An observation about "Modern" classical music.

Lousyreeds1...Thanks. I will look for that book.

Our local newspaper, The Berkshire Eagle, has a big story today about how James Levine, the new conductor of the Boston Symphony is planning to redirect the BSO, and the Tanglewood music festival program so as to put emphasis on "new music". I predict that this will be a financial mistake. Actual experience with years of Tanglewood attendance indicates that Mozart concerts are invariably very well attended, while "modern music" plays to empty seats. (James Taylor just was sold out completely for two consecutive nights - no space even on the grass - but that is another whole world).

When I first moved to this area, about 40 years ago, the BSO played a short series of "Bach/Mozart" concerts, using only about half the orchestra. These concerts were really beloved by the local people, and it was a sad day when the program was eliminated.

Of course it'll be a financial disaster. We know it. They know it. But Levine realizes that he, as someone in a position of great power in the classical music world, has to be an advocate of new music. Orchestras need to make enough money to stay alive, but that's not their real purpose. They're civic organizations that are there for the public good, and their responsibilities include assisting the community of composers. The fact that it plays to empty seats doesn't mean it's not worthwile to perform.

Most orchestras mix the new in with the old in a single concert. Sometimes, people think the new piece sucks. Sometimes, the new piece gets a standing ovation and people go out and buy the CD. And for the most part, these are people who are not 'new music lovers'. They came for the Beethoven symphony or what have you, and left having had a completely new, exciting, unexpected experience.

Lousyreeds1...I hate to sound so negative, but I do see the nature of "modern" and "new" music to be a problem. MOST modern music I should add. There is some new work that is OK. I agree that people like Levine should support current composers. My complaint is what the composers do with that support. Why can't they compose in an idiom that is more widely appreciated?

You mention that it is customary to mix old and new music in a program. Let me point out another fact for consideration...when some new composition appears along with the Beethoven symphony, which one goes first? The new piece, always. People will sit through it so as to hear Beethoven, but if Beethoven went first the hall would be half empty after intermission.

Music seems to be the only venture where the customer is not always right.

Indeed, the new piece always comes first, usually for exactly the reason you specify. The idea is that people generally aren't open to new things, and sometimes you have to give them a bit of incentive to stay. Sometimes the audience is glad they sat through it. Sometimes the discussions during intermission are full of eye rolls and sighs. It just depends.

Think of all the composers who refused to write in a manner that would be 'pleasing' to their intended audiences or patrons. Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Satie, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and there are many more. If they had always been forced to pander to someone else's expectations, we would be stuck with a bunch of Salieris and Atwoods. No fun at all.

"Music seems to be the only venture where the customer is not always right," you say.

Your treatment of music as a commodity to be purchased rather than as an art to be experienced scares me. Just give the new work a chance. Worst case, you left feeling nothing, but you've seen a little bit of someone else's creative soul. Go up and ask the composer what he was thinking when he wrote his piece, and why it was so weird. If it's new enough, he's probably sitting in the audience.

You're going to tell me that whether we like it or not, music as it is in the 21st century is a commodity, and it had better realize that or die. I think we had better realize that music is not a commodity. Otherwise, it will die whether or not it incorporates new music. Playing nothing but the classics won't save classical music. Incorporating them with the dynamism of new music and getting the audiences excited about it might help.

"To listen can be an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."-Igor Stravinsky.

Eldartford, I'm very sympathetic to your feelings about 'modern' music, which you may have gathered from my previous post. They was a lot of crap purveyed in the last 50 years that shouldn't have seen the light of day, and perhaps a better screening process should have been effected by the conductors. I would even suggest that the prolifferation of that stuff did more to empty concert calls than to fill them. HOWEVER, we do risk never hearing music that is new and worthwhile, as for example, The Rites of Spring, absolutely hated at its premier more because it was new, not understood, not traditional, not melodic, ad infinitum, but has now taken its place as one of our century's important works. Who is to judge?