“Gershwin!” someone shouted, and Joseph Horowitz,
former music critic of the New York Times, sadly informed one of his listeners
that Gershwin was the incorrect answer.
The question he had posed was the name of the composer of the piece that
he had just played for us, and the correct answer was Dvorjak. On Friday, November 11, 2005, I attended a
seminar given by Joseph Horowitz titled “The Future of Classical Music?” (Note
the question mark) and found it to be both interesting and educational. He gave an extensive background on the
history of classical music, spoke of important composers of the past, critical
musical figures of the present, and the role of classical music in the
future.
One
point that Horowitz reminded us of is that today, every major orchestra is
continuing to develop new marketing strategies in order to sell more tickets to
performances. But does this benefit
music? he asks. I think that this is an
important issue and a problem in today’s cultural life. If symphony boards are solely concerned with
selling tickets and thinking about what will sell to the American public, then
they are therefore thinking less about the quality of the music they are
producing and the purpose of their orchestras. The objective of every musical
organization, whether the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, performing for 2,441
people at the Meyerhoff, or the Great Lakes Symphony Orchestra, performing for
a hundred people at Flatrock High School, is to study, appreciate, perform, and
enjoy music. The selection of music
should be based on this objective and this objective alone, not the demands of
the public. Because the general public
is not musically educated, most people do not have extensive backgrounds or
even basic knowledge of music history, and some of the greatest musical works
in history may not sound “nice” or “beautiful” to people’s untrained ears. Therefore, performing works outside of the
public demand may not be the most financially beneficial. But this should not, under any circumstances,
be a determining factor in the music selection that orchestras and symphonies
produce.
Another
issue that Horowitz discusses is the everlasting debate of the payment of
musicians and the quantity of performances that orchestras give each year. It is commonly known that professional
musicians are underpaid, and Horowitz deemed this fact as “pathetic” while
admitting that there is no easy fix for the problem. I have mixed feelings about this issue. As a musician, I of course understand the
importance of having orchestras such as the BSO and the DSO and that the
members of these orchestras deserve absolutely the best lives and highest
salaries possible for producing the music that they do for a culture which is
continuously becoming less and less appreciative of the dying art of classical
music. But as a musician I can also say
that because this fact is generally acknowledged in the music world, musicians
are aware of it when they go into their profession. Therefore, only the most dedicated and
passionate musicians will pursue careers within orchestras. If they truly cared about making a better
living, they would choose a different career path. Musicians of orchestras do what they do only
for their love of music. Consequently, I
find the low salary of musicians to somewhat beneficial in that it allows only
the most devoted and enthusiastic musicians to be professionals performing on
stages in orchestras; those musicians who truly care about what they do and
have no desire to make a large amount of money will appear with great
orchestras across the nation.
One
solution that Horowitz proposed concerning how to present music to the American
public made a lot of sense to me. He
suggested that every year music students perform in a public festival. This would be beneficial for many
reasons. It would force music students
to extend their musical experience beyond the practice room, help them to think
creatively about performing music, and compel them to ask themselves, “For whom
are we playing music, and why?” He also
suggested that we encourage the study of the history of music, not the history of composers,
and also emphasized the importance of studying the history of symphonies,
orchestras, conductors, and of performance.
He also stressed the importance of focusing our attention on the
question “What is a concert for?”
I agree
with these solutions for many reasons.
Studying the history of music in comparison to studying the history of
composers would help give students a broader sense of where music came from,
how it developed, and even where it is going.
It will give us the “big picture” of music history. Studying individual composers may help us to
better understand certain eras of music or identify certain changes in musical
techniques and styles, as well as learn interesting facts about the lives of
great composers, but a broader sense of music would be more beneficial overall.
I think
that there are not too many concerts
in a given season. I understand that the
basic demand and supply principle of economics may not provide for a
necessarily high salary for musicians given the number of performances they
give and the number of people that attend these performances. There may not be a full auditorium for every
performance, but the people that do attend almost certainly have a deep
appreciation for classical music and are sincere advocates of the arts. Classical music is a dying art form and I
think it is imperative that as musicians we keep giving as many concerts as
possible, throw caution to the wind about what the public may or may not “want”
to hear, ignore the modern standardized sound for beauty, and continue to give
as many performances as possible in hopes that the American public will simply
come to appreciate the splendor and beauty that classical music is.
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