Exclusive: Nobel Winner says ‘In the US, classical music is fundamentally a dying art’

Exclusive: Nobel Winner says ‘In the US, classical music is fundamentally a dying art’

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norman lebrecht

January 23, 2014

In October 2013, we reported that the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Thomas Südhof, had said that he owed it all to his bassoon teacher. On the basis of that reported comment, Dr Südhof has given an exclusive interview at Stanford to Ryan Romine of The Double Reed, discussing his own musical education and the importance of music in training the scientists of the future. With Ryan’s permission, we publish the following extracts:

 

sudhof nobel

Ryan Romine (RR): In comments you made in the Lancet in 2010 and others recently

posted by Norman Lebrecht of Slipped Disc, you credited your bassoon teacher with

teaching you valuable skills for your career. Can you expand on those earlier comments

about your musical training and its impact on your research skills?

Thomas Südhof (TS): The qualities I learned from my training in classical music, in

particular in bassoon, are multifarious and varied. Let me list a few. First, the value of disciplined

study, or repetitive learning, for creativity. You cannot be creative on a bassoon if

you don’t know it inside out, and you cannot be creative in science if you don’t have a deep

knowledge of the details. Second, the value of good mentorship. A good teacher challenges

and criticizes, but does not chastise or put down a student, no matter what. !ird, the role

of performance in a profession. As a musician, you practice for thousands of hours to play

for a few minutes—but when you play, you have to not only recapitulate the learned material,

you have to expand on it and you have to communicate it to the audience. In science, it is

basically the same thing—it is in the end a process which also depends on communicating

with an audience and accepting and responding to its feedback. Finally, I learned to value

traditions as a musician, but at the same time the importance of trying to transcend tradition.

The tradition is the basis that allows you to progress, the starting point, but it cannot

become a limitation, because then both in music and in science creativity and progress end.

*

RR: How do your children’s musical experiences in the US compare with your own childhood

musical experiences in Germany?

TS: I think the US offers terrific opportunities for young children to learn classical music. I only

wish there were more opportunities [for them] to go to concerts and to perform in concerts.

RR: Do you feel there is a cultural/temporal/geographical/neurological difference in

how art music is perceived and valued in the present society in comparison to when you

were growing up?

TS: Absolutely—in the US at the present time, classical music is fundamentally a dying art.

There are few people who are willing to pay for it and its importance is miniscule compared

to that of popular sports. Musicians earn a fraction of what even a mediocre athlete earns.

There is no vibrant musical culture at present—everything is geared towards being commercially

successful, not towards content. However, I think the same trend is observed in

Europe, and we need to accept this trend and look for components in popular culture that

are not boring (sometimes quite hard for me).

RR: Would you encourage your children to become musicians, scientists, both, neither?

TS: Only if they have a passion for it—it is a lot easier to have a stable life and to support a

family in other professions. Being a musician or a scientist is a sacrifice, and only worth it

if you truly enjoy it and consider it a privilege.

*

 

RR: The American education system has in the past few years invested heavily in STEM

(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects, which place a significant

emphasis on your career field. Yet, your earlier published statements place significant

value on arts training. Do you see any way to integrate these two seemingly disparate

ideals?

TS: I personally think that training in the arts prepares a growing child just as well for a

scientific or technical career as [does] training in STEM subjects, if not better, because the

arts train a person in discipline, independent action, thinking, and in the need for attention

to detail without becoming a prisoner of that detail. I absolutely don’t think there is a need

for earlier math training—there is only a need for training the mind so it becomes fertile

for future learning.

*

RR: Do you still own/play a bassoon?

TS: I still own my bassoon—upstairs in a cupboard—but I don’t play it any more….

RR: Who is the maker?

TS: Hüller, a former East-German company.

 

*

RR: Thank you so much, Dr. Südhof, for your time and your thoughts. Bassoonists (and

musicians in general) worldwide are surely proud to count you as one of their own.

TS: I wish I could still be a bassoonist—it was a lot harder than being a scientist.

 

 

 

 

 

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