CBSO’s first ‘concept’ concert is crashed by clichés
NewsFirst-night review, exclusive to Slipped Disc:
CBSO at Symphony Hall (December 13)
Music: + ★★★★★
“Concept”: – ★
What a review of a CBSO concert should be exclusively concerned with is the music making. I make this glaringly self-evident and undeniable point simply because the way in which it was presented and packaged makes it impossible to do so. This is a source of regret because the performances of Richard Strauss’s ‘Don Quixote’ and Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’, symphony were not merely very fine but blazed, coruscated and invigorated. The CBSO’s energy and glorious playing, inspired by the irrepressible Kazuki Yamada, were a joy to hear. These performances were gems, brilliant diamonds which deserved a setting worthy of them rather than a visual “Concept” of incredible vacuity, banality and distracting irrelevance.
The CBSO’s new Chief Executive Officer Emma Stenning, microphone in hand, welcomed us to her brave new world and exhorted us to share our opinions of it with her. Read on Ms Stenning. Anyone who missed this can download her two page draft “Vision Statement”. Ezekiel had a vision of God on his throne; St John, one of the Apocalypse; the Holy Spirit was revealed to St Teresa in a vision. To Ms Stenning has been revealed a vision of the CBSO’s future. Moses brought down stone tablets inscribed with Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai – her vision has yielded Five Resolutions. It’s the fashion for Fives nowadays as in Rishi “Stop the Boats” Sunak’s Five Pledges. The Five Resolutions include startling and novel ideas such as: respecting the players, staff and audiences; sharing musical experiences and extending the orchestra’s reputation. Why has no one thought of such things before? Like Star Trek’s Captain Kirk – “to boldly go, where no man has gone before” – Ms Stenning enthusiastically employs the split infinitive promising, “to boldly join the conversation about what future orchestral concerts might become.” This will involve collaboration with a new “Artistic Director (or directors)” in making “transformative” concerts.
This was the first such concert. I have now seen this vision of the future and was made sore afraid. Well no actually, I was immensely irritated, bored witless and occasionally moved to ironic laughter. Here was a brilliant performance of Strauss’s inventive tone poem as he intended with the roles of Don Quixote (cello) and Sancho Panza (viola) taken not by star soloists (as has become the norm) but by orchestral principals – step forward Eduardo Vassallo and Chris Yates. Vassallo was a noble and dignified Don, passionate in his madness and romantic delusions, with Yates a sober and restrained Sancho leaving the humour to the raspberry-blowing lower brass. All the episodes were sharply delineated with some deliciously daft baa-ing sheep. It took the combined talents of Tom Morris, Rod Maclachlan (“renowned video designer”) and lighting designer Zeynep Kepekli to come up with what accompanied it. Three screens showing some of Gustav Dore’s Quixote engravings, close-ups of the players and an embarrassed Vassallo, in the dressing room, waving his bow around like Quixote’s sword. And some cue cards – one was helpfully labelled “Interval” for those who hadn’t worked out why people were leaving their seats and going to the bar. Whatever the hire of the cameras, lighting rig and staff to wield it cost was too much. Ironically a concert designed to be “accessible” involved shutting off all the cheap choir seats.
Kazuki’s approach to the ‘Eroica’ was pleasingly full-bodied, big-boned and old school. No concessions to “authentic” style clipped phrasing and prissiness: right from the off, those two confrontational cards-on-the-table E flat chords we were in for a titanic tussle. Every section of the orchestra was outstanding from the rock-steady basses to the plangent wind in the funeral march and Elspeth Dutch’s horn section on top form. The jazz-band practice of getting soloists to stand when playing was acceptable for wind players – but whole fiddle sections in choreographed up-and-down motion looked daft. No dafter, however, than the accompanying slide show of famous faces. Beethoven and Napoleon (obviously) but also photos of the players’ favourite people. Nice to know someone admires Victoria Wood as much as I do but what’s it got to do with Beethoven? I suspect she’ll be laughing at this pretentious nonsense from her place in Comedy Heaven. The orchestra’s performance was greeted with deserved enthusiasm, with a fine send off for second violin section leader Peter Campbell-Kelly after fourteen years service.
Norman Stinchcombe
Its happens when the only one without a remotest connection to either the music or the audience is made boss.
Assuming “Norman Stinchcombe” is not an alias for you, Norman, it looks like a stink bomb from Stinchcombe.
https://www.midlandsmusicreviews.co.uk/2022/07/latest-reviews-from-norman-stinchcombe.html
A very well-deserved stink bomb! Woke Conceptual bilge comes to mind.
Honestly, I’m not a Lebrecht alter ego or nom de plume but someone who has been reviewing classical music for newspapers, magazines and websites since 1988. A quick search on Google will confirm this. Thanks for reviving the “stink bomb” play on my name Stephen M. I haven’t heard it since the 4th form. I find it just as side-splitting six decades later.
Obviously, this idea of making a classical concert ‘more palatable’ to ‘modern audiences’, stems from the idea that classical music should adapt to the needs of ‘modern audiences’. That these imagined ‘modern audiences’ may need some education about what classical music actually IS, is a need entirely overlooked.
The whole misunderstanding comes from the idea that classical music is an art form from the past and ‘therefore’ has to be wrapped in some contemporary garb to be digested by ‘modern audiences’. But that is entirely wrong. Classical music is contemporary and modern, simply because what it conveys, is not locked-up in history, but ‘speaks’ to any human being who is sufficiently perceptive, and that is: has come to understand what it is.
So, education is the answer to the many questions about ‘survival of classical music in modern times’. Very simple conclusion.
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-5314-9
Classical music used to be responsive and adaptable. The concert experience evolved up until its present partly fossilized state. Why should it not continue to evolve?
Education in the appreciation of any form of art is primarily through experience; if intangible barriers are erected to those experiences, people will never have a chance to learn.
Classical music is already ‘wrapped in contemporary garb’ — the problem is that the garb is contemporary with middle- to upper-class earlier twentieth century, not with today.
