthusiasts are deterred from the concert hall more because of it’s air of upper class elitism than anything else. To be clear, I don’t believe the concert hall always is or has to BE elitist, but that many groups cultivate that ethos as a way of seeming important or profound. I just don’t think such things are helpful.