Klarinet Archive - Posting 000025.txt from 1997/05

From: Jessica Phillips <jp251@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Music, performance, and marching bands
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 18:16:41 -0400

To add only a few cents. . .

A few years ago I worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra - most directly
with the Benefactors (those with all the money) for a short time as an
intern. The Bostons Pops is a long tradition, but not a respected one.
In fact most of the musicians hated John Williams and his repetitive,
unoriginal scores.As Edwin Lacy pointed out, majority of the Pops
listeners are elderly persons. Currently the Boston Symphony is spending
many dollars figuring out how to create incentives for younger audiences,
satisfying all listeners (thus we see keith Lockhart - new young conductor
of the Pops carrying on after Joh Williams, hopefully in the successful
tradition of Fiedler). What we discovered in addressing younger
audiences, ironically, was a preference for a smaller based audience group
in evenings which focused on chamber music (of all composers and genres -
not John Williams, however).

In one of the Pulse magazine articles which higlighted John Corigliano he
spoke of the death of major orchestras
because they are too expensive and their audiences are dying.
It may be that chamber music and events like "Schubertiades" will provide
more access and more listeners. However, as both Jonathan Gordy and Edwin
Lacy both addressed, the commercial and promotional aspects of the
classical music industry need an overhaul - sometimes I think it is the
administration that needs to find new ways of marketing classical music.
Pop music is transient, and temporal, in fact, every BMG
and other record company execs are all waiting for the next big
break-through to revive CD sales (thats perhaps why many are jumping at
the "Spice Girls). It would seem as though quality is more of an issue
than you would think. Besides, the Metropolitan Opera is doing Wagner's
Ring - guess how much tickets were worth? Guess how many were left? With
the combination of James Volpe and James Levine (administration and superb
musical direction) the Metropolitan Opera plays things like Madama
Butterfly and Wozzeck in the same season to great success for both. I
don't see any disappearances in this dynamic combination of repetoire
choice ("antique" and modern)and marketing strategies.

my apologies, I could go on, as I am sure many of you could, for hours.
This is, and should be a relevant discussion for anyone who desires and is
willing to attempt at a career in performance. However, as usual things
are not black and white. . .

Jessica Phillips

On Thu, 1 May 1997, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:

> On Thu, 1 May 1997, Jonathan Gordy wrote:
>
> > Pardon, but doesn't the thing that makes modern music great is that
> > everyone buys it,
>
> "Everyone" doesn't buy it.
>
> > and if Elvis did inferior products he would have disappeared, and
>
> The commercial success of Elvis had nothing to do with musical content or
> quality. It had everything to do with marketing, promotion, mass culture,
> the redistribution of discretionary wealth, etc.
>
> > Which is more than I can say for some of our "standards" in
> > the classical world. We don't like them, yet because of their greater
> > "musical" value we play them, and notice who is disappearing...
>
> Who is the "we" you are referring to? You say you recognize that they
> have "greater musical value," and yet you don't like them. It seems to me
> that you are saying a lot more about yourself than about the music. They
> are disappearing? Where do you live? In most of the parts of the
> civilized Western world which I know about, if Bach for example has
> disappeared, his disappearance has gone largely unnoticed.
>
> > but I know that in the pop world there is only more money involved when
> > you product has superior quality in the marketplace.
>
> You are contradicting yourself. "Quality" from the standpoint of the
> "marketplace" and quality for the standpoint of musical considerations
> both exist, but they have relatively little to do with each other.
>
> > As musicians we should be finding ways to pull more than "antique" music
>
> Musical quality is not determined by its placement in history. Josquin
> des Pres was a great composer, and so was Claudio Monteverdi, and so were
> other composers who were separated from these by several centuries, such
> as Charles Ives and Igor Stravinsky, and others who are writing music
> today.
>
> Today, we can buy likenesses of Elvis or Jesus on velvet, in
> paint-by-numbers style. Does that diminish the value of the paintings of
> Michelangelo, or Rembrandt, or Picasso? I don't think so.
>
> > but when "movie" music, perhaps the most recognizable of our art music,
>
> You've got to be kidding. The only time movie music has had any
> relationship to art music was when some composers from the field of "art
> music" were employed to write film scores.
>
> > John Williams has done more to improve the status of the symphony with a
> > few movie scores in the last decade than all the Schubert and Brahms we
> > play.
>
> The status of the symphony? What symphony did John Williams write?
>
> > I detest the attitude of the musicans who grumble over the "Pops"
> > concerts they do. These concerts are the only bridge to our audience
> > that many orchestras provide.
>
> You obviously have not played many of these Pops concerts. If you had,
> you would know that the audience for them and the audience for orchestral
> music are nearly mutually exclusive. Do you imagine that the audience for
> Pops concerts are younger, more "with it" people who soon will be
> converted to the standard orchestral repertoire? Nothing could be farther
> from the truth. Demographically, the regular audience for pops concerts
> tends to be considerably older than that for the regular orchestral
> concerts. Most orchestras have come around to a more honest appraisal of
> the purposes of pops concerts. They do not serve effectively to increase
> the audience for symphonic music, but they do work effectively to make a
> profit for the orchestras. It would seem too obvious to have to state
> that potential listeners cannot be fooled into liking orchestral music by
> exposing them to the symphony orchestra trying to play pop, rock, or who
> knows what other styles.
>
> Further, if you had played a lot of pops concerts, you would know why
> many musicians have the attitude toward them that they do.
>
> This all calls to mind the philosophical stance of Liberace, who when he
> was criticized for playing "schlock" he used to respond with, "I was so
> upset I cried all the way to the bank." In other words, he tried to use
> his commercial success to try to validate the worth of what he was doing.
> What should be realized is that commercial success requires catering to
> the largest potential mass audience, which means the lowest common
> denominator, and which precludes the introduction of artistic quality as a
> primary motivating factor.
>
> Ed Lacy
> *****************************************************************
> Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
> Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
> Evansville, IN 47722
> el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
> *****************************************************************
>
>
>
>

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org