Some of us noticed our traditional audience was getting older over the years, and got scared of a possible end of our art, because of a lack of audience. We all know there’s a lot of grey hair in our audience, and that’s not a new trend. The lack of audience is, from my point of view, an irrational fear : Yes our audience is in average old, but the older part of our audience renews itself. I know a lot of people who never liked classical music before their fifties and are now going at least once a week to a concert, reading magazines about classical music, or buying recordings.

Content should always be more important than form. This may sound idealistic in our society, but I strongly believe in the supremacy of content and strangely when talking about reaching a new audience, people are obsessed with the form as if it was the only thing we could change.

When attending a classical contemporary music concert (what an oxymoron!), the first thing you notice is the big difference in the audience composition : contemporary music attracts much more younger people. Is there two different audiences for classical music? A classical contemporary one and a classical “traditional” one? In fact there are more than two : with the development of specialized baroque ensembles was born a classical baroque audience too, and I’m sure we could find other examples. What if the classical music audience was not declining but just splitting into different trends? Have a look at concert programs from the first half of the XXth century and you might be surprised how they were different from now : much more contemporary music and baroque music for the traditional orchestras for example.

Nowadays, segmentation is going too far : You can’t play baroque pieces in a baroque festival because you don’t play on a harpsichord, you can’t play in a contemporary music festival because of the 10 minutes of Scriabin in your program, you can’t play in a traditional festival because of your Gubaidulina piece. As a musician, I don’t really understand this : music is a slow evolution and each composer has his roots in older music and there is not such thing as a frontier between baroque, classical, romantic, impressionistic, contemporary…. music. Why would we divide the music world ? Why would we compartmentalize this fabulous evolution? Moreover, this is leading to elitist content, frightening our potential new audience.

Sure, reaching new markets is important, but I don’t think classical music is going mainstream any time soon. Educational programs are absolutely great for this if well done. But before reaching new markets, couldn’t we take care of existing ones? Over the years I learned something important : segmenting a market as tiny as the classical music is a bad idea. We, actors of the classical music business, split our audience in different specialized (and elitist?) audiences without thinking of the future and we now have to reunify the segments. This is not a matter of form, but a matter of content.

Related Posts :

• Do you know contemporary music?  Lutoslawski, Xenakis, Britten, Carter, Penderecki, Kurtág, Lindberg, Dutilleux, Ligeti, Murail, don't all these names say anything [...]
• The end of classical music?  This topic has already been discussed extensively: classical music is a thing of the past and is thus doomed to extinction. Don't you [...]
• Is it necessary to give Classical Music a facelift? (part 2)  In the first part of Is it necessary to give Classical Music a facelift?, we talked about dress at concerts. [...]

Mozart has left us 20 sonatas for piano, of which the most famous are certainly, the A Major Kv 331 and its “Turkish march”, as well as the one said to be “easy”, in C Major Kv 545. Easy? Not really… Mozart’s work is for me one of most difficult, requiring an absolutely perfect and natural playing, as well as an extraordinary subtility. For a pianist, playing Mozart means to bare his own soul.

This sonata Kv 330 is the tenth of the composer and has notably been immortalized by a certain Vladimir Horowitz. Fascinating, this sonata has turned me on since I was a kid, I used to listen to Horowitz with my tape player I carried everywhere in the house. Next tuesday, my biggest wish would be to be up to this piece, and once again reveal to the public the Master’s genius.

Related Posts :

• Chopin's sonata in b flat minor  Each time I exhume the Chopin's sonata in B-flat minor, I'm wondering what he had in mind while writing the final movement. Four pages [...]
• The 5 most difficult piano pieces  It is a question I'm often asked and find it quite hard to give an answer. The notion of difficulty is a subjective one, and what [...]
• Leoš Janáček's piano works  Born in Hukvaldy in Moravia (Czech Republic), Leoš Janáček is a particularly interesting musical figure, quite unknown [...]

With a high sound level, the municipality intends to disturb and drive anyone seeking refuge in the parking lot away. According to the city’s spokesperson, more and more homeless and drug-addicted individuals settle down there, mostly in winter, causing a feeling of insecurity among the structure’s users.

Of course, the spokesperson admits that this displaces the issue rather than resolving it. But, what seems to be the most comical is to use classical music as a repellent. It’s certainly more peaceful than the “Malodore” used in Argenteuil, but I find it difficult to accept that classical music might be considered as a potential repellent.