So make classical music more accessible to more people of nowadays – why not? Relax the rules, give stimulus through images, allow people to react naturally rather than sitting grim-faced on their hands until the very end. Let music convey its message without the restricting conventional rigmarole.
In fairness, it sounds like you weren’t there. What was on display was just… Weird. Truly weird. An intelligent sixth former could have produced something more profound, or at least visually interesting. It was just distracting, weird, and had no connection or synergy with the music and playing on stage, at all. I was open minded going in. I was left feeling like, if they were going to try something new, why was it so pathetically limp… This comes from a music lover in his twenties who has gone to CBSO since his early teens!
Oscar and Lloydie – no, I wasn’t there, but neither (presumably) was John Borstlap, and it was his general point that I was contesting. Judging by what I’ve read about this particular concert, I’m quite willing to go along with the mostly negative judgement.
Indeed. I just wondered. Try going along to the next one in May and seeing for your (good) self?
I was there and thoroughly enjoyed this. And not because I don’t appreciate or understand Classical music – quite the opposite. I studied Music at Cambridge and have been involved in music all my life. But I also want to be able to share the joy with many of my friends who haven’t had this background. This kind of format will enable me to invite people along in a way the more ‘traditional’ formats won’t.
Were you there?
Oh lord…. The usual cliches about middle class stuffiness…..
Just wanted to clarify that, in spite of hating the current CBSO initiative, I don’t think you’re far wrong with most of this. I don’t see this debate as having anything to do with what the orchestra or the audience wears, who applauds when, whether you can bring drinks into the auditorium, all that kind of thing. Who cares? I’ve also seen visual elements used very effectively in concerts in the past. BUT – if people feel bludgeoned into interpreting things in a particular way, have their listening experience impaired by quite loud non-musical noise, and feel treated with disrespect by the management, those are different matters entirely. And when will someone dare to confront what for me is the real elephant in the room – the issue of how we’ve come to accept that a standard Symphony concert must never under any circumstances contain more than 80-90 minutes of music (and at, well, £30-£40 a ticket)?
Here’s a review in tomorrow’s Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/838b30b2-e623-49ac-ba01-3e31bd377dc0?shareToken=0dd373bb7281656d5469469765bfe5d6
Exactly so.
First of all, it isn’t fossilised. When I started going to concerts several decades ago as a casually dressed student I was pleasantly surprised how relaxed the whole audience was. Nothing remotely grim about it. The experience was designed so that the music could be heard without distraction. That was all that mattered.
Secondly, people use the term “evolve” to imply that a particular change must be a good thing. Evolution only occurs when circumstances arbitrate on whether a change is for the better. Until then it is nothing more than the latest in a serious of frivolous gimmicks.
Dear Guest: I would ask / comment:
1. How and when, precisely, did classical music “used to be responsive and adaptable”? I am not sure what this means.
2. How is the concert experience “partly-fossilised”?
3. Re middle- and upper-class comment: I was at a very good grammar school in the Birmingham region, where social classes mixed – we were there based on our intelligence, not our class. I was a “working-class” boy who discovered the CBSO aged 12, and then regularly organised concert trips from school – eagerly taken up by my schoolfellows. Most of us were “working-class” – and we had no problems with concert etiquette and the concert experience. Quite the opposite. None of us perceived it as anything class-based at all – it didn’t enter our heads. It was about experiencing great, live music. All we needed was a) a brain and b) to be present in the (then) Town Hall. Nowt to do with class. So, I respectfully suggest this is more about class-chips-on-shoulders than about music.
4. Your comment about people sitting “grim-faced” is unnecessarily negative – people aren’t “grim-faced” – they are listening to the music in silence, which is the proper response. What do you suggest they all do instead?
See also the very excellent book ‘Listen: On Music, Sound & Us’ by Michael Faber – somewhat cheaper!
https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/embed?asin=B0C1596RXW&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_XJX329FNCT7EQWD4D4ZM
I attended the concert and I agree with the review I can understand the need to look at new ways to present concerts to attract new audiences but is this really the way?
I found the screens and the content distracting with endless views of the orchestra and conductor on three screens
Also sitting in the grand tier the noise from the fans on the huge projectors was irritating in the sensitive acoustic of the hall
There were also constant changing of coloured lighting and smoke haze and worst of all the poor orchestra had to stand sometimes as soloists or section by section Why??
I can see the narrative of Don Quixote was useful to follow on captions and pictures but they ran out of ideas in the Eroica after the initial list of so called heroes many of whom I didn’t know so one spent much of the time guessing thus not concentrating on the music
Both scores wonderfully played by the orchestra
The music should speak itself plus a bit of homework beforehand or in the programme
It runs the risk of being a classical light spectacular or a circus show both of which the wonderful CBSO doesn’t deserve
I think there needs to be so serious rethinking going on if this is to be a regular thing
Sadly, Stinchcombe‘s review is spot on. It‘s just so sad: Yamada is fantastic, the orchestra is playing like gods, and the audience is, or has been, delighting it what has the potential to be a golden age. But this initiative is just so arrogant: the audience, it seems, can no longer be trusted to form its own conclusions about the music, without its responses being filtered through the subjectivity of people who are themselves not musicians. It was also very badly handled practically: there was no warning of this when the concert was advertised; those of us who had tickets for the Choir were forcibly repatriated to the Grand Tier, without being given any choice in the matter; and we were also required to make an additional in-person appearance at the box office, rather than being sent a replacement ticket by e-mail. It almost feels like that Brecht poem: maybe the CBSO wants to sack its current audience and appoint a new one in its stead. Certainly, with friends like these orchestras in the 21st century don’t exactly need too many enemies.
I was at the concert, and endorse Norman Stinchcombe’s comments in their totality. What Norman does not mention is the constant background low level noise that emanated either from the speakers, or from the lighting rig (does that require cooling fans – as that is what it sounded like?) throughout the concert, and was particularly irritating during the Eroica 2nd. movement, the Funeral March.
Here we have one of the finest natural acoustics in the world, in Symphony Hall, spoilt by some technical production device.
At the height of lockdown, the tiny (by comparison) professional Orchestra of the Swan, produced some streamed concerts with far higher quality mixed media values than this concert, which they also performed live at their base in Stratford to great effect.
In addition, at Birmingham Town Hall some years ago, the pick-up collective known as Propellor produced an interactive piece based around the Birmingham, with the players in the round, projected images and effects, and families and children free to sit on the floor, wander around, sit among the musicians and so on. It was a delight, but near impossible to replicate with a full symphony orchestra.
But it is worth a try at CBSO Centre perhaps on a small scale.
Meanwhile, on the basis that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ please discontinue this discredited idea forthwith and resume normal service – audience and orchestra engaged together in active listening, contemplation and imagination, which we are well able to exercise ourselves.
I was at the concert last night and agree wholeheartedly with Norman here. The CBSO playing was sublime, despite amateur and banal attempts to distract us. I don’t think anyone yet has mentioned the distracting blowing noise from some of the extraneous electrical equipment which decked the Hall: we have here the finest acoustic in the country, and these wretched CEOs and people ruin it with their “concepts”. Not only the acoustic was ruined – but the wonderful aesthetic view of the Hall, the orchestra and organ was obscured by screens and darkness – one simply could not watch the players, which – as anyone with an ounce of concert-going understanding will tell you, is an exciting and vital part of the live music experience. Heaven defend us from these new CEOs and theatre directors who think they know it all. The theatre director tells us online – “you don’t need a degree to listen to music” – and then patronises us with banalities and irrelevancies. Oh the irony… And the imagination behind it was nil: an intelligent sixth former could have done better. All they did was stick up the Gustav Dore engravings, and ask the orchestra who their heroes were, then stick ’em all up on a screen. Really?? Is that all you can do? How much were you paid for this? And the live feed was a second behind the actual action – which was so off-putting, as well as technically basic that it should never have been allowed to go ahead. Whatever the audience says – they will press ahead regardless – you watch. Despite all the smiles, there is a deep-seated arrogance there. I am already withdrawing my attendance from the next planned-charade – Pictures at an Exhibition – in May – and taking my guests elsewhere. I don’t want another experience like last night. Doubtless I will be seen as a reactionary curmudgeon. I am not. I just love music and want to listen to it without being told what to think and what to look at. The comment above re “this is what happens when you appoint CEOs who know nowt about music” – is right. She spouted cliche after cliche in her speech – if that is an example of intelligence and leadership now – the orchestra is in trouble.
Oh dear. This enterprise seems to have achieved one thing – cheesing off the current audience and probably still not having engaged with a new one.
“When I were a lad”, I went to almost every CBSO concert in each season from around 1982 – 1985. I was usually part of a small gang of players from the Birmingham Schools’ Symphony Orchestra who sat in the choir seats of Birmingham Town Hall (Symphony Hall was still just an idea in the making), just soaking up all that was presented to us – Brahms, Sibelius, Takemitsu, Beethoven, Elgar, Stravinsky etc. Occasionally, Simon Rattle might offer a few words before the performance of something slightly challenging (Ives’s Unanswered Question was one such piece) but, other than that, the audience (young, old, frequent attendees or not) seemed very happy to just listen to the music.
How is this idea going to bring in a new audience? How will we know in advance what images are to be used so that we can make a value judgement as to whether to buy a ticket or not?
What happens if your vision of what Sibelius is portraying in En Saga is not matched by the images that accompany it. If it massively detracts from your enjoyment, will you be entitled to a refund?
Is Till Eulenspiegel going to be accompanied by footage from You’ve been Framed, Candid Camera, Jackass or Trigger Happy TV?
The opportunities for getting things wrong are too many to consider. I cringe every time I see a WW2 documentary where images of Nazis are accompanied (quite obviously not ironically) by the music of those composers banned by Hitler.
Just let the music speak.
This was my first time hearing the Eroica live, and I must say, I thought it was spectacular. The visual aids of sections standing and use of directional lighting, I’m sure, guided the ears and attentions of many audience members, adding immensely to the overall experience; something clearly proven by the rapturous applause immediately following the performance. Perhaps the excitement of performing with Kazuki, alongside the extra curricular additions is what brought the orchestra to this “blazed, coruscated and invigorated” performance state?
As for the Strauss, it was wonderful. Truly magnificent playing from the two soloists and a pleasure to experience. Perhaps the intention of the opening video of Eduardo was lost on the reviewer though. I fear Norman has taken a leaf from Miguel de Cervantes’ book, becoming delirious and not quite seeing things for what they truly are. From my understanding, Don Quixote was deemed comedic at the time of its publication and perhaps our reviewer’s lacking sense of humour mistook comedy for embarrassment? Who should be embarrassed now? I personally found it quite funny and felt it set the mood for what is a quirky and, if not at times, ridiculous tale.
Overall I thought this concert was a great success. Yes, there were some issues with the noise of projectors disturbing the experience for some audience members but let us not forget that this is just their first attempt at these sorts of concerts, one the orchestra can use to build upon for future iterations, and I applaud the CBSO in their efforts of trying something new. It was a great success, the orchestra sounded as wonderful as ever, and it can only get better from here!
In the same way that Bill Clinton had a sign on his desk that read “It’s the economy, stupid!”, perhaps Ms Stenning needs one to remind her that it’s all about the music. Bombarding the audience with banal images is not only patronising, but it could also ruin the concert for anyone who has sensory problems related to autism.
The Eroica is a masterpiece and the music speaks for itself. It doesn’t need to be ‘enhanced.’
Most posters so far have echoed my own thoughts, so just to emphasise the main things I take out of it (a) whatever you think about adding bells and whistles to a concert, the background noise from whatever it was is totally unacceptable – the quiet passages were completely compromised. As people said, what’s the point of having an acoustic like Symphony Hall with that noise going on (b) I didn’t know about people in the choir being relocated at short notice, that was appalling. It was bad enough being told about the visuals just two weeks in advance (c) I sincerely hope that when the 24/25 programme is published, it’s made abundantly clear which concerts are going to be “enhanced”. By all means explore ways of bringing in new audiences, but this first attempt was a turkey, and as others have pointed out, showed no sign of any empathy with the music.
And finally, yes the music was top class. That should be the main thing that matters.
I agree that it is essential to publish which concerts will be presented this way, in advance (e.g. as you say in the season brochure).
Potential audience members must have the option to avoid these concerts if they do not wish to attend them.
One of my most favorite pieces of all time is Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, and to that effect, I was by luck able to find a copy of the program book from its first performance. The program book, published by Universal Edition, is actually both a commentary and an analysis of the work by Alban Berg, replete with actual musical examples (a shorter version, “Kleine Ausgabe,” can easily be found online in used books websites such as Abebooks). The point I am trying to make is that, in 1913, there was an expectation that most people attending this concert had the necessary knowledge to read and understand the content in this program book.
Fast forward over a hundred years later — how the situation has changed indeed. The craze with these new “immersive” experiences, which started as an alternative to museum exhibits and are now seen by clueless deciders as a way to attract new audiences (which they are not, at least not in a sustainable manner) show the profound failures of educational systems all around the world and the cultural shifts which result in what one could call a deafness to classical music, which parallels an equal blindness to art in general. The people now often in charge of artistic institutions are hired not on the basis of any sort of artistic vision (most of them have none), but rather on the basis of a purely corporate model whose only priority is the bottom line. Not only are these deciders incompetent on an artistic level, but they attempt to compensate their lack of knowledge by coming up with allegedly new models for presenting the arts which not only detract from them, but most importantly fail to build new audiences, as you can’t seriously expect people to develop a real interest in classical music when their attention is being diverted by an incessant intrusion of images on enormous screens.
The idea of a full democratization of the arts, allegedly removing those barriers that would prevent people from discovering them, by focusing on mere cosmetics and irrelevant add-ons, is a sad illusion. The more we move toward a society incapable of focus and of overcoming its short attention span, the less likely people are to step into a concert hall. As content continuously degrades, those who are still interested in the art form will slowly begin to stay in their homes and listen to recordings from bygone eras, as opposed to have their intelligence insulted by supporting these mediocre venues.
Agree. Spot on. It’s all about the lowest common denominator – and it’s finally patronising to people that the CEO and people don’t think have the brains to understand the music. See my comment about about irony… The same is happening on Radio 3. And this is not about being stuck in the past. It is about letting music speak. Please get rid of these people, CBSO. They will do you no good! I for one am already cancelling my tickets to the next facade-fest. I don’t want to listen to Mussorgsky with all the pictures stuck up in front of me – I can use my own imagination.
But often enough the programmers of BBC 3 have a flash of profound insight:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001slzn
The most important line in this comment:
“The people now often in charge of artistic institutions are hired not on the basis of any sort of artistic vision (most of them have none), but rather on the basis of a purely corporate model whose only priority is the bottom line.”
And why is this so? Because modern society demands of a symphony orchestra that it exercise effective management, and running an orchestra has become quite complex with the logistics, finances, programming, upkeep, marketing, etc. Setting-up a symphony concert in the 19th century was easier, because less bureaucratic. So, the talents needed for running an orchestra are very different from playing the music that is performed.
I agree with you, however I do believe that this aspect is far from sufficient when it comes to running an arts organization. There also has to be a vision and a personal involvement into music. I believe many of today’s organizations are run by people whose musical knowledge is at best mediocre and who probably have never experienced any musical training, nor ever played an instrument in their entire life.
These people in my opinion should not be involved in running the arts. You cannot run an orchestra in a dispassionate manner simply by spouting hackneyed talking points and empty rhetoric. When I hear words such as “relevant,” “reimagined,” “community involvement,” “exciting,” “enhanced” and the like, I know this organization is run by a shrewd yet clueless administration bordering in some cases on philistinism and even charlatanism. Some of these people are only in it for the very high fees they get as administrators — they couldn’t care less about the arts.
“Some of these people are only in it for the very high fees they get as administrators…”
Tell me you know nothing about orchestral management without telling me you know nothing…
By “the bottom line” I take it you mean the money that enables musicians to eat, live, pay their bills, raise their families, earn pensions, etc
…and the money they take away from musicians by cutting their salaries, eliminating some of their positions, cutting their benefits, and then eventually use the savings in order to inflate their administrations by creating totally unnecessary and useless positions. That indeed is also part of this orchestra management which you seem to be describing as this Goldilocks enterprise merely designed to better the life of its employees, whereas in my personal experience most managements around the world are much closer to being heartless mercenaries viewing orchestra musicians as an expense that needs to be minimized at all costs.
You’ve never worked for a UK contract orchestra, have you? (No need to answer. You’ve already made it pretty clear)
Beethoven died in 1827. Almost 200 years later his music is still being performed. Why? Because it has spoken to human beings all those years by virture of its sheer strength! Beethoven’s music goes straight to the human heart, most likely because he fought literally to get every note right. Bringing people of all ages in contact with such a composer is the “concept” to “promote” classical music! 200 years from now Beethoven’s music and that of other geniuses like e.g. Mozart, Verdi, Chaikowsky, Dvorak, Strauss, will still be going strong … and a multitude of so-called “contempories” will have long been forgotten.
We’ve waited a long time to finally have what Beethoven wanted. His third symphony finally made sense to me last night, and it was the projection of Dame Kelly Holmes that did it.
Very funny comment…..!
How? What on earth has she got to do with the symphony? Please explain. Or Victoria Wood for that matter? This isn’t some simplistic piece about “who’s your hero?” That’s ludicrous and puerile. As was the entire exercise.
This is beautifully put, Dixie, and I (and doubtless many others) thank you for expressing what needs to be stressed again and again: Beethoven, Mozart. Verdi, etc. have nothing less to say now than they ever did. To dilute their messages with distractions — be they slides, videos, standing musicians, whatever — is nothing more than a confession of a lack of faith in music. Anyone who doesn’t believe in the fundamental power of music has no business making their living at it.
Viola players in the modern times…..
Sounds exciting and engaging.
Bravo to trying something that repositions orchestral concerts .
The orchestral world and even more so the operatic world has suffered for years from dreadful people appropriating great music and excluding people from an an amazing experience.
For sure there will be missteps but if we do not embrace innovation things will atrophy and die.
And remember Wagner’s view on critics.
I entirely agree. I was there & enjoyed the projections immensily! So many people get the concept wrong, they turn it upside down, inside out. The projections were beautifully, really superbly clarified by the music which I otherwise would have found dead boring.
Sally
Haha nice one
It is probably time to shine a light on the current generation of “critics”.
Since the slashing of budcgets in local papers by Reach and Newsquest the role of music critic has been up for grabs.
They do not really capture the event or performance but superimpose their own prejudices on to a concert.
Not sure if they have any orchestral experience or indeed musical knowledge except from perhaps reading programme notes on records these new keyboard warriors are a menace.
Their ghastly , sneering and supercilious- as well as superficial comments perpetuate the perception of a refined and intellectually superior person.
They are none of these things. Just some saddo who longs for the good old days, which never existed, of Klemperer, Furtwangler et al. Unfortunately forgetting those conductors were revolutionary.
This comment shows complete misreading of the review. The musical part was strongly praised, the visuals condemned. The author was supposed to be a MUSIC critic, so nothing wrong with that.
I too was at the concert. I think Norman S was too harsh, and I believe the ‘extras’ we got were a work in progress. Eduardo didn’t look embarrassed in the pre-recorded video which showed him preparing his cello as though he were going to do battle with the windmills. I only hope he got more than a soloist’s fee for having to ‘act’. I found the captions for Don Quixote useful.
I didn’t like the fact that we could only see the orchestra in the gloom, a bit like an opera orchestra – this took something away from my enjoyment of the concert, and in the warm Upper Circle, the darkness was a little soporific in the quieter passages of the Strauss.
I expected to see Beethoven and Napoleon during the Eroica, but all the other faces proved to be a serious distraction to the music. I quite liked the players standing for their solos, as long as they were happy? [Any insiders from the CBSO like to comment on Slipped disc?]. It was also nice to see the conductor on the screen – a view normally only available to those in the choir seats.
Kazuki Yamada is a very personable, likeable fellow who often turns around, welcomes the audience, and has something interesting to say about the pieces. I think this is enough and doesn’t need bells and whistles. If they wanted a new, loyal audience wooed by friendliness, having him conduct more regularly in the season would be a plus – we hadn’t seen him for six weeks! The continuity would help, I think.
Appalling. Why subject a first class orchestra and music to this treatment? Our day is full of screens and a visit to the S.Hall is an oasis of culture in the modern world and to be subjected to amateur looking videos of musicians polishing their instruments and a continual bombardment of faces during Eroica was distracting and fundamentally irrelevant. Any chance of a refund, because the product I bought was not up to scratch? Please don’t ask people to pay high prices for exploratory performances.
Your core patrons will not warm to this and I can’t see it winning a new audience.
Is this the result of political interference? CBSO receives public subsidy and there is much talk in the ‘mission statement’ of ‘diversity’ and lack thereof. On that basis the new management might even regard adverse reviews and opinions from established concertgoers as ‘music to their ears’. As a regular attender at Symphony Hall I had already responded to an invitation for comment that I shall not be coming to any such events and was told that “there will still be some traditional concerts”.
I, too, worry about the expression “lack of diversity”. I suspect that this new CEO woman is completely woke and wants more unknown (and tenth-rate) composers – the quickest way to empty concert halls. So far, the CBSO has been temperate in this – it has introduced some new music carefully – unlike the Proms, which rams it down our throats. (Remember that “Jerusalem” version three years ago?). I fear, however, that the CBSO is going to go the same way. It will not matter one jot what the audience thinks. You watch. She will persist… We will get more cliches and platitudinous language. After all – she is being paid some exorbitant salary to do all this. Most of the comments here are unfavourable. That will not stop her. These events are here to stay. I will vote with my feet (and my money – I am a member of the Friends…) Much as I do not wish to… This is all so sad.
If the salary on offer had genuinely been “exorbitant”, they would have been able to hire someone from within the classical music industry.
You may be right, Macheath. But I doubt it’s much less than £100K pa. I think I meant it’s exorbitant for what these people are doing in return for it….
“There will still be some traditional concerts”
Presumably, they advised that if you want to hear “The Eroica” or “Don Quixote” or any other piece in such concerts, you should forget the CBSO and attend at another orchestra.
If I want images with my music I will watch Fantasia……………..
The LSO’s Half Six Fix is an inordinately better idea than all this palaver for doing things differently and reaching a partly different audience.
With some trepidation (as there are various aspects in common with what the CBSO are doing) we went to one of these for the first time last week.
There, Gianandrea Noseda spoke for just a few minutes at the start prior to a full performance of Tchaikovsky 6 and illustrated his points with excerpts played by the LSO. While what he said wasn’t a coherent overall narrative about the work, it pointed out a number of really insightful things about the -music-. The sort of things that came as a surprise even to someone who’s heard the piece countless times and would also give listening hooks to anyone who’s never heard a note of it. This can obviously go either way and heavily depends on the individual musician given the task, but in this instance it was just enough to enlighten and draw in the listener. The focus was on things you’re going to hear and not in any way veering towards a dry musicology lecture.
When it came, not long after, to the full and outstanding performance, it was respectful to the notion that the music is what counts. There was some subtly different lighting and there were screens focusing on certain sections at times but subtly done, exclusively to the sides of the stage, not overbearingly large and with no faux oversaturated black-and-white pretension. They could basically be ignored if you chose to just look at the properly lit stage in the usual way. In any case, beyond “The clarinet is now playing the tune” they weren’t furiously trying to tell you what to think every two seconds.
Meanwhile, at last night’s CBSO concert we were unwillingly relocated from our chosen choir seats up to the far flung reaches of the grand tier where the enormous projectors required to realise the equally enormous banality of the “concept” were set up. These are totally inappropriate for placing within the auditorium at an orchestral concert as they require large amounts of cooling. At that proximity, the noise from the fans was literally as loud as the orchestra during the more restrained passages of Don Quixote. Total write-off on that basis alone.
We moved to the circle after the interval and were instead treated instead to a bloke basically dancing around in his seat throughout the Eroica. The accompanying seat creaking matched the intolerably destructive visual distraction from both him and the intellectual vacuum of most of what was rendered on the screens. The execrable behaviour of other patrons isn’t on the CBSO of course, except when it is because it’s concomitant with the other aspects of solipsistic free-for-all they’re encouraging with their new “vision”.
We’d have got more value for money staying at home and chucking £5 notes one after another all night onto the open fire we don’t have.
The CBSO, of course, was doing Rush Hour concerts and spoken introductions from conductors two decades ago. They lost money at the time: models that work in London do not always work in Birmingham, where patterns of work and commuting are very different.
So very, very sad. We remember with undimmed affection Sir Simon Rattle’s eighteen glorious years at the helm of this fine orchestra when this sort of gimmickry would have been laughed off stage. Does the music not speak for itself. God help the CBSO
The irony is that in many ways it’s an even better orchestra than it was then, and that they play their hearts out for their chief conductor, who in turn is hugely popular with the audience.
And have you been to any concerts in the 25 years since Rattle left?
Good question, Seth – thankyou! Speaking as someone with a certain amount of experience of classical concert promoting Birmingham, few types of people have been less helpful than the “golden agers” who harp on and on about how great it was in the 1980s and boast openly that they stopped attending CBSO concerts after 1998.
Great, so you know nothing about Oramo’s work in new music, about the global attention drawn by Nelsons, about the way Mirga put a jolt of electricity through the whole sector. You know nothing about the youth choruses, the youth orchestra, the expansion into CBSO Centre and the rebuilt Town Hall, about the Bollywood and BOC collaborations, about the Commonwealth Games and the Gramophone Awards and a whole generation of younger players. But boy, don’t you love to give us the benefit of
your nostalgia? Which is fine in its place. Not denying that great things happened 25-50 years ago. But since you know nothing of the reality since then, a polite silence on current affairs would be wholly appropriate.
If performing Scriabin’s ‘Prometheus’ sure, that figures but Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’? Surprised they didn’t programme it as ‘Erotica’ that would have brought the punters in. God help us.
I constantly hear about the orchestra coming under financial pressure with the potential loss of funding from Birmingham Council. What is the additional cost of incorporating this approach into the future concert schedule – not only in the increase in running costs but the potential loss of high value revenue when the endangered traditional loyal concertgoers decide not come to these concerts.
I am sure that what I am about to say has probably already been covered in the previous 35 comments but I will write it anyway. When I go to a concert I want to hear the music and not watch the antics of an overly athletic conductor or view anything on a screen. So I close my eyes if necessary. Otherwise I am not fully focused on the MUSIC, my sole reason for being there.
What do the initials CBSO stand for?
I assume that you are being ironic, Nathaniel? But just in case – Symphony Orchestra, meaning all play together sometimes in harmony, sometimes in parts, but together producing magnificent music from the greatest composers. See also – not to be taken for granted, or to be patronised.
CB – City of Birmingham – the second city of England & hitherto supporter and funder of the Symphony Orchestra, which now unfortunately has gone bust, through mis-management, poor appointments at senior levels, and lack of accountability and has lost the faith of the electorate, impacting upon the said Symphony Orchestra’s future.
See also – CBSO CEO.
I wasn’t there, so can’t judge the particular attempt, but the idea itself is lamentable. It’s a way of saying “let us show you something to keep you from fidgeting or dying of boredom, since we don’t expect you to be able to experience the music itself.” The problem of Classical music is a problem of education. There’s very little point in begging people to spend time with it if they don’t have the minimal aural skill to make sense of more than one sound at a time, and to notice, in some elementary fashion, what relationship the sounds are having with each other.
How do you acquire that skill? Singing in a choir, playing in a band, taking a few years of awkward beginner lessons on an instrument. When some rudimentary version of that is considered a basic part of schooling like arithmetic and sport, “the classics” take care of themselves without silly add-ons. When it isn’t, the add-ons won’t help anyway.
I’m still reeling with anger at this experience. We’re in a massive emergency, the Council has cut our entire funding and the audience has been shrinking for years and musicians are terrified for their jobs. And rather than solving these problems management piss away a shit ton of money lining their buddies pockets from Bristol and hiring in noisy tech, turn off all our regulars and make us into musical clowns all in one go. I’ve never been so embarassed to be part of this orchestra and that includes the Friday nights. Never in a million years I thought I’d say this but I actually miss Maddock. We’ve never had a more inept SMT and thats saying something given the shit we’ve put up with over the years.
I’ve had a bath and a calm down, and I’d like to apologise for being a tetchy little grumpmuffin. I will stop posting angry rants on behalf of my colleagues that certainly don’t share my views. Over and out.
Quick reminder that absolutely no-one posting on this forum is necessarily what their online name proclaims them to be (and that since the CBSO has only had two CEOs between 1978 and 2023, and since those are generally reckoned to be two of the best the industry has ever seen, “insider” opinions on the relative merits of individual senior managers should be taken with a very sizeable sprinkling of sodium chloride).
For what it’s worth, IC225: I post under my own name and in full knowledge that my comments — limited audience though they may reach — represent my true and honest feelings on the issues dealt with. I am a full-time conductor with dozens (hundreds?) of performances to my credit. As to the present topic, I couldn’t be more in sync with those who abhor the denigration of great music by subjecting it to cheap theatrics in the putative name of “bringing it to a wider public”. If the occasional performance of a musical work specifically meant to accompany another medium is used as a “gateway drug” (e.g., performing Erik Satie’s “Entr’acte” as accompaniment to the film for which he wrote it) for audiences, then I cannot fault it. But the superimposition of others’ visuals on an unassailable artistic edifice like Beethoven’s “Eroica” is, frankly, a betrayal of the ideals to which I and my colleagues have devoted themselves for years and decades and centuries. Do times change? Yes. Do audiences change? Yes. Should we trash traditions as a result?
No.
Were you there?
Everyone is allowed to get things off their chest without being judged. The point is, writing as a CBSO Friend and subscriber, we are all in this together and trying to be a supportive as is possible, albeit from a distance. We love the music, appreciate all the skills involved, and try to remember that you all have families, homes, bills to pay and so on like the rest of the world. We continue to love the musicality of you all, the calm and peace that you engender by your playing and the engagement that you have with us in this common endeavour of listening, imagining and having our energies renewed.
It pains me to write such a negative comment because I have been a fan and subscriber of the CBSO for many years. But I have never been to such a disgraceful “concert”. I am seriously angry to have been mis-sold tickets in this way: I paid in good faith for a normal concert, and my rights as a customer were violated when the orchestra announced at two weeks’ notice that it would in fact be a trite evening of lasers, interior fog and whacky cinema. I have asked the Symphony Hall for a refund and will be reconsidering my subscription given the direction of travel. My hope is that this appalling new Chief Executive realises that she’s out of her depth and that she isn’t welcome here and goes back to the woke world of theatre where she clearly belongs and I’m sure would make an excellent contribution. Our orchestra is not a troupe of actors and it is too important to be destroyed in this way.
I was there and tried to ignore the visual distractions. I listened to the Eroica with my eyes closed throughout and it was a superb performance. An even better experience of the Beethoven than the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Proms in the summer. Thought the hum was a problem with the air conditioning, but no. I thought the CBSO was strapped for cash, so how much did all this cost? Next, they’ll start playing single movements and have commercial breaks.
I am still not sure why we appointed a chief exec who so patently hates the art form and its existing audience. If this is the sort of naff circus we have to put on to get our shrinking Arts Council grant then it’s simply not worth it. Better to sack all us high-maintenance, stuck-in-the-past, insufficiently diverse players (which is clearly what she’d like to do ultimately) and hire in more of her boundary-breaking theatre mates with hi-def projectors who don’t give a toss about orchestras or orchestral music. And no, I’m not one of those musicians who think *everyone* in management and admin is useless and incompetent – we’ve had plenty of talented, dedicated, sensible, resourceful people in the management over the years and still do.
But here’s the thing. There are plenty of concerts (or ‘concert experiences’) we do that I personally wouldn’t want to go to and that’s fine. They’re not *for* me anyway. I can put that to one side and just get on with playing the notes in front of me. And attempting to grow the audience for classical music is both laudable and, of course, important. But the relentless chasing of *younger* audiences with ever-more stupid, short-attention-span gimmicks is a mug’s game. Many people come around to classical music when they’re older. And that’s fine. Older people’s money is just as good as anyone else’s, so maybe it’s worth paying attention when they say this sort of thing really pisses them off.
I actually found this concert oddly upsetting. In fact I found myself wanting to get up, leave the platform mid-piece and just… go home. Do something else instead. Instead of focussing on playing the music as well as I could, I realised I was more interested in apologising to the audience and making it clear that all this was nothing to do with me. This was the first time I wish my name *hadn’t* been in the orchestra list in the programme. Why? Because this was the first time I’ve felt that what we were doing was actively disrespectful towards the music we were playing. And surely that should be some sort of red line, no?
When did we start patronising our audience like this? Why do we have so little faith in our product (i.e. incredible music performed at the highest standard) that we have to bombard audiences with stimuli in every direction for fear that we might lose their interest after a few seconds? Why are we having to apologise for being an orchestra? Why were we playing Beethoven in the dark, through a haze of smoke, battling the intrusive whir of electrical fans, underneath pictures of the Dalai Lama, Victoria Wood and whoever else flashed up on those massive screens. I think I saw Scooby Doo at one point.
If we’re not going to treat the presentation of the music with any respect then there is literally no point in playing it at all and there is no point in us being there. Just put a recording on, shine some lasers around the concert hall, and we can all go home, sell our fiddles to pay for this quarter’s gas bill and retrain as ‘cross-genre learning & participation officers’.
Taking a leaf out of my friend CBSOmusician’s book I’ve also had a bath and a calm down (with a delightful cucumber eye mask from Boots the chemist). I’d also like to apologise for being a tetchy little grumpmuffin. I will also try to stop posting cowardly angry rants when really I should be supporting my organisation. Arrivederci
Interesting. As the original ‘another CBSO musician’ poster, I didn’t actually write this reply to myself. But okay, I get it. Very good. “I’m Spartacus!” and so on. None of this matters anyway. Have a nice day.
This is terribly sad reading, but I admire the player who wrote it, and it’s absolutely spot on. The first sentence says it all, because the current development makes absolute sense if its starting point is a basic hostility towards (a) music, (b) musicians, and (c) their audience.
Agreed with absolutely everything you said until the final words. Sneering at colleagues (the L&P team) who are just as committed to the organisation as you are (and earn a great deal less) is not a good look.
A fair point. If you’ll allow, I’ll attempt to clarify. I certainly expressed myself clumsily. Maybe if you take away the inverted commas it might have come across less sneeringly.
What I meant was I was trying to emphasise that there is a trend towards musicians being seen as an inconvenience / irrelevance / active hindrance to the work of an orchestra. We are starting to head towards a situation where eventually there will be organisations in this country without salaried or contract musicians that still call themselves orchestras (or opera companies) that are basically enormous education and outreach departments with a few multi-instrumentalists and singers included on the staff. If these organisations ever put on a ‘concert experience’ it will be with freelancers. Obviously we are not there yet, this may be decades away, but that is unquestionably the direction of travel. Which begs the question – what is the point in having an orchestra if you don’t want musicians, don’t like the music they play, and don’t want them to do concerts?
Anyway, I agree with your sentiment that many of the L&P people work very hard. Neither you or I can say for sure whether they all do. Same goes for us musos. And whether they are ‘just as committed to the organisation’ is impossible for you or I to know. As I said in my original post, there are plenty of talented, dedicated, sensible and resourceful people working in the various departments in the orchestra. There are also some dangerous, arrogant idiots.
I’m sorry that you found this experience so unsettling and personally distressing. We the audience just turn up and pay attention and go home again, without giving much thought to the professionals who are called upon to engage with us and with each other, forgetting that they too have lives beyond, relationships and homes to run and pay for etc.etc. We too are Spartacus, and only want to encourage you to continue to delight, enthuse and inspire us with your your skills and commitment.
With a professional background in Safeguarding, it seems to me that H&R should be at the very least able to direct distressed employees to appropriate sources of support when things begin to awry.
Thanks for a very reasonable response. I think we’re basically in agreement and you’re right, of course: we can’t know any individual’s true level of motivation. There are also, quite often, some astronomically terrible people in both orchestras and their managements (one of them – an ex-orchestral player in another orchestra who reinvented themselves as a manager at the CBSO, is currently doing irreparable damage at the BBC).
But on a purely practical level – and things may have changed since my last experience of contract orchestras – I don’t think it’s unfair to say that no member of an orchestral L&P team would work the hours they work for the salaries they’re typically paid if they were not highly committed to their work. (While the players’ hours are strictly monitored, and they have the potential to earn overtime and various additional payments for out-of-contract work, middle and junior management hours are effectively open-ended with no overtime payable. One orchestral L&P staffer I know once accrued over 100 hours of time off in-lieu, which of course they could never take, and for which they were not paid a penny).
I think the point is that there are incredibly committed people in all parts of an orchestra like the CBSO and that they all deserve to have their work and integrity respected. We can agree on that, I’m sure.
Reading this, I am truly upset for you.
Across the arts nationally, we seem to have become collectively embarrassed about allowing artistic excellence to speak for itself.
Working, as I do, for a local authority Music Service, I have been advised that the reason we have a minuscule Youth Orchestra is because I insist on playing some (not solely, please note) classical music and I should cease this practice. Have I been asking players to tackle Sibelius symphonies, Rachmaninov Concertos, Rossini Overtures or Stravinsky ballets (all things I did in my youth orchestra days)? No. Snippets of very approachable and comparatively light classics are apparently a step too far.
God save us all.
I went to the concert. I am in the age group of people that are supposed to be drawn in.
The idea of putting up an indication of where we were in the Strauss was in principle OK. Like surtitles in an opera.
The rest was circus stuff and a deal breaker for me going to another of these experiential concerts. The jack in a box standing up of players, the lights, the smoke, the football match style monitors. They spoil the music.
As for people being allowed food and drink and mobile phones, this is already a problem in theatres and increasingly putting me off going. As is talking through the overture, getting up mid act for a toilet break because they have drunk too much, arriving late and being allowed to sit in the middle of a row.
When I see a non musician walk out on stage at the beginning, I feel mild panic that they are going to announce a change in programme or the illness of a soloist. I do not associate this with a “warm welcome”. I have come to the concert because I have seen the programme, liked it and bought tickets for it. I don’t need someone to tell me what the programme is going to be. I already know.
I am pained to read the two posts from the CBSO players. The orchestra is absolutely superb . We cannot afford to kill their passion for making world class music. This must come first.
Well said, Younger Concert-Goer. Spot on. The more the CBSO management hear this, the more they MIGHT listen. I doubt it, to be honest. Their protestations that they are listening won’t change anything. You watch…. I may have to head north to RLPO and Hallé, like the other contributor below. Shame. Even two of these concerts a year = two too many. Very good to read the CBSO musician comments – good in that, someone is prepared the stand up and be counted.
First of all, I was not there.
What worries me most is not the visuals, I often close my eyes in concerts, but the equipment noise.
I used to go to about 8-10 CBSO concerts a year, almost always in Grand Tier and the ‘pin drop’ acoustic for everything from small scale up to Mahler/Bruckner was the unique feature of Symphony Hall. Even or especially from Grand Tier.
I would like to hear from CBSO management that they recognise adding electronic noise to the best auditorium in the country for classical music will not happen again.
I am not against projections, e.g. RLPO manage to show the movements list without obvious noise. There is a lot of context which could be added to Beethoven. From the comments it would be better to get a decent dramaturg in maybe from the theatre across the way.
Why I no longer go to CBSO as much is that I have a choice of the CBSO, Hallé and RLPO. Post-Covid conservative programming nowadays takes me to the RLPO more than the others.
But Symphony Hall losing its acoustic is a tragic management choice.
I did not attend the concert, but have got a pretty clear view reading the comments. I totally support any orchestra’s initiative to find new audiences through innovative presentation, and have nothing against multimedia collaborations. Quite the opposite. As a musician, I have performed in some which were extremely effective.
But it has to be done well, and without insulting the intelligence of the audience. The “heroes” montage sounds particularly disappointing. Eroica offers the chance to explore the idea of the fatally flawed hero, and the bitter sting of putting your faith in a “heroic” leader who later turns out to represent things that you stand against. From there you can even question what to be a “hero” even means. Serious, ever-relevant themes and ideas, raising questions which can stick with your audience for long afterwards if you present them well.
Instead: Victoria Wood.
If this is the best classical music can muster, then I am not optimistic for the future. But, as some below have pointed out, the was the first in the series, and hopefully the vision of what these concerts hope to achieve will further crystalise. I sang in the CBSO Chorus for several years, so know the orchestra well – they really are fantastic, and Symphony Hall is a miraculous acoustic. They have everything they need to succeed in this project – with the correct leadership.
Can’t resist a lame but heartfelt limerick:
I don’t wish to appear supercilious,
But this Birmingham stuff has me bilious.
The composers whose works
Are being hijacked by jerks
Scoff, and ruefully cry, “Is that REALLY us?”
Or maybe:
There was once an orchestral new broom
Who for musical depth had no room;
But their wacky new vision
Led to widespread derision
And left all with a foretaste of doom.
Broom, broom