Can a living composer save classical music?
Daily Comfort ZoneThe traditionalist Dutch composer John Borstlap, an intermittent contributor to our comments section, has written a book titled ‘‘Regaining Classical Music’s Relevance; Saving the Muse in a Troubled World’.
Here’s an extract:
The repertoire of classical music was created in a time and place where the rattling of passing carriages was the worst sonic distraction, where none of the raging noises of modernity could even be imagined. In those times, people had enough time on their hands to reflect upon life, upon their experiences, to be aware of their own reactions to them, and to quietly contemplate the perspectives of past, present, and future. Ideas got the time and the attention to sink in, to mature, and to take on an individual and collective form. In the realm of culture, the “slowness of time” had a great impact: a craft was allowed a long trajectory of development, accompanied by constant reflection; the results of such trajectories we can admire in the “old” collections of the great museums and in the “old” repertoire as presented in the concert halls and opera houses.
The advantage of such a life was that the experiences of interiority were close to the surface and artists were strongly aware of them. The “interior world of individual experience” was the normal wave-length on which the artists operated, and since music is an abstract art, i.e., non-conceptual, composers could embed the imprints of their experiences into the structures of their music, where experience sheds its temporality and specifics, so that music (no longer dependent upon time and place) becomes universally accessible.
This means that the “old repertoire” which forms the mainstay of Western classical music, together with its aesthetic values, has never become old at all but remains as fresh as ever, reflecting interior experience which is accessible to every new generation. In our modern world this interiority has become rare and something to be wrestled from the world; the noisier the world becomes, the more valuable is the realm where people can restore their inner balance and awareness of individuality and Self.
The implications of the true nature of classical music as the art form of universal interiority are drastic: not its adaptation to modern life, but on the contrary, offering a contrasting experience makes classical music an indispensable part, an acute necessity, of the modern world. Interiority is the very thing the inhabitants of the modern world desperately need if they want to preserve the common sense and equilibrium to be able to function properly. It is in this contrasting experience, and not in some kind of practical or economic value, that the intrinsic value of classical music can be found, as a part of the common good. And this leads to the great irony in relation to the point of classical music’s relevance in the context of modernity: because of its interiority, classical music has obtained a level of relevance for the world that it never had in the periods when it was born, because in the past, the art form was an organic part of the world.
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-5314-9
Two things would go a long way toward building audiences IMO:
1. Music programs restored in the schools (including access to instruments) especially in USA
2. Perhaps a bit less of this woke programming
We will still be playing Bach and Beethoven 50 years from now (maybe not much longer though) , but in large part we’ve done this to ourselves by trying to be all things to all people while ending up in some cases being just a bit more than nothing. What company goes into business trying to sell every product one could desire?
Umm…Amazon seems to have had quite a bit of success and having something for everyone!
It’s mostly not Amazon’s own products though so the comparison makes little sense. They are a middle man.
There’s so much Irony here.
1) What you call “woke” programming is truly the brainchild of people absolutely incompetent in administration, marketing and management. This is what happens when a trombonist or bassoonist wants to make a paycheck and ends up running the local orchestra. 99.99% of “arts administration” are trained solely in music….where’s the surprise here?
15 years ago these geniuses were 100% sure music was a force for social good and every orchestra was going to eliminate poverty in the inner cities. Well, are we there yet? Now is programming anything/everything that has to do with BLM, in 10 years it will be something else. It will always fall flat in execution.
2) If music is a luxury product (which, TBH should be) then close 95% of conservatories, 98% of orchestras and cut public funding. You don’t see ITALY subsidizing Ferrari or France subsidizing LVMH.
Theres a very poor assumption that the problem is more exposure and indoctrination of this particular artform as “the best”. This wouldn’t happen in most other subjects. 100% of people get taught about Shakespeare, Poe, etc but you don’t see mile-long lines in every theater play. And arguably there’s exponentially much more Beethoven vs. Shakespeare programmed.
There’s a huge sense of entitlement from the classical world, which already gets much, MUCH more subsidies than it should given the level of interest of the public.
So no, there’s no correlation between spending public funds to cherrypick a subject above all else. That’s just musicians wishful thinking and thirst for more subsidies, in lack of actual public interest.
Classical music is already too big for what it actually contributes to society.
Close the orchestras. Sell the halls, or program stuff people are actually interested on and still provides intellectual/artistic value.
Hamilton is artistically/culturally BILLIONS of times more impactful than ANY piece composed in the 21st century.
Let that sink in.
Demolish the expensive-to-maintain cathedrals and build more supermarkets to satisfy the public demand for even more frozen pizzas. That’s “relevance” at work.
No!!! Convert the cathedrals into condos!
That’s right. It’s much simpler than Mr Borstlap’s esoteric ramblings.
People have more choice than ever before and they’re choosing other stuff.
If you’re in classical music pay attention to that and that alone. Quit the sermonising, entitlement and produce stuff people actually want rather than telling them what they should want. For better or worse, the days of imposed musical value are over.
So why are millions spent on promoting “stuff” that people already want?
You said it. They already want it so opportunities exist for competing brands to make money.
Trying to market something for which little or no appetite exists and you will soon reach a conclusion about what is effective.
It is to unpick the utter tiny-brain nonsense in this sort of opinions that the book has been written.
BRAVO, John!!!!! On all fronts!
(even if you don’t like Bruckner so much…)
Is “tiny brain nonesense” referring to your music? Quite accurate description.
Not that anybody has heard it, though…
No one remembers the names of the many idiots who ridiculed and laughed at the output of artists of their time who were later understood to have created great art.
Mecky Messer, if you have an ounce of integrity and the courage of your own convictions, why don’t you use your own actual name to insult John Borstlap’s music?
Excuse me, whose music?
Your little bubble is so sad I almost feel bad breaking it. Do you think its just a coincidence that European culture was considered “great art” the exact same years in which Europe controlled 90% of the world?
Whatever the dominant culture is, is the “best”. If instead of Beethoven you had had Bad Bunny, ALL of you – “BOREDslap” included – would be here critiquing reggaeton technique.
Well, now Europe is a sad wasteland of has beens with a heigtened sense of arrogance but who can’t actually compete in any industry with a future: no internet, no social media, no AI, not even automobiles anymore.
China is now decades ahead and the same way American culture has defined the arts in the last 70 years, it will be chinese and indian values what will define what is considered “good”.
So no, not even Dr. Strange can see any of the 18 million multiverses where the music of “BOREDslap” is or will ever be considered “good”.
Maybe for his immediate family and a handful of friends.
Congratulations – JA!
The anthropologic interest in this spitting comment is the suggestion, that ‘great art’ is inevitably tied to ‘dominance’. So, whatever ‘great art’ Europe produced in the course of the ages, is the result of dominance – i.e. power. This comes from French ‘philosopher’ Michel Foucault, who looked at the world around him and only saw power structures, nothing else. Foucault was an activist rather than a philosopher, and made the grave mistake of equalizing authority with power, i.e. behind everything that emanates some kind of authority, be it interpretations of reality or a ‘great’ work of art, was ‘in reality’ brute force and had nothing to do with intrinsic truth or value. This is woke thinking at its worst, because in this way, every subject is reduced to something personal. Hence the juvenile ad hominum attacks, because that is the only thing there is: a world full of fighting egos, and no value, no objectivity, no meaning, no subject, nothing. So, also no art, let alone great art.
