Charting The Decline Of Classical Music?

[stenka razin]

From the Denver Post, 12/06/10. What do my fellow CMGers think of Kyle McMillan's assessment?


Hanging by a string: Can classical music adapt?

Classical music's identity crisis has gotten so bad, some question the very existence of regional, big-city orchestras

By Kyle MacMillan

Denver Post Fine Arts Critic

A three-part series

Today: Relevance lost

An intensifying confluence of factors is taking
classical music from the cultural mainstream.

Next Sunday: A classical comeback?

By being entrepreneurial and creative,
organizations across the country are finding
ways to rejuvenate the field.

Dec. 19: A new image

Can classical music be cool?

Part 1

In the first half of the 20th century, keyboard
giant Sergei Rachmaninoff played to sold-out
houses across the United States, and conductor
Arturo Toscanini lit up the radio airwaves with
the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Leonard Bernstein followed along in the 1950s
and '60s, bringing the New York Philharmonic
into American homes with his televised Young
People's Concerts while soprano Maria Callas
was a hot topic for gossip magazines. Later,
virtuosos like Itzhak Perlman and Nadja Salerno-
Sonnenberg took turns chatting with Johnny
Carson on "The Tonight Show."

Classical music might not have had the populist
appeal of the Andrews Sisters or Elvis Presley
during those decades, but it had an honored and
essential place at the center of American
culture.

But a decade into the 21st century, those days
are all but over. Following a trend that can be
traced back to the 1990s and beyond, classical
music is confronting an increasingly
unsustainable combination of escalating costs,
sagging philanthropy, aging audiences and
declining attendance.

The competition for ears and shortened
attention spans in a world of 90-second YouTube
videos and instant pop- music downloads is
proving too much for a staid two-hour program
of Brahms.


Please continue reading this article in the link below:

http://www.denverpost.com/music/ci_16762771?source=rss

[some guy]

Well, it's got the usual cliches and the usual over-generalizations. And I'm sure that any of us could point all of those out.

But I think that the most aggravating problem with this and other "reports" like it is the blithe assumption that "classical music" is one, clear-cut, identifiable thing that everyone knows and that doesn't have to be defined. And always, ironically enough, going along with that are several references to what "it" has to do to change or how "it" is already changing.

Then there are references to a few "genre-bending" artists, who change from article to article. The poster boy for this one is Nico Muhly. That and some pop culture references, and bob's your uncle.

I don't think that any of the arts, and least of all the most volatile, music, can be so neatly boxed and tied up and shipped off. Only if, as has happened here, you conflate "symphony orchestra organizations" with "classical music" can you get anything like the neat little results you get here. And even then.... I'd like just once to see a real writer who really knows about music take on this subject. (And I think what that person would find is that "this subject" probably doesn't even exist.)

[jbuck919]

One problem is the legitimization of pop forms as quasi-art, displacing a true art form. I mean, when every episode of Jeopardy includes at least one category on pop/rock music....

[John F]

As the byline says, this guy isn't the newspaper's music critic but its fine arts critic. A quick skim of his recent pieces in the Post makes it clear (to me, anyway) that his real specialty is the visual arts, and looking through this screed, it clearly isn't music. He's just out of his depth.

[Wallingford]

Being closer to the newspaper itself, my immediate reaction to the Post's article was one of reluctant agreement. I often contemplate composing this or that concerto or tonepoem or other orchestral work, and the physical resources never being immediately at hand, and being no longer an academic, my immediate conclusion is, "What's the real point, or use?"

[John F]

The point, surely, is if you have something you really want to say in music, and feel a pressing personal need to put it on paper, you should do so - whether or not there's a clear prospect of publication, public performance, fees, reviews, and the rest. Same thing with drawing and painting, writing poems and stories, and other kinds of artistic creativity. If you don't feel this pressing need, and are just writing music because you've made it your career, see it as a source of income, or want to become known, then perhaps it's indeed a useless thing to do and serves no point.

This is certainly a Romantic way of looking at it, one which Bach and Haydn wouldn't have understood at all. But in the arts at least, many Americans are still Romantics at heart, setting self-expressive creativity above all else, including craftsmanship and even competence.

[stefanher]

I find certain of the opinions stated on this forum quite disturbing and actually offensive. Good popular music is an art form in its own right- it is however very different from classical music. That is not what is promoted on You-Tube or American Idol or it's even worse UK counterpart X Factor. I think the main problem now is overpayment of people at the top & commercial interests- art MUST make money. It's much easier to market the latest boy-band than it is to sell the latest work even by relatively popular composers such as Part. I remember the fuss when Bernstein's Mass was premiered- did any newspaper even mention the fact that Part had written a new symphony?


The question one really must ask- is the continual dumbing down process which seems to be perverse in society & which is largely run by commercial interests going to prevail to the extent when all good & serious art forms collapse? If one takes movies- while a number of good & even great films are made every year they are invariably given a shoestring budget by the studios or are privately financed while studios spend hundreds of millions on the latest comic book adaptation. Theatre is no better- the London West End used to be full of good exciting new plays- now it is full of revivals of second rate musicals. As the only commercial option classical orchestras have is to give endless concerts of the 1812 with fireworks or crossover concerts with the latest overhyped Yorkshire/Maori/Welsh flavour of the month maybe society deserves what it is about to get.

Or am I just being overcynical? I douibt it- as a fledgling listening to recordings by Callas/Sills/Del Monaco etc I found their vocal failings when present so severe as to often be unlistenable. I'm now so immune to even worse vocal failings that I can't remember why I thought they were there in the first instance..... So even I've been dumbed down.