Imagine one second the discussion which could follow from this… “I am sure that if we blast on repeat Mahler’s 5th symphony by Karajan, homeless would run away faster rather than with Mozart’s piano concertos by Perahia.” Surrealist, isn’t it? I’m certain in any case that the result the municipality wanted to obtain is the total opposite of what these composers had wished for…

Does all of this seems normal or am I the only one to be offended by this absurdity?

Related Posts :

• Do pianists only listen to Classical music?  I'm often asked the question "what do I listen to besides Classical music?" Sometimes, people offer me to relax with such-and-such [...]
• The end of classical music?  This topic has already been discussed extensively: classical music is a thing of the past and is thus doomed to extinction. Don't you [...]
• Is it necessary to give Classical Music a facelift? (part 1)  Today, in order to attract young audiences all efforts are oriented in the same direction: to show you [...]

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?

Related Posts :

• Is it necessary to give Classical Music a facelift? (part 2)  In the first part of Is it necessary to give Classical Music a facelift?, we talked about dress at concerts. [...]
• Is it necessary to give Classical Music a facelift? (part 1)  Today, in order to attract young audiences all efforts are oriented in the same direction: to show you [...]
• About reaching new audiences  The classical musical world is nowadays obsessed with a new goal : Reaching new audiences. Everyone is giving his take on the subject, [...]

What do I listen to? Well, actually I don’t listen to music much. Working a lot, I also need to rest my ears and can’t of course listen to Classical music without considering it a bit from a professional perspective. Finally, listen to Classical music somehow means to me to work again.

I otherwise listen to a lot of Jazz, more particularly Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau (still pianists you may think, even if I also listen to a lot of Mehldau in trio). Pop music-wise, to tell the truth, I don’t really listen to it much, even if I have preferences from another generation. For example, I very much like Brel, Gainsbourg or Dutronc.

Which leads us back to the first question. I would answer: no, we don’t. We listen to other genres as well, and I noticed that Jazz was a frequent answer among pianists.

And you, what do you listen to? Only Classical music or something else?

Related Posts :

• Classical music against "undesirables"  The municipality of Trois-Rivières in Québec has found a strange way to secure the local underground parking. The authorities [...]
• The end of classical music?  This topic has already been discussed extensively: classical music is a thing of the past and is thus doomed to extinction. Don't you [...]
• Do you know contemporary music?  Lutoslawski, Xenakis, Britten, Carter, Penderecki, Kurtág, Lindberg, Dutilleux, Ligeti, Murail, don't all these names say anything [...]

The contemporary music is too little known, sometimes even ignored by some listeners, or worse by musicians themselves which don’t understand it and get rid of it before having made an effort of comprehension. Because this is where the problem lies. Our ear, little accustomed to this type of music has grown up with popular musical forms and classical music, and has completely assimilated the music known as tonal, without really realizing it (by means of cinema, advertising…). This said, the deficiencies of our ear towards today’s music can be filled. By listening to contemporary music, one discovers unknown soundscapes, often of a very large variety; this involves to listen actively and do a small personal research.

To penetrate the world of contemporary music, it is to agree to enter the field of the “unexpected”. The listener can sometimes be diverted by the lack of melody, but it’s actually this classical structure of melody/accompaniment which is questioned by some composers. I would say that the contemporary music is a research on the language. If this seems inefficient or non-aesthetic to you, then question first the way you listen, and remember that at a certain time the sharps and flats did not exist, the increased quart was seen as a “diabolus in musica” and all the elements we now find in classical and popular music were perceived as noise, as an atrocious cacophony. In his time, Wagner wrote noise, so Mozart did.

Many works composed for more than fifty years by musicians of classical education could reach a larger audience than the current one. The keys which would make possible to appreciate them lack, and so the listener doesn’t manage to enter this “unusual” world, but more importantly, by ignoring this world he threatens its existence. Ask yourself the question about the composers, whether the law of supply and demand must manage the musical researches, therefore, whether the composer must write the music the public wishes to listen, or if the composer is free to transcend the “law” to reveal his genius.

Related Posts :

• Teaching Contemporary Music  This is a dangerous topic. I don't intend to discus generaly about musical training and teaching but I'll focus on the particular case [...]
• Do pianists only listen to Classical music?  I'm often asked the question "what do I listen to besides Classical music?" Sometimes, people offer me to relax with such-and-such [...]
• About reaching new audiences  The classical musical world is nowadays obsessed with a new goal : Reaching new audiences. Everyone is giving his take on the subject, [...]