Post
by Lance » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:59 pm
Hmm. A good question to ponder, but relatively easy for me to answer from my very own point of view with some commentary, which I hope you won't mind.
Too many times I have heard orchestras perform newly composed music. Generally, it is selected with great care not to "scare" an audience away. While most everyone agrees, serious music concert-goers attend to hear music with which they are familiar and pleased in hearing. I have also stood around at intermissions to hear comments. I remember well, hearing a couple of regular attendees say they were NOT going to resubscribe to their local orchestra if they continued to play "this kind" of "messy, unlistenable" music. That seems to be the general concensus I've discovered in hearing live "new" music in chamber- or orchestral works.
It comes down to what people want to hear. There's always a possibility concert-goers WILL be delighted by a new work they've never heard before. I suspect that percentage might be very low, however. For me, my likes are distributed (these days) fairly evenly between Baroque, Classical era, and Romantic period music up to about the time of Rachmaninoff's passing. Yes, I like (early) Copland, and hear works I've really enjoyed by such composers as John Adams (several works in fact, some of which I've had to write program notes for), Philip Glass, Nicholas Maw, Karl Henning (our own CMG composer - and I've done a radio program on his excellent work!), and quite a few others. So, I'm back to the Baroque-Classical-Romantic periods because THAT is the music I want and need to hear. And even then music from thoser periods is constantly being resurrected from the dust in libraries, churches, etc., constituting NEW music that appeals to my ears/brain, etc. I would LIKE to give new music a chance, but so much of it, in contrast to the OLD music, is too often offensive to my ears. It cannot be helped.
Oftentimes, people who love/enjoy new music will say that I'm not giving it a chance and I am cutting myself short of learning to enjoy new music. But I'm like the fly caught in the spider's web ... I know what I want to hear.
Where does all this put the composers of today. Given the technology of today, with fewer and fewer major orchestras performing new works ... even commissioned ones, rarely heard after the first performance (as someone noted in this thread, I think it was John Francis) ... the technology of today allows present-day compsoers to create works that can be heard on YouTube, custom-made CDs to be sold for distribution at their OWN concerts, and possibly over radio stations that "might" be available just for "new" music.
Of course, today's composers need to be heard, but it is a small percentage of the music-loving public that wants to hear contemporary music. It will most likely change as the the older population dies off (such as myself) and young people today are more exposed to new music because new composers are emerging every day. I know a young man who has written music for theater productions and shows ... 23 years old, and outstanding, because it is music that has form, melody, rhythm, and is easier on the ear than, say Stockhausen or any of that ilk.
I remember talking with Howard H. Scott of Columbia Records, now deceased, but a great guy and producer of recordings. Columbia issued a series of contemporary music LPs that was rather short-lived. He called one day to see if I could supply and LP since they were no longer around Columbia's stables. I had only a few of them, but not the one he wanted. The series did NOT do well and cost the company considerable money to produce. Those LPs go back to the late 1950s and 1960s. If Columbia couldn't sell their product, who could?
There is something about a fine wine that has aged over the years. Perhaps a bad anaology, but as the "old" music ages, nobody stops buying it (unless collectors like me have no more need for a Beethoven Fifth).
Orchestras and chamber music societies NEED to sell tickets. Perhaps it is not time - yet - to try to pay the composer, publisher, musicians, etc., to promote new music. Composers, as Karl Henning suggests, will continue to be inspired to write music and will not stop writing it because it is in his veins.
I think there IS a place for contemporary music, though perhaps, a small area at the moment that will probably grow at a snail's pace. The whole "classical music industry" has undergone major changes with mergers, the release of artists - great ones - repackaging the "old stuff" since those are the names that seem to be carried forward.
You know, I love most of the recordings of British pianist JOHN OGDON. Then I heard a huge piece of music performed by him by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji entitled Clavicembalisticum completed in June 1930. That was certainly new music THEN, and it certainly sounds new today. No matter how much I love John Ogdon as a pianist, I simply cannot get through this huge composition, which fills three CDs, even at a CD at a time.
So, to answer the original question - "should orchestras support new music?" Probably yes, to some degree. However, it will only be orchestras of the highest caliber, such as the BSO, NYP, SFSO, Berlin PO, Vienna PO, LPO, LSO, etc., et al that will be able to afford it. Local 2nd- and 3rd tier orchestras will not be able to do it on a regular basis. Koussevitzky was an exception as was Monteux and Stokowski, the latter to some degree.
Maybe we can take a poll on CMG. Let's see what happens!
Just one man's thoughts, not to create problems nor make anyone feel badly. It's just as I have seen things over that last many decades and what listeners think of "new" music. After this generation, things will assuredly change. ♫
Lance G. Hill
Editor-in-Chief
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When she started to play, Mr. Steinway came down and personally
rubbed his name off the piano. [Speaking about pianist &*$#@+#]
