Rattle’s rant, LA Phil’s Big O and other concert no-nos
OrchestrasWe have heard from a number of people who left the Barbican Hall before Sir Simon Rattle delivered his attack on orchestral cuts by Arts Council England and the BBC. The early-leavers agreed fully with what Rattle had to say. They just found it wrong that a conductor should use his privileged platform to issue a political manifesto. They had come to hear Mahler’s 7th, not Rattle’s rant.
In similar vein, concertgoers have responded equivocally to the woman who experienced – or faked – an orgasm during Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. Manifestations of approval in a symphonic concert include clapping and cheering at the conclusion of the performance. Other cries of relief, no matter how spontaneous, should be reserved for a personal space.
Here endeth the lesson.
“ They just found it wrong that a conductor should use his privileged platform to issue a political manifesto. They had come to hear Mahler’s 7th, not Rattle’s rant.”
It’s arguably an at least equally privileged platform, not to say ignorant, to expecting to enjoy a Mahler Symphony without being bothered by the pressing political realities that constitute and now endanger classical music performance in that particular place and country.
I would love to have heard Rattle’s rant. Tried to get a ticket but the concert was sold out. I thought it admirable that he used his platform to say what he thought.
Narcissism takes many forms.
Hear Hear Norman – and the same went for Barenboim at the Proms too.
Ridiculous statement…..The concert stage was the ideal platform for Rattle´s “rant”(just BTW,it wasn´t a rant.much less so than many of your posts ,anyway!)…..Maybe ,those,who “came to hear Mahler”(and the Poulenc choral piece sung by the BBC singers,which you forgot or selectively chose to ignore,),should think twice.:Maybe next time there is no Mahler,because the orchestra to play it has been disbanded…
Thank God we have folks like Rattle and Barenboim.who raise their voices against the onslaught on culture and education.They don´t believe music lives in an ivory tower,remote from the realities of life,like you….Time to arrive in the 2oth century(let alone the 21th….)
Lesson endeth
Both Rattle and Barenboim love to lecture us mere mortals from their elitist, oh-so-morally-superior, not to say globalist privileged perspective.
Not all mere mortals.Just those with low moral standards,who deem anything outside their pocket size worldview as “elitist ,usually right wing deplorables,Brexiteers, Trumptards,the usual conservative goners…I am proud to be “elitist, and”globalist” in contrary to some jingoistic ,morally deficient ,irrelevant neanderthals.
Sorry but, cuts to music (singing and playing instruments) are part of classical music and the maestro should be commended for speaking up.
FWIW: “Other audience members disputed the orgasm theory, offering that the woman could have made the noise while waking after having fallen asleep. .
One attendee who was seated in the row directly behind the person who made the noise said it appeared as if the woman was waking up from a sleep attack when she made the sound.
The audience member…said she had previously witnessed a person with narcolepsy experience a sleep attack, and what she saw at the L.A. Phil seemed similar.”
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-04-30/la-phil-concert-orgasm-twitter-tchaikovsky
Nothing to see here. Move along. lol.
Heard a Rattle rant in 2019 after a LSO concert in Hong Kong. This time it was against Brexit. At the time Hong Kong people were fighting a communist coup and nobody really cared or understood what he was ranting against.
Ok. We can limit the classical music concerts to just listening politely to music and clapping at the beginning and at the end. But there are some issues with that:
– Historically, it is a completely false image of classical music. Classical musicians throughout history have been delivering during concerts messages which connected their art to the world outside. Look at Beethoven, Wagner and probably the best example in history – Daniel Auber’s opera “The Mute Girl of Portici” whose performance started the Belgian revolution 200 years ago. And then – have we forgotten about the woman who was screaming during the first performance of Ravel’s Bolero?
– We have some dubious celebrities, minor starlets and influencers spreading widely their ill-informed opinions. Why is it that someone who has spent their lifetime promoting tirelessly classical music at the highest artistic level should be gagged when voicing publicly their opinion when some shortsighted decision-makers undo their lifelong work?
– While we in the West are trying to be proper and well-behaved there are some people in the world who use music and culture for delivering their own, sometimes manipulative, ideas. Look how a certain country was promoting through music their supposedly peaceful image and made the whole world docile when they were annexing the land of their neighbour 9 years ago leading eventually to a horrible war. There is even a term for this now – “artwashing”. We need to be more understanding of what is going on in concert halls and make them more open to delivering messages which are important and positive to the society at large.
If we make classical music disconnected from the outside world we just make it irrelevant and put it in formaldehyde. We should actually be screaming at the top of our voices at what is happening to music and music and cultural education worldwide when we know its benefits and understand that the modern world needs it more than ever. The politicians are killing the classical music and music education PRECISELY because we put it in an unpolitical safety box. We keep our opinions to ourselves so they do what they want with us.
If someone wants to listen to classical music without any distraction then they should stay at home and listen to their CDs or vinyls. The concert hall should be the place where music is a live experience, stirring debates, opinions and passions, and it should be for people passionate enough about live music to support any fight which may protect it from demise.
Just look at what happens at jazz, pop and folk music concerts. No wonder there are many people who find them more relevant to the modern world.
You want to hear only the orchestra during the concert? Well, the next time you want to listen to an orchestra live, there may be no orchestra to listen to.
Yes, wealthy rock musicians lecturing people on saving the planet, the virtues of unlimited immigration and higher taxation goes down really well, doesn’t it
Ah yes, the pop concert, the forum famous for the quality of its “stirring” debates about mankind’s most pressing issues.
What do you expect of Norman? If someone makes a stand, the commentary is slanted towards ‘stick to the music’. If someone stays silent, the commentary slants towards ‘complicity’. I half expect this comment to not pass moderation, as per similar comments regarding the presence, or lack thereof, of an objective standard on this site.