And then: were people like Bach, Beethoven etc. responsible for the societies they were born into? Did they create their works as an expression of their régime? The ‘argument’ is entirely vapid. But it shows what woke does to human brains.
https://donemus.nl/review-of-the-second-violin-concerto-of-john-borstlap/
https://johnborstlap.com/press/
Your proposals are just dreadful.
Popularity is not a reliable measure of artistic worth. If it were, the utter crap we are fed with every single day would be celebrated in major museums and concert halls. There’s a reason why it isn’t, and that makes me hopeful somehow.
The problem is not simply exposure. It is also what happens after exposure — whether people can develop a continuous sense of cultivation of what they have been exposed to.
This takes time and is unlikely to happen in a cultural world that relentlessly promotes the lowest common denominator, reduces everything to entertainment, promotes expediency, and shuns the very notion of making an effort in order to actually appreciate something.
Hamilton is an insignificant commercial blip. I’m not saying it’s not enjoyable — only that its artistic impact will in the end be meaningless, no matter how many people today might be flocking to it.
“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare” (Spinoza). This was true over 300 years ago and is even truer today. Likewise, in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, one can read the following quote: “Res Severa Verum Gaudium” — true joy is a serious matter. I would add that only serious matters, and not simply what happens to be fashionable and popular at the moment, may bring true joy.
Popularity may not be a reliable measure of artistic worth but then what is? Is it what you decree has worth?
Don’t write off popularity with such disdain because, as the title of this thread suggests, we are talking about survival here. We can be as self righteous as we like about value but with dwindling public interest, classical music will shrink to meet demand. That’s just a fact of life.
Indeed. But the point is: how to present classical music in such a way, that its meaning comes across. Only then, audiences can be built.
What you don’t want to accept is that the true meaning and importance this music has, was that it was associated with empires and superpowers.
Power provides relevance.
Now Europe is a wasteland for innovation because everybody is too busy taking monthlong vacations, yearlong paternity breaks and cannot even produce a decent car worth anything and have been outcompeted and outinnovated by china and India.
TikTok (Chinese cultural tools) defines what “good” is, the same way the Esterhazy and Ludwig from Bavaria defined what good was in centuries long gone.
Sorry to break your bubble before Xmas but someone has to do it.
Why don’t you go to a website which is better suited to you? Here, you make yourself ridiculous…. Even my PA feels sorry for you.
I am too busy singing, going to concerts, church, reading, listening to classical music on radio, living life to go to tiktok etc.
By whose definition of “meaning”?
Mecky Messer we hear, you can stop hollering now. We’ve put it in our collective pipes and are smoking it.
Well, your argument falls apart in the face of the fact that art museums thrive on a public which is attracted to the artistic accomplishments of the past. So it is with music.
One doesn’t need to be an expert in art to enjoy it, nor should one need to feel that he needs to be to enjoy serious music.
The problems with attendance following the Covid crisis is due to many factors. People didn’t just suddenly stop caring about music. They simply began to rely on digital media to fill their time and spiritual needs when living in enforced isolation. Churches have lost attendance, as well. New habits, replacing old ones. Times change, but human needs are, well, human.
Let’s see if “Hamilton” is still relevant to the masses 50 years from now. I doubt it will be. It’s based on contemporary genre appealing to the masses of today. The structure of the musical will seem quite quaint at some point when the world is sweltering from global warming and oceans flooding.
I have been a fan of musicals since I was at my first way back in 1963 – a Lionel Bart ‘bomb’ titled Blitz which I only attended because his Oliver was sold out. Yet the staging and especially Sean Kenny’s massive sets and the amazing lighting were stunning to a boy who lived far from London – and something clicked. Since then I have enjoyed so many wonderful evenings at musicals on visits to London and New York, including seeing many in the Sondheim canon starting with his glorious Company.
As Margaret Koscielny points out, though, I really doubt if most will last. Like Hamilton they were mostly works written of their time and for their time. Even some of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classics are less frequently performed these days.
Many will say that musicals are just popular entertainment. True, but when some musicals run for years playing 8 performances a week at often increasingly high prices, there is something out of whack when a popular opera like Tosca or Traviata has trouble filling a dozen performances in a season. Finance is clearly one issue. Whereas a Phantom of the Opera uses a pit orchestra with only around 25 musicians, most cast members are paid very considerably less than opera singers and the technical costs when the same show plays in the same Theatre night after night, weekly running costs are inevitably vastly less expensive. And that of course enables producers to spend much larger amounts on items like weekly publicity.
Many posters here have bemoaned the decline of music education in schools. But surely this can only be up to a relatively very insignificant point. In my class at school, music classes for all but 2 or 3 were something of a joke, to be tolerated rather than to learn. Far more important is how music is taught and how children are exposed to it. When I managed an orchestra, we were extremely fortunate to have one conductor who knew how to blend short musical items with humor and education. We ended up with a concert hall full of children who not only enjoyed the experience, they wanted more! In my experience so many orchestras merely throw on educational concerts without really thinking how to achieve the goal of building the next generation of audiences.
More serious classical concert goers will no doubt argue vociferously, but I maintain that there is little point in trying to internalize and overthink why concert audiences are dwindling. Managers and promoters have to rethink the concert-going experience. Not so much the concerts themselves for regular concert goers, but the whole business starting from how potential new audiences hear about a concert, gearing the PR around it in much more attractive packages, doing far more by way of shorter sampler concerts, and encouraging more composers to think of today’s audience rather than producing works which they hope may last for a century or more.
This is where a leaf can surely be taken from the musical genre. New concert and opera-goers today want an experience they will enjoy. Outside of Asia, the traditional format for concerts is rarely attracting new audiences let alone keeping existing ones. Managements, concert halls, artists, agents, unions and all involved – including composers – need to come together to rethink how to attract the audiences of the future. Most of them will, I believe, need to be weaned over a period of time with several different types of concert experience and not just thrown into a regular concert. We can internalize all we want and look back at how societies have evolved over centuries. But we Iive in the first half of the 21st century. We need to look at the needs and wants of people today and then try to find ways of satisfying them.
This thinking is exactly the best way to kill classical music: as if it is a restaurant type of service. That is why the book was necessary.
The concerns are legitimate, the conclusions entirely passing-by what the ‘product’ is.
Well I know by how many my orchestra increased its audience through using some of our ideas – and it was a lot. Now please tell us how many new audiences have been attracted by your music Mr Borstlap.
First, the music must be performed, which means: people have to overcome their prejudices (like exposed in the comment above); then, the music has to be understood, which means: listened to by discerning ears, which means: ears who have already been developed upon the existing repertoire; then, the conclusion is that sophistication comes last and not first, which means: ‘attracting new audiences’ is a task for quite another kind of music which is accessible to ‘innocent ears’. Composers don’t write ‘to attract new audiences’ but to share their musical imaginings. Audience building is primarily a task of management and of education. This is exactly why the book has been written, to correct the idea that classical music has to adapt.
You do not get new audiences by throwing them into complete Beethoven symphonies or Brahms concerti – or even works by Borstlap. For those who know little or nothing about classical symphonic music, you have to find ways to wean them on. That’s precisely what Bernstein did so many decades ago – and what so few orchestras have been able or bothered to do since then.
Indeed, you don’t begin with the last stage of the trajectory.
‘100% of people get taught about… Poe’? Lol.
I don’t think so. Unless you were thinking of Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Lala…
I know Teach for America participants who worked in some of the poorest districts there are and the curriculum always at least touches some of these readings.
Of course a different thing is whether many of these schools provide a safe space for learning.
The problem for you is that to know that one actually needs to attend school….
Haven’t seen hamilton and po probably won’t except on tv. I do pay to see/hear Beethoven. I am also in a choir and we sing many of the masters. Shakespeare theater plays here in DC are becoming more and more like musicals not interested
you would best keep your negative garbage to yourself. If negative commentary is all you can contribute without any method of making positive change, then your words are wasted.
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write an intellectual and critical response to this persons absurd comment on slipped dics. here is the ridiculous comment that needs a critical response:Close the orchestras. Sell the halls, or program stuff people are actually interested on and still provides intellectual/artistic value.
Hamilton is artistically/culturally BILLIONS of times more impactful than ANY piece composed in the 21st century.
Let that sink in.
While I understand your perspective, I believe it’s important to consider the diversity and breadth of artistic expression. The comparison between “Hamilton” and 21st-century compositions isn’t entirely fair, as they cater to different audiences and serve different purposes.
Orchestras and concert halls are vital cultural institutions that have been nurturing and preserving the rich tradition of classical music for centuries. They provide a platform for both timeless masterpieces and contemporary works, contributing to a vibrant, diverse, and evolving musical landscape.
“Hamilton,” on the other hand, is a groundbreaking musical that has indeed made a significant cultural impact. It brilliantly blends traditional theater with contemporary music styles, making it appealing to a broad audience. However, its impact doesn’t diminish the value or relevance of other forms of music.
Artistic impact isn’t a competition; it’s a spectrum. Each work, whether it’s a symphony, an opera, a musical, or a pop song, resonates differently with different people. The beauty of art lies in its diversity and the myriad ways it can touch our lives. Let’s celebrate that diversity, rather than rank it.
Clearly you have never felt transported by a great symphony or concerto.
Please allow that others have. We pay to hear the music we enjoy. We don’t disparage others.
Trying to visualise crofters and similar rural workers indulging in classical music. The vision isn’t coming to me.
Weren’t brass bands, often playing arrangements of classical works, a fairly common phenomenon in provincial England until the mid 20th century?
They still are. And Australia. And New Zealand. And Europe. And USA. And Japan.
No-one can indulge in something of which they are totally ignorant.
I beg to disagree: Slipped Disc is ample proof of uninhibited ignorance ventilating its vapors.
You just confirmed Graham’s point.
Odd. I can imagine such a picture with far more ease than a middle-aged Devonshire farmer listening to Dua Lipa. What’s your point?
Bravo Bortslap! I think this is spot on. How it translates to audiences is perhaps unclear, but attempts to transform the art to accommodate current fashion are, in my view, sorely misguided and in fact counter to the very nature of what classical music is.
John Borstlap? You mean the boomer that’s always carrying on here? I didn’t think he actually did much composing. He seems more like a keyboard warrior. I very much doubt any living composer can “save classical music”, but if I had to pick one, it wouldn’t be him!
“…the boomer…”
The word contributers nothing useful to the discussion and merely shows a nasty name-calling streak in yourself. Seriously.
Come now, this is Slippedisc… You and I both know there’s no shortage of any of that here.
Betteridge’s law states that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no’.
In Borstlap’s case, the law holds firm.
He looks much better than one would imagine.
Sally’s friend
Sally looks better.
Thank you! That’s what I always maintain here in spite of protests.
Sally
What Mr. Borstlap articulates here so well is the erosion, and perhaps even the loss, of a self-relation which he calls “interiority” and which, I’m afraid, is increasingly jeopardized not only due to the many demands of our modern world, but also due to cultural shifts discouraging people from turning inward. I believe this is due to educational, economic and cultural factors, which are all linked.
The issue of an art form’s “relevance” is an issue that has come to the fore fairly recently due to the economic difficulties experienced by many art organizations. The belief is that we need to render all art forms more “relevant” in order to get people back into the concert hall, the museum, and the like. This, of course, is a misconception, as the arts have always, and will continue, to be relevant as long as we ourselves remain human. Homer, Shakespeare and Mozart still speak to us today.
The reality is that developing an appreciation for the arts is a multi-factorial enterprise clearly at odds with the ever-increasing demands of a world in which work and economic considerations have taken a central place within people’s lives. In addition, we also have a crisis in education, and you can’t truly come to appreciate something you have had very exposure to, as this takes time — precisely the currency lacking in most peoples’ lives today.
The appreciation for the arts, in a sense, is a little like the development of a “craft” which Mr. Borstlap mentions. It takes time, and it also takes taking our time, in order to develop either one. These are processes which cannot be rushed, as they do not function in the manner one simply acquires a basic skill to be applied. These processes work in two directions: they are equally transformational for the very person involved in them. The craftsman is equally transformed by what he does. Likewise, the art of listening is equally transformational for the listener. This very capacity for being transformed is a major element of what we are lacking today.
It would take many posts to do justice to this topic. I would simply add one last culprit in this discussion: the loss of our focus and of our capacity for longer attention spans in a digital world where everything has to happen right away and very quickly — essentially, the very opposite of what is entailed in any art form: reflection, focus, patience, and thinking in longer-term perspectives.
There will always be people resisting these powerful trends. The concern is that they may become an increasingly endangered species.
That’s one of the most intelligent posts I have ever read here. That, and the paragraphs from Mr. Borstlap, give me much to reflect upon.
Agree with you 100%.
Agreeing or disagreeing with someone else’s comment is not in itself a comment
I agree.
I see it as far more heightened agreement than simply upvoting.
The modern world craves for spiritual connections through the arts. Masses are attracted to classical music like they are attracted to various form of esoteric knowledge.
But then they listen to this clip, and there’s the rub:
https://youtu.be/1ZWvG_OJ6pI?si=xVVup6zdxsE1spuo
They go, like, this is the famous Beethoven that you say I should listen to day and night to better myself? No, thank you 😉
The Rodent bashing Muti yet again! Wow! Surprise! And he manages to squeeze in his hatred in just any topic, even if it waa about a hurricane disaster! Man! You know how tedious you are?
Incidently, this is a Beethoven with a frisson of true excitement! Unless you prefer Brüggen or Savall of course…
Man give me a bit of your excitement to cure my chronic insomnia; or, better, I’d actually try this clip lest it gives me bad dreams.
to long for sth.
to *crave sth.*
uh … no
to crave for something is also correct
Not after the verb. You can have a “craving” for something, but the verb “crave” makes the “for” superfluous.
The downvotes don’t faze me. Try looking it up.
I just LOVE Beethoven’s Symphony Nr. 7, but I have no desire to listen to it when someone who reminds me of a Seargent in the US Marine Corps conducting it just as fast and furiously as possible. So I must agree with you …
Ha ha couldn’t agree more, the apotheosis of the repeat….there’s much better music out there to hook young people into classical music…..stick them literally in the middle of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Bartok’s Bluebeard or Prokofiev’s Scythian suite (to frighten the bejayzus out them) then onwards to Debussy, Ravel, Bernstein, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Rimsky Korsakov etc
Something wrong here, and it isn’t Beethoven and his 7th.
Yeah, we know; it’s Muti.
Oh Lord, not more Boreslap drivel!
I find a simple answer to this question is … NO!
There’s a hard truth that is difficult for those of us who love classical music to admit: classical has definitely lost to other genres of music in the marketplace and there is no obvious way to reverse it. Perhaps this issue is addressed elsewhere in the author’s book, but I think the rose-colored glasses statements listeners tend to make, like the idea that people would love classical music if only they knew it better. It’s never been easy to get to know classical music now that streaming exists; people know it’s out there, it simply isn’t the music they elect to choose. I don’t see any living composer now or in the future changing this in a world of shortened attention spans. Classical music isn’t ever going to wholly disappear as long as orchestras and university music education programs exist, but nor is it likely to miracously regain the market share it had in the 1950s. Time for a walk on the real side, as Steely Dan would have it.
Silly nihilism….. Classical music as a genre is booming in Latin-America and East Asia. It is only in the USA and Europe that pressures mount about it’s ‘relevance’. The problem is a mental one, a psychological one, how people think about their own civilisation, and not about ‘the marketplace’. The current accessibility to classical music is something very positive, and beyond USA and Europe this stimulates interest. Only in it’s heartlands doubts are rising, and therefore it is a problem of ideas, not of accessibility or market forces.
On Thai TV there is a Chinese station that shows videos of Chinese symphony orchestras, playing Western classical music from all eras. The conductors are both Chinese and Western. The halls are full of rapt listeners. The orchestras are excellent and the soloists are world class.
why don’t you move to china
Now talk about his momma!
The West leads, the East follows. They copy our fashion, our marxism, our technology, our universities, our planes, our cars, our old music.
We have already figured out that classical music is useless and elitist. They are just behind.
We pick-up this ‘comment’ with pincers, look at it from all sides, sniff at it, and wonder where such burp comes from. But when we look at the woke criticism emerging from very dark corners, it becomes so much more understandable.
If only it were that simple.
The East might have perceived something in the West that the West itself has been neglecting and turning away from.
Do you realize the unreserved seriousness and dedication to classical music shown by many music students coming from the East? It is an absolute model of integrity, sincerity and commitment.
It is we who have to learn from them, not the other way around. If classical music is indeed to be saved, they will have played an enormous role in it. It is the West that is taking its own heritage for granted, whereas other ears are actually able to perceive the treasures in it and express genuine appreciation for it.
Voilà.
Maybe not ‘all’ audience members do fully understand the music, for them it is new, something modern, something symbolizing sophistication, and this is just exactly how it must have been for European 19C audiences.
Around 1900 classical music concerts drew crowds, they were so popular that Debussy complained about it and proposed a ‘secret society’ where only the sophisticated incrowd would get entrance. (This kind of closed music society was realised by Schoenberg somewhat later in Vienna.)
As recently as the 50s and 60s Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts were a huge influence on young people. But television — which used to make so much high art available to people to whom it was not readily available, whether because of cost or location (in Canada, an annual choice to be televised on the CBC from the National Ballet’s season was de rigeur) — was a poisoned chalice in many ways.
If the interiority and societies of which you speak are your main argument, I would like to read your further thoughts. But there are other considerations.
One, perhaps not a principal one, is often articulated by people who resist even trying a concert or opera — the sense of being an outsider. The rules, the dress, the aura of something for insiders, keeps many people from classical music.
It is a normal human feeling: at my age, I resist certain sorts of cafes or pubs because they are not made for me, though an owner would say my dollars are just as valuable to him as those of someone younger. For the same reason I would feel a little resistant to going to a pop concert, though most of the ones that might attract me should they happen would involve the artists of my generation so would probably not be that bad.
The difference between me and the youth that resists even giving classical a shot is experience. I would have the nous to attend a pop concert in casual clothes and I feel certain that young people would either not notice me or would be quite welcoming. Some of each. Young people feel that if they went to Beethoven’s 9th in their straight-from-class clothes they would be looked at and commented upon unfavourably (and I fear they might be right. I have seen it).
And we have not really even started on the effects of social media…
“Young people feel that if they went to Beethoven’s 9th in their straight-from-class clothes they would be looked at and commented upon unfavourably (and I fear they might be right. I have seen it).”
I don’t know where this happened but my experience when I started attending classical concerts on a regular basis at the RFH (mainly) in London in the 1970s was the complete opposite. And no problem at the ROH a few years later.
IMO, a lot of people make up excuses for not giving it a try. Pure laziness.
I always dressed when I went to the ROH, but that’s because I was either in the Press Box or the Dress Circle (so-called because in days of yore formal dress was required there). I was more casual at ENO, and at Glasgow Royal, where I was an opera subscriber for a season.
In Canada and the US, there may be more “gilded age” holdovers. I have certainly seen critical looks shot at what were probably students, rolling in wearing jeans and trainers, and have heard lobby comments about “didn’t even bother to dress.”
I have been to ballet and opera throughout Latin America, including Cuba during the “special period,” when people were stopping us in the street to beg for the soap from our hotel or to buy them a bottle of cooking oil (things we were able to provide). We met a nice young man on the beach and invited him to join us for the ballet at Teatro Garcia Lorca. He had been practically in tatters there, but he turned up in a suit, and most of the other people there were also dressed as well as they could be. And tickets were very cheap, even for foreigners, so it was not a case of some upper class, which I daresay even Cuba has. We were not there with the Cabinet and the factory owners.
In any case, it does not really matter. There is a PERCEPTION that you are meant to turn up in a particular way, and it is something some people resist for whatever reason. I’ve met that attitude as well, and have tried to dissuade people from it, but there is still a feeling in many people that it is just not in their orbit.
It is breaking down here in Canada, but it is not gone. My final job was with an orchestra, and it gave an outdoor concert, sometimes two, free each summer. Always packed. Of course some people were there at desks trying to draw some of the attendees into coming indoors to see the Orchestra in its natural habitat. They made some inroads, but the reports generally included this sort of resistance.
The perception has been encouraged by scenes in films with audiences formally dressed, sometimes extending to black tie. Articles like “what to wear when going to a concert” still imply that there’s a problem, when there isn’t.
Not that long ago, any TV news item about opera would be accompanied by footage of a gala event. Not so much of a problem now because opera is almost totally ignored.
I still get the occasional snide remark from people who insist that venues have a compulsory dress code. Doesn’t even apply to Glyndebourne. Some people nurture their prejudices and like to keep them warm.
In 2014 I attended my first Metropolitan Opera performance. It was the Met’s new production of Marriage of Figaro which had premiered a few nights prior. I sat in Orchestra on a Saturday evening. Soon a 20-something male walked down the aisle in plaid shorts, striped shirt and tennis shoes and took a seat two rows in front of me. I knew dress codes were relaxed but seriously! Btw it was a warm autumn evening in late September. And there I sat in jacket and tie feeling sad I couldn’t afford a tux for the occasion!
My late sister, pianist Anne Koscielny, once stated that classical music had moved to Asia, and she expected it would move again, back where
it all started.
By the way, I applaud your remarks about music.
Another sign of the cognitive decay of some people.
“Booming in south america”??? I literally come from south america and what’s booming is whatsapp, Mercadolibre (The reason why Amazon is not in LatAm), Chinese Cars (which have now outsold japanese/korean), and thousands of other things but NOT classical music.
Oh, but I forget, JB knows more about south america than south americans living in south america.
This “composer” needs serious help, not a platform to enable clearly distorted delusions…
Mmmmm…… it is general understanding that classical music is firmly established in Latin America. In a different way mayby than in Europe – in relation to the whole of populations – but it is, and it produces a wealth of excellent musicians.
https://www.axios.com/2022/03/19/classical-music-rising-latin-american-stars
https://www.yourclassical.org/story/2023/03/14/listen-la-mujer-en-la-msica-how-latin-american-women-have-shaped-classical-music
Recent statistics show impressive percentages – only for itnernet users, but it’s an indication:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290857/digital-audio-music-genres-latin-america/
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/six-recent-studies-show-an-unexpected
“a craft was allowed a long trajectory of development, accompanied by constant reflection”
Mozart died at 35, Schubert also in his thirties; Vivaldi wrote hundreds of concertos and dozens of operas, JS Bach a cantata a week for a year. The evidence simply doesn’t support this claim.
Evidence? There is much to say about that. Short version: The ‘claim’ was about generalities, not individual cases. And then, in the baroque, writing music was done quicker and easier, because of the aesthetics and the traditionalism of the craft. When more individualism entered aeshetics, production quantity went down dramatically.
Mozart and Schubert began extremely young with their craft, and Mozart was (severily!) trained by his father, a thorough allround musician, one of the best of the time. They cannot be taken as a general state of the culture.
“The evidence doesn’t fit my thesis so I’ll ignore the evidence”.
Talking about ignorance…….
It is possible that you do not understand how composers of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th c. worked.
Having a normative harmonic language, (see, “Music in the Galant Style,” R. Gjerdingen”) allowed “classical” composers to work very quickly. They also had fewer distractions like electronically reproduced music, radio & TV, the internet, car, train, and jet travel, higher education, etc.
Contemporary composers are contemporary people, and typically have to invent their own personal harmonic language, often reinventing it for each new piece—lus they spend way too much time at the (non-musical) keyboard.
Classical music is safe in the hand and minds of plenty of people. They may not all be Europeans or Americans.
For those whining about “woke,” I challenge you to view a screening of Anthony Davis’ masterpiece, “The Life and Times of Malcom X.” Act one of that opera does a better job of teaching white us what it is like to be Black in America. In my opinion, it is a masterpiece.
Teaching in one of Germany´s best,and biggest conservatories, we don´t have such unscientific ,absolutely risible nonsense in our libraries,and we won´t. As for popularity, Mr.Borstlap´s totally uneventful,inane tries at composing aren´t hugely popular either…BTW,just played in a couple of sold out performances of Ligeti´s Le grand Macabre un Frankfurt, however….But on Christmas,we should be mercyful and benign: This site is more or less the only the only forum this musical flat earther gets.
Mmmm…… interesting. To give some colour to this teutonic outburst:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUtZ5m1iKig
So, enthusiasm for Ligeti’s opera aptly paints the mental background of this silly comment.
But that is entirely understandable: in Germany, the profound hangover from WW II has cemented modernism as the only admissible ‘new music’ in the country where it was hated by derailed state criminals.
My supervisor in Germany told me 15 years that “Lachenmann still holds an iron grip here”. I really do pity your musicians and public over there, many of whom absolutely hate the movement he represents and still feel burdened by this yoke, now, 75 years long years after the early heyday of Stockhausen and Boulez. Imagine latter day representatives of geriatric mid 20th C modernism calling tonal composers in 2023 flat earthers. Tremendous. A Keeper! LOL
With respect, Mr. Borstlap could begin by taking a long, hard, humble look at what it means to be an effective communicator from the stage, as opposed to the unkind, self-anointed, self-assured “critic” firing poisoned darts from the wings of Slippedisc.
Mmmmm…… the author of this premature blip could begin by taking a long, hard, humble look at the book in question before revealing his embarrasing ignorance. Oh, my PA waves her hand, sorry, I take this back.
Frustrated ego.Failing at having a big career. Some can´t cope with it, and can´t get their head out of the mud,because they refuse to reflect about their own faults,acknowledge them and work on them…Making things worse by adopting and concocting crude conspiracy theories,blaming others and pointing their fingers at them.In my 47 years in orchestras i have seen this many times.Singers,conductors,players,soloists intendants,directors. It happens all the time.Looking inside yourself is perhaps the hardest thing to do.
Ha! More!
This comment must be coming from a really angry German teacher at the BEST, and BIGGEST German Conservatory, where – in spite of these accolades – it seems that ‘popularity’ is the best measurement of content. Oh, where are the times of the Great German Minds, the composers, the writers, the philosophers who had something to say about the relationship between science and the arts? But alas, dragonflies don’t read them.
Like I just said earlier, Lachenmann still holds an iron grip.
Quite some Germans – not all of them, thank god – GIVE such type as Lachenmann the ‘status’ he seems to have, because it reassures them to be on the moral right side of history. ‘Music is dead’ Lachenmann claimed repeatedly, and every work by his begins from scratch, ignoring all past, also the past of his own works (which is quite hard but he tries time and again). Nothing of his theatrical pulp will remain… while Germans will still be around, because it is a product of postwar neurosis. Not something to scorn, but to feel deep sorry for.
That’s an uncharacteristically ungenerous comment from you. I did not see Mr. Borstlap as arguing for his own music in the selections published. He offers a viewpoint that is his interpretation of some of the problems facing classical music today, and his opinion as to causes of them. It’s not hugely original, but it collates ideas that bear repeating.
I read you attentively, as I think you are a reflective, and knowledgeable, and very cordial, contributor here. I am surprised you found those paragraphs to be unkind, or “firing poisoned darts” — I saw neither.
One need not agree with Mr, Borstlap’s analysis of the matter, but surely he is entitled to offer a view. He has studied and created music all his life and has earned the right to speak out based upon his own experience. So have you, and I would welcome your counter-arguments, but your characterisations of a few paragraphs does strike me as…unkind. And surprising.
V.Lind… For clarity (and sorry for the confusion) I was not referring to Mr. Borstlap’s book, which I have not read, nor to any of the content on this post. I was referring to his long-established habit, on these pages, of insulting those in the classical music industry who do, indeed, fight day in, day out, to bring classical music to the world and to “save the muse” in the most creative and imaginative ways possible. In his recent criticism of the hardly pedestrian Stephen Hough, for example, he adopts the role of public arbiter and subsequently justifies his demeaning, caustic commentary as “criticism”. I don’t see a single other artist (and I consider the author to be a serious one, of course) coming to these pages to insult the work of other artists with demeaning epithets like “mediocre”, or “café music”, as in the case of his commentary on Mr. Hough.
So I am referring to the irony that Mr. Borstlap has published a book whose title asks the probing and important questions that many musicians, through action from the stage itself, are trying hard to answer every day with their creative imagination and toil. But Mr. Borstlap dismisses them and their work on a regular basis with stinging bitterness and, sometimes, ad hominem characterisations. This, I can not tolerate. It is the height of disrespect. Nor is it helpful to anyone, least of all our common goals. Hence my reference to firing “poisoned darts”.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to read a book that examines these questions, questions we ask ourselves every day, and even to contribute to the lively debate, but I just find it galling that these questions are posed by a man who seems bent on besmirching those trying to answer them through their hard work and dedication to originality and creativity.
Mmmm…. let me contribute some clarification. The questions brought-up in the book, and the explorations of the concerns of the musical world, are not the same as the individual achievements within that world, which are always entirely open to appreciation, or criticism, or opinion. In my own work, I am both attacked, criticised , as appreciated and praised, in all varying degrees by very different people and I’m fine with it – and mere silly burbs by ignorati are not to be taken seriously. But criticism that are more serious, are OK, and artists simply put up with it & go on with their work. (If they would not, they would hang themselves.) As far as I know, I did not criticise Mr Hough as a person, but his compositions, and there is nothing wrong with that. I’m sure he would not suffer greatly from any criticism whatsoever.
I understand. I clearly found your post ambiguous.
For reasons that passeth understanding, my computer — after years on this site — would not allow me to link to stories or comments, sometimes even to the front screen, for almost a year. (New laptop sorted that). So I have not seen his comments on Stephen Hough, whom I also esteem very highly, and which, as you characterise them, do look mightily unjust and even “poisoned.”
I have engaged in a number of vigorous arguments with various posters on this site over the years, but have always attempted very hard to avoid ad hominems, and have called them out occasionally when I met them. It is not constructive and is indeed counter-productive.
Over the years I have seen many of Mr. Borstlap’s posts, agreeing with some, less with others. I listened to some of the clips from his music that are available on YouTube, with considerably less antipathy than I have to some other new music composers. If that sounds lukewarm, it is because my own tastes tend to be more canonical, but I do give new music a chance once in a while and am always relieved if I come away from it not wanting to throw things. Mr. Borstlap’s music leaves my pitching arm in repose.
Anyway, he has stimulated on of the livelier on-topic discussions on this website in a while, or Mr. Lebrecht has in selecting a few thoughts from his new book to show us.
Thank you for clarifying to me what you were addressing. Apologies for not getting it in the first place.
Happy Christmas to you and yours.
John Borstlap: “Silly nihilism….. Classical music as a genre is booming in Latin-America and East Asia. It is only in the USA and Europe that pressures mount about it’s ‘relevance’.”
Cultural trends mixed with politics are creating odd dynamics in today’s world.
I’ve observed quite a few people – of differing ages, different backgrounds (including racial, ethnic ones) – listening to rap music. Human brains that perceive the nature of its rhythms (or a lack of what might be defined as melody), much less lyrics (or “lyrics”), in a positive vein is baffling to me. But they do exist.
For political reasons, various people will want to proclaim, “So what? Tastes and preferences vary. Get over it!” Moreover, so-called hipsters have a tendency to love things that are odd, esoteric or inscrutable.
Some of these same trends are also influencing other forms of culture. That includes things like what’s on the BBC (a recent TV show called “Dr Who” comes to mind) or movies, the performing arts (plays, operas).
Then there are various people into older forms of classical music who tend to turn up their noses at a John Williams. Visa versa too.
Overall, it’s a brave new world, folks.
But isn’t the pluralism of today not a good thing? I think it is. When we walk around in the immense shopping mall of contemporary culture, everything is available, for everyone there is something. But that does not mean that everything is the same, or has the same value. To carry-out your shopping meaningfully, you have to develop some discernment, to make the right choices for yourself. There are people who have found their way in the mall, and if they know the value apart from the price, they will go for the best.
What a load of prescriptive BS. And who decides what has meaning and value? Oh, it’s John Borstlap.
‘…. prescriptive BS…..’ ??
What’s so nice of this truly democratic website: apart from so much interesting and useful information, occasionally you can get a view over the fence into the mental pigsty of the lower classes of ‘music lovers’. In this way, cultural anthropology gets a wealth of material from which to distract insights into the effects of classical music on psychic disturbances.
Irony and the inequity of life in these UnitedStates has made rap and punk a vibrant check oncurrent social reality & values. Niki Minaj is as important nay mores than Webern or even Stravinsky because they are understood. Classical music even today’s opera(I just saw AnthonyDavis ‘ MalcolmX :the music and terrific libretto spoke to me as a black person living in the U.S. -however just like Woyycek or Bolcolms McTeague another relevant masterpiece about life in American society .I could remember not a note of the music.)Today’s Classical music is rarely no matter how ingeniously organized memorable ,often unintelligible Luckily a few works the Ligeti,UnsukChin Jenifer Higdon,MatthiasPintscher WyntonMarsalis,Wm.Bolcolm violin concerti are memorable the musicalevents happen,come&go but we can hold onto bits of them. However the brushless and erudition of today’s best music just like old Mendrlssohn won’t stop anyone from doing bad actions.
Borslap is talking about repopularizing old forms. It’s already been done Arvo Part ,Glass,Reich and other minimalist composers recognized the power of “riff &repetition “. The foursquare rhythms of Hadyn ,even Brahms need what Classical music has not had since Glenn Gould& LennyBernstein in the 70s had: cultural hegemony and media trumpeting your work. Crossover only happens when enough people see it.
It’s a problem of capitalism (the owners of business don’t want a thinking, voting population & esp.dont want blacks or any other minorities to know history or how contemporary government really work). Until there is a movie,t.v. show ,series that is popular highlighting many different works there will be no momentum. Public education and my mom introduced Classical music to me just as it does in the Suzuki system . I’d like to know why and how it works in Asia and Russia and Eastern Europe many young people are exposed study and adopt careers in Classical music over there while it’s rarer here?
If interiority has been lost because of the “noise” of contemporary living wouldn’t it be better to value composers and music from our own time Boulez,PerNorgard,Tia Leon who speak with the traditional materials but in todays languages instead of Josquin,Schubert or Mozart?
Oops! B and N are not at all defining ‘todays languages’, that is ideology speak from the sixties of the last century. Meanwhile we live in another age.
But the argument that music of our own time should speak as something of our own time is entirely legitimate. However, this does NOT mean that earlier music (the ‘classical repertoire’) is THEREFORE less important, or less meaningful, or less ‘relevant’ for us today. Namely, it is quite possible that a cultural language has declined, and then ‘being of your own time’ may not exactly be the best recommendation. Cultures develop, change, get better, and may decline, or entirely disappear – because of what people choose.
The modernist ideology who insisted that only its own idea of what ‘contemporary’ meant, is valid, is simply totalitarian, like the totalitarian experiments of the last century. How pleasant is it, if a music speaks the language of its time? Thank God we have the classical repertoire to make-up for all of that.
Since ca. 1900, there was not one line of development, but a delta of different musical languages.
And then, why are we performing Bach, Beethoven, etc. etc.? Only as museum pieces? No, that music is as much alive as any contemporary expression can be. The explanation of this state of affairs is to be found in the book where this thread began.
“Since ca. 1900, there was not one line of development, but a delta of different musical languages.”
That is a key take-away here. Trouble is, John, you are up against debaters here who subconsciously still see 20th C tonalists as the backward ones, the “flat earthers”, as we saw in this thread from someone who works in the German university system, and who lives in a musical universe where someone like the German composer Alma Deutscher is persona non grata.
That contrast would make a fun essay, because Deutscher knows exactly what she is doing. She fully knows what she is up against in her country’s academic world, and to their chagrin, she already has a big concert audience in Germany.
Luckily, many historians have now moved on. As Daniel Albright said a few years ago, “We need a definition of [20th C] modernism that encompasses both Schoenberg and Pfitzner.”
Or, another way of looking at it, one Sibelius scholar suggested a concept of pluralistic 20th C musical modernism that takes Busoni’s philosophy as its template rather than the extreme focus of the Viennese School and their post-war descendants.
The latter group was very interesting in its own right, but was far too esoteric to provide a useful model for a general historical framework, and thus spawned a tradition of 20 C music history writing (Eggebrecht) that bore almost no resemblance to the 20th C that most musicians and sophisticated music lovers would recognize.
True.
By the way, I am not ‘up against’ anything but simply offer an alternative, much better way of looking at music history. Which is enough for some people to climb into the curtains, but that is another story. (Some years ago, a German composer took the trouble to write a long essay in the Zeitschrift für neue Musik to warn music life against dangerous crank JB who was the fascistoid leader of a cult intending to undermine the music world…. that was nice advertising, people immediately ordered my first book from amazon.)
One of the most interesting and profound authors on music today is German (!) musicologist / composer/philosopher Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz, and as far as I know he is currently the only one in the ‘heartland of classical music’ who has risen above the postwar neurosis. Much recommended:
http://www.wolfgangandreasschultz.de
His most recent book ‘Europas Zweite Renaissance’ is a masterpiece of visionary and cultural-philosophical writing.
Easy solution to this. Orchestras should have at least several free concerts each year, for people of all ages, whether outdoors or indoors, not expecting any of them to dress up, perform popular “classical” film music (really, it’s more so dramatic, romantic, and even impressionistic music), mention who composed it, and show the similarity between that music and great orchestral music composed 100-200+ years ago.
They do.
I’m not aware of any orchestra that expects the audience to dress up.
It’s not orchestras that expect. It’s other audience members — and I agree it is declining, though the message has not got around, for reasons we have discussed.
Theres a much more accurate, demonstrably true state of affairs:
Show me power, and I’ll show you what cultural manifestation is considered “the best”.
What a coincidence that when Europe owned 90% of the world, european culture was “obviously” superior.
Well sorry, but now you folks cannot even make a car 1/2 as good as a chinese manufacturer, so save the entitlement.
When the US was de facto “in charge” american culture overpowered the world.
Now china has risen and Tik ToK is more important for an entire generation that Beethoven will ever be.
There’s nothing intrinsically good, just channels for powers to manifest themselves.
Looking at europe…and at classical music….Good luck..
“When the US was de facto “in charge” american culture overpowered the world.”
And was performing a considerable amount of European classical music.
“Now china has risen and Tik ToK is more important for an entire generation that Beethoven will ever be.”
And now China is also performing European classical music.
You think comparing Beethoven with a video hosting service is a sensible argument? And what happened to the Chinese music?
Deranged.
John Borstlap writes music? Is it as insufferable and sanctimonious as his commentary? I have no intention whatsoever in looking him up, so someone let me know.
You should know what I have to suffer here!
Sally
Yes, it is that tonal, flat earther stuff.
Yeah, I don’t think you would want to hear it then. It’s quite tonal, eh? The great Lachenmann authoritatively compared such composers to “the degenerate fruitfulness of maggots having a good time on the fat of the tonal cadaver.”
Lachenmann (who never produced anything that invokes laughter apart from his stance) is not a musician…. so, better to try to destroy what you cannot do than trying to actually create something worthwhile. Hence, these people living in their Alice-in-wonderland rabbit hole.
In modern times, for better or worse, attention spans are short and time is precious. Classical music demands time and attention. That is the likely reason the elderly and retirees typically tend to enjoy this music more than younger audiences.
I’ll try to answer the headline question: “Can a living composer save classical music?” The short answer is No! If it’s doomed, it’s doomed and no amount of analysis will change that. No disrespect, but it makes no difference whether the composer is John Borstlap or John Williams.
I’ve been listening to and loving classical music for more than 50 years and when I first started, the prophets were already active predicting its demise. Even Glenn Gould weighed in with a doom-laden forecast. Yet here we are, more than half a century later and still going.
There’s an interesting documentary on YouTube called “The Music Men”. It’s about the LSO of the 1960s and the financial difficulties it faced (and probably still experiences to some degree). Give it a look! You might also be interested in Dave Hurwitz’s (ClassicsToday.com) video “To hell with young people”, also on YouTube.
With funding cuts and other economies (that have been extensively documented on Slipped Disc), no one can say the future is rosy, but I fully expect classical music to be around for a long time.
To begin with: that headline is Norman’s, not mine.
And then: classical music has never been meant for a very wide audience. Nobody expects it to be popular in the way pop music is popular. But the genre was never questioned on its relevance in relation to the times, as is happening in these days, and this is new: critique from outside its sphere, by people who don’t know what they are commenting about (a bit like many people on SD), but with the result that musical institutions feel threatened and try to accomodate to absurd ‘requirements’. This shows a hughe insecurity and the nature of that insecurity is civilisational: people running the classical music world feel they lack arguments, and the elitist attitude of ‘feeling safe’ no longer works.
The title (JB’s, echoed in NL’s) seems strange. If classical music so uniquely addresses the contemporary condition in enabling an experience of ‘interiority’ that it is ‘an acute necessity’, something that we ‘desperately need’, then it shouldn’t need saving.
In fact, all this claim does is direct our attention immediately to other questions: is there any shared understanding of what’s meant by ‘interiority’? If so, does everybody seek / need it? If they do, does classical musical uniquely provide it? If so, how and why?
And you soon realise that these are just another way of posing the old question about cultural value: can we say a particular art form is ‘better’ (insert your chosen adjective) than another?
‘Interiority’ seems to me just another way of trying to answer ‘yes’. As an instinctive cultural elitist (awkwardly so, as a socio-economic leftist), I want the answer to be ‘yes’, and ‘top marks for interiority’ is a nice way to think about it (intuitively I – like many here – have a sense of what music-enabled interiority might be). But in the end, the best I can say is that it’s ‘better for me’. As soon as I try getting in to ‘objective’ criteria, there are so many exceptions and complications that the edifice quickly crumbles.
What classical music long had was status. It was exclusive. Listeners – both as concert-goers and through recordings – were predominantly drawn from an educated (largely middle-class) elite. Even 40 years ago, when I was a teen, that remained the case. I listened (occasionally at concerts, mostly at home) with a small group of friends. We were comprehensive lads, and we called ourselves ‘The Patricians Society’. I blush at the thought of it. For better or worse (the end of the Patricians Society, certainly better), I don’t think that’s the case now. The ready availability of classical music online means that anybody can dip their toe. And I believe many probably do (anecdotally from friends and family, I’d say so anyway). Classical music is just one option amongst many. It’s not forbidding, it’s not exclusive, it’s not happening behind closed doors. The end of musical snobbery is a gain.
But there’s loss too: in the flattening out of broader musical landscapes that comes with eclecticism; in the lack of interest in expertise that tends to accompany pick ‘n’ mix listening; and in the often clumsy efforts of the classical music world itself to jockey for position within this market (I presume this is what JB means when he refers to attempts to ‘accommodate absurd requirements’).
I’d be interested, in any case, to know whether and how JB answers some or all of the questions in my second para. He’d probably say, read the book. I fear I won’t get round to it. But the SD piece has made for an interesting post!
Agreed with most of it. The point is, that if the genre is read as a form of psychology, it begins to reveal aspects of its nature which throw a different light on practical questions. After all, the effects of classical music are, apart from purely aesthetic, psychological. This offers an entrance into the territory of value, meaning and thus: relevance – also in relation to society.
Looking at all culture as a mere equalized market place is fundamentally wrong, and this has nothing to do with snobbery (which is always destructive).
On the contrary, composers of the classical period (which ends when? with the development of trains? motor cars? air travel?) were under as much or even more pressure to get their ideas down on paper and into the concert venue as are composers nowadays. The fact that they travelled on horseback or in carriages rather than by bicycle, train, car, or aeroplane is irrelevant to the speed or intensity of thought. Conversely, are today’s serious modern composers not capable of the same earnest examination of their musical ideas in relation to their life-experience as were classical composers?
This is just a particularly annoying version of the ‘golden age’ myth. Of course our ancestors were so much more leisured, had so much more time on their hands — all they had to do was lie about under trees and let the ripe fruit fall into their mouths! Why not ask J.S. Bach or Haydn, or Mozart, or Beethoven, about the demands of their work!
it is not about the exterior means and materials, but about how people react to them, and the nature of the pressures which they were under. The answer to the question at the end of the first paragraph of that comment is: you can hear it in the music.
This is not true. Classic music is very much alive, with the difference that it’s best compositors are now working for cinema where they can be more well paid.
No, because there is a fundamental difference between film music and concert music. It is a grave misunderstanding to put the two genres on an ‘equal’ basis. Film music has quite another function than concert music. That is the reason why it is wrong to want to ‘enliven’ concerts of classical music with visuals.
On a different note, Mr Borstlap must surely have the record for the most downvotes on a single thread here?
It’s been like watching a slow motion whack-a-mole.
Don’t worry, they are the yaps of little lap dogs….
I must say a whopping £59.99 for a 120-page book is a bit of an eye-popper.
The price is balanced by the value of content.
There will be a much cheaper soft cover after a while. The hard cover is mainly for the university libraries everywhere.
“… universal interiority …”!
The whole extract is a prime candidate for Pseuds Corner.
Yes, I know, it’s difficult… try again! It’s worthwhile.
And patronising with it!
I tried again, but the unexamined unsupported assumptions drove me away.
It’s not patronizing, but correcting a comment which criticised an excerpt from a book, which is nonsensical since it is an excerpt. One may like or dislike the excerpt, but examination and support of any arguments can only be found in the book, of course. This is not so difficult to udnerstand. People who base their opinion of a book upon an excerpt will never know what they are judging….. it is just silly.
I’m going to comment as soon as I learn what interiority is.
It is the art of reflection of what is going-on in our mind and emotions, without distractions from the outside world, in an attempt to become aware of the situations and movements of the emotional and rational realm als they are in themselves, as distinct from being stirred by outward stimuli. Taking distance from the outside world is necessary to get that far…. If our inner world is entirely determined by the world outside, we loose something of our personality. Turning the attention ‘inward’, also called ‘self-reflection’, helps to become aware of the surprising fact that we also have an entire world ‘inside’ ourself which has its own nature, distinct from the outside world. If we let ourself be determined in our thoughts and emotions by the outside world, we are reduced to a mere reflection of that world. In classical music we can recognize something of the movements of our interior realm, that explains why so many listeners want to hear some pieces again and again. They feel ‘recognized’ and things in themselves being given meaning. It is an entirely irrational and subjective process, which can be recognized by any music lover in case of self reflection.
Hey John, all this archaic academia stuff aside, can you write any light tuneful music similar to Mozart’s late pieces? That’s what we need to keep classical ‘art’ music alive and relevant today.
Yes, I could easily do that. But isn’t there enough of that by Mozart himself?
And then, only composers who understand the musical language inside-out, can give it a try.
But it is not necessary at all that it should sound like late Mozart. Think of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, or Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, or Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, or… or… or… there is so much that is not played enough and which is as relevant as Mozart’s music.
I have some problem with the idea that some little bit more probing under the surface is considered as ‘archaic academia stuff’.
Dear John, I fully agree — music, modern or old, should probe under the surface AND have beautiful melodies. Unfortunately, to my untutored ears, today’s new music is sorely lacking in the latter department.
Yes, I think that is true, but the composers I mentioned lived quite some time ago. The art of writing melodiously seems to have been lost, and when composers try, it’s film music confection or pop limonade. Because that is what in terms of ‘melody’ remains hanging in their ears.
The old masters all copied or were influenced by their predecessors or colleagues and passed down the Classical tradition this way. Today’s living composers, not so much. That’s why classical music and opera is dead (in the sense of being in a museum, not in actual performances).
The repertoire of classical music is not dead at all, it is very much alive every time it is performed. This is the difference between, say, the collections of the great museums and concert practice. And in this being alive lies its relevance for the modern world, and that is where the book is about. It is a grave misunderstanding that the concert repertoire written before the modern world would be something that has no more meaning to us than an object in a glassbox in a museum.
I see my students, as opposed to my Conservatory days, struggling to make ends meet and keeping “family time” a priority. As part of “The Lincoln Center Family” incredible performances were steps away in “student rush”. NYC was the capital of art and finance. DC the seat of government. The rise in regional music is great in the USA, but the mindset is very different in 2023, in part due to advances in technology.
“In those times, people had enough time on their hands to reflect upon life, upon their experiences, to be aware of their own reactions to them, and to quietly contemplate the perspectives of past, present, and future.”
Not the peasants working in the fields or those toiling in factories. I love CM as much as Mr Borstlap, but I can see that its production was a reflection of the inequalities of society.
This is the thinking that projects the injustices of the society in which music was written, into the works. Nobody in the world would deny that traditional, premodern societies were full of injustice. As contemporary societies are equally saturared with injustice, otherwise we would not have the woke avelanches. Only, the miseries moved towards other locations within these societies or to another level.
Do we think that mathematics as developed in Ancient Greece reflects the injustices of Ancient greek society? And if so, should we cancel mathematics? Haydn wrote in the service of Prince Esterhazy, does that mean his symphonies and string quartets reflect feudalism?
And what about Beethoven’s acceptance of a pension from three noblemen, does that mean he was really not a modern republican but supported exploitative nobility? When ‘crazy’ monarch Ludwig II showered Wagner with gold to give him the opportunity to realize his operatic plans, was this a scandulous waste of tax money that no citizen of Bavaria would have approved of?
Were the composers to whom we thank the core repertoire of the central performance culture responsible for the injustices of the society where they were born into? Were they of their making? They did as best as they could to write the best possible music, and tried to survive, in spite of the world they were born into. It is nonsensical to project our contemporary social concerns into the fruits of a culture from the past.