[Istvan]

In my youth, in the 50s and early 60s, broadcast music was not nearly so compartmentalized as it has become. Though the Third programme restricted itself to "classical", it was also possible to hear good music on the Home Service and Light Programme. I remember a children's music programme run by one "Uncle Mac" in which requests were made for all types of music. There was a similar programme for British Forces stationed in Germany. Then in the 60s the pirate stations began to flood the air with pop and the BBC mainly followed suit.

[John F]

You have to distinguish between movies, shows, and other entertainments which may be artfully made but are mainly about making money, and works made for art's sake which need not turn much of a profit if any, and do so more or less incidentally.

The problem is that works of both kinds often reach the public through the same outlets. A movie house or TV channel that shows "Terminator" this week could show an Ingmar Bergman film the next; and while this doesn't often actually happen, there's nothing intrinsically odd about it. The same Broadway and West End theatres actually do present commercial comedies and musicals alternating with Shakespeare and Stoppard. This can lead to false equivalences being drawn between the works themselves, both by the investors and presenters and by writers on arts and entertainment, treating both as if they were one.

Commercial presenters look for investors who aim to get their money back and then some. Not-for-profit presenters look for patrons who likewise are not-for-profit contributors. But there are limits, especially in hard economic times, to how much money a nonprofit can raise, and these impose limits on what it can present. The New York Philharmonic has repeatedly presented Andrea Bocelli nonsubscription concerts, and the London Symphony Orchestra balances its books with as many movie gigs as it can get, regardless of their artistic merit or lack of it. This too can give writers, including some CMG members, an excuse for blurring the dividing line between art and commercial entertainment. And that kind of confusion of aims and criteria is potentially a real threat to art.

At this point I could launch into complaints and arguments I've aired here more than once already. But I won't.

[Chalkperson]

In my youth, in the 50s and early 60s, broadcast music was not nearly so compartmentalized as it has become. Though the Third programme restricted itself to "classical", it was also possible to hear good music on the Home Service and Light Programme. I remember a children's music programme run by one "Uncle Mac" in which requests were made for all types of music. There was a similar programme for British Forces stationed in Germany. Then in the 60s the pirate stations began to flood the air with pop and the BBC mainly followed suit.

My father sent a postcard to Uncle Mac to play a record on my Birthday, he read out my name and I was thrilled, I think I was six years old...the other Shows were called BFPA ones (British Forces Posted Abroad), Two and Three Way Family Favourites was the main one, it played at Midday on Sunday...

[maestrob]

Well, here we go again: the so-called decline of classical music.

Yes, we are going through hard times economically, so musicians should work for less because there's less money to pay them. So how's my nephew (the horn player) supposed to pay his mortgage? Yes it's true that he's playing fewer concerts this season, but did his housing expense go down? OK, so he's teaching more.

I'm of two minds about this topic whenever it comes up. Even with the recession, there are far more orchestras and opera companies of good quality (a friend of mine upstate just presented Turandot: imagine, for a regional company!) than any time before in our history. CDs are still being released at the rate of 150+/month, many of them of very good quality.

Sorry, folks, I see a temporary retrenchment, but I'd like to see from Amazon a total inventory of titles available from their warehouse: it must be a phenomenal number: surely many more than, say 30 or 40 years ago.

We're living in an age where supply, while it may exceed demand, is greater than ever, and the marketplace is working. My contention is that there will allways be a place for great art (whether it be pop/rock/classical): in every generation, there will always be those who are intellectually (read musically) curious enough to keep that art alive and thriving.

Why do I say this?

Well, Shakespeare is still with us. So is Handel (lately more than ever).

While audiences may be fragmenting, and a poor economy is affecting attendance at live events, these are temporary trends: as things recover, so will attendance and ticket prices. Gelb started a wonderful trend by videocasting the MET; revenues are strong there, aren't they? (That is, going from $0 to filling empty seats is indeed a plus, no?)

I ramble on, but remain an optimist. As long as we have civilization, we will have strong interest in great music greatly played and sung.

Good grief: think of all the great recorded performances we debate here that are still selling after 30, 40, even 50 years! I wouldn't call that a lack of interest!

[Agnes Selby]

I agree with Maestrob. Just think, the BBC will dedicate 12 days
begining on January 1 to the entire Mozart opus.

I can't speak for other nations, but most schools in Australian
large cities have orchestras where classical music is performed.
In Sydney, schools perform at the Sydney Opera House and
are well attended by youngsters. The ABC (A stands for Australian)
gives Youth Concerts and Sydney University has a wonderful orchestra
entirely made up of students.

Like Shakespeare, our much loved composers will survive...

[jbuck919]

Like Shakespeare, our much loved composers will survive...

And like Shakespeare, they will eventually be 400 years old.

[Agnes Selby]

Like Shakespeare, our much loved composers will survive...

And like Shakespeare, they will eventually be 400 years old.

Indeed, i.e. if the word survives WikiLeaks.

[karlhenning]

Being closer to the newspaper itself, my immediate reaction to the Post's article was one of reluctant agreement. I often contemplate composing this or that concerto or tonepoem or other orchestral work, and the physical resources never being immediately at hand, and being no longer an academic, my immediate conclusion is, "What's the real point, or use?"

You alone can answer that question for yourself, of course.

My answer (even if I could put it into words) will not serve for you . . . but I have written quite a bit of music for which the musical resources have not been available.

Either you as the composer see the use, or you don't. And if the composer do not, he is certainly right not to write!

Cheers,
~Karl