Why America sorely needs an Andrew Davis
NewsThe New York Times obit for the late British conductor quotes a harsh judgement by its former chief music critic:
The New York Times’s Bernard Holland, reviewing a 1987 Avery Fisher Hall appearance by Mr. Davis that included little-known works by Arnold Bax and Michael Tippett, (wrote) that “the music of 20th-century Britain has hugely profited from the fervent ministrations of British musicians and the British musical press.”
Perhaps.
But it begs the question why American musicians have done so little for US composers when they perform abroad and why the US with its vast population cannot sustain a single classical music or opera magazine while the UK has half-a-dozen.
Suggestions in the space below, please.
And bless you, Andrew, for riling the monorchids of the NY Times.
Because American music journalists have firmly established the following perception: if an orchestra champions new music or little played American music, then it can only mean that the _playing_ of the said orchestra is subpar and has to resort to programming “tricks” to sell tickets. The ostensible new music proponents such as Alex Ross are especially insidious in their perpetuation of this perception. Their reviews are _very_ carefully worded such that the high ensemble level of an orchestra and the fact that they play unfamiliar music often (and are therefore forced to really pay attention to the notes, actively decipher the meaning behind the notes, and listen extra attentively to each other, etc.) are never, ever linked. When they praise the top ensemble playing and high individual musicality of the orchestral players, they are careful to make sure the recipient of such praise is an ultra old-fashioned orchestra playing a traditional program under an imported European conductor. This feature of their reviews is so consistent that one has no choice but to come to the conclusion that it is intentional. Journalists like Alex Ross are enormously influential with orchestra boards, and most orchestra boards seek prestige for the orchestras supported by their money. It is little wonder that the “Big Five” American orchestras and their music directors avoid American music and new music — if you promote this type of music too eagerly, you will be considered second rate.
Mr Ross has sunk to a lower level than his excellent book ‘The Rest Is Noise’ which got him started. After that, he began to advocate lots of things he first had criticized. It may be the result of getting status and wanting to extend it.
But the issue is more complicated: most contemporary music, in any period, is second rate or worse. But it has to be performed to find the good works. The greatest obstacle to such normal practice has been created by many composers themselves in the 20C century, with the idiotic ideology of modernism. This threw a shadow on any non-modernist music as being ‘conservative’, hence the many misunderstandings, and ‘unknown names’ on the program turning into a red flag instead of invoking curiosity. Modernism was a cultural crime committed by non-talents.
The attitude of giving press and music journalists, who in fact do not practice music AT ALL, influence upon artistic decisions, is ridiculous and merely shows how insecure orchestral staff are. It regularly happens that a deaf crank writes nonsense and sabotages true successes, not because of his Great Insights but because of staff vulnerability. What is success? The reaction of players and audiences, not the subjective opinion of one single person who is not a musician, and often has an axe to grind for lack of talents.
“But the issue is more complicated: most contemporary music, in any period, is second rate or worse. But it has to be performed to find the good works. The greatest obstacle to such normal practice has been created by many composers themselves in the 20C century, with the idiotic ideology of modernism. This threw a shadow on any non-modernist music as being ‘conservative’, hence the many misunderstandings, and ‘unknown names’ on the program turning into a red flag instead of invoking curiosity. Modernism was a cultural crime committed by non-talents.”
You are not wrong here. The dogmatic modernism of the mid-late 20th century really poisoned the audience well for at least a generation. Things may be a lot better now, but the effects still linger.
Bax was Master of the King’s Musick and should be exalted in the same breaths as Elgar and Bliss. The UK is just as bad at elevating British works at home and abroad and it’s down to a few conductors to champion us and our triumphs in culture. Losing Andrew Davies means the UK loses another conductor advertising the entire breadth of British classical music culture to the world and is therefore a loss to the world.
But I’d feel a lot worse if I was American and see so little going on to elevate American music in America and abroad.
Agreed.
But the American ‘new music scene’ seems to be much more concerned about identity politics and social justice than musical interest.
What to think of a public violin gang rape by someone who got a Pulitzer Prize? A sign of the times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAbXpdJsA6E
And meanwhile some truly good American music is being neglected:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq4DZEd_S94
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRkjJuASfew
Plenty of our conductors and the BBC are promoting British works, both living and dead composers. A whole long list starting with Sir Mark Elder and the BBC Proms. Sir Andrew Davis was by far much more than a conductor of British music or promoting it or a fine Last Night of the Proms act that no one since could touch. Look at what he conducted for the Chicago Lyric Opera!
No one even in Britain puts Elgar and Bliss on the same level. Though Bliss’s “Music for Strings” is definitely a keeper.
We need people we can respect, look up to and genuinely appreciate.
The current atmosphere of abuse, lack of accountability and cover up, ( let’s just move them to a different location Catholic Church style) is sickening and also stifling.
What are you talking about? No only do you insult some of us who are practising Catholics and who are not abusers, but insult the music profession which is what this site is primarily about – not the Catholic church as you see so narrowly see it!
No. I’m talking about doing better. If you don’t like that idea then you’re part of the problem.
I never try to do things better because it gives me a head ache and it makes no difference for my salary. Also it implies one is doing things not good enough and who’s to judge??! One knows oneself best what one is doing, we have to keep independent & not let ourselves be dictated by others what and how to do!
Sally
I will never understand this attitude that living composers are somehow owed promotion by active professional musicians, as if we’re supposed to jump up and get to work as their little lap dogs just because they happen to be alive and wrote something. You want me to play your piece? Pay me, or create a situation in which I’ll be paid my rate for playing it. You want me to be enthusiastic about your music and “promote” it? Try writing something thats worth a damn. Consider having a melody that anyone will remember or care about, harmonies that are beautiful or memorable and not just dissonant pretentious nonsense. Have a title that actually is meaningful, not just some shoe-gazing college student nonsense in lower case letters.
The reality is, 95% of the audience doesn’t know a slide trombone from a water slide, and when it comes to what they are listening to – IF they’re really listening, however that can be defined – people want to hear something pretty, calm, or exciting. But it has better be enjoyable. Very little “new music” is.
Also, I didn’t take on student debt and spend 12 years in conservatory to be your guinea pig. If you want to learn how to write for this or that instrument, go study it, and go bother someone else about it. Don’t take on a commission and then be blowing up my email every 5 minutes with 1000 word questions about context and requests to meet and “experiