Klarinet Archive - Posting 000600.txt from 2004/10

From: "Lacy, Edwin" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Opera productions that should be damned
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:01:52 -0400

Sorry to be so late to join this discussion. I didn't have time to
reply in the past several days.

<<<Opera was, in fact, popular music.>>>

We often hear contentions that one type or another of art music was in
fact the popular music of another era. However, my understanding of
history is that for the most part, this is a myth. In the 18th and 19th
centuries, there certainly were types of music which were "popular," in
the sense that they were the medium of musical expression for great
masses of people. However, the problem is that we don't know anything
about this music. It wasn't written down, and there obviously was no
means of recording it. The only thing we can say for sure is that as
long as there have been human beings on the planet, there has been music
of one sort or another.

In the era of the great composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven,
their music certainly was not "popular" in the way that present-day
popular music merits that designation. In fact, art music has always
been the province of the elite. The only people who had access to such
music were those who were wealthy enough to be able to hire court
composers and musicians, to commission musical works, or to obtain a
musical education for themselves and their families.

Despite all this, there have been isolated times and places when
something approaching a popular craze for one type or another of art
music has developed. A prominent example of this would be 19th century
Italy, when opera became the passion of the "man in the street." This
unfortunately is a rare exception to the general state of affairs.

In today's world, the audience or "market" for art music (I'm avoiding
the term "classical" music.) consists of about 7% of the population.
That is true for the most part in large metropolitan areas as well as
smaller cities and towns. And, that 7% are for the most part among the
most highly educated and most affluent segment of society. That
percentage is probably about the same as it would have been about 200
years ago. The great majority of people, in nearly all historic eras
until the present time, has been nearly totally consumed by the demands
of sustaining life, and didn't have the time, energy or financial
resources to devote to such frivolous activities as listening to or
performing art music. That's not to say that they didn't have a need
for musical expression, but we can be sure that the music of the great
composers was not their passion, and in fact, they didn't even have the
means to know that such music existed.

It's a very admirable and altruistic goal to want to "bring music to the
masses," but it might be more in our interest to concentrate on
cultivating the potential audience that we do have.

When I promulgate this view, I am often accused of being elitist, and to
this charge, I plead guilty. Art always has been and still is the
province of a minority, an elite segment of society.

Ed Lacy
University of Evansville

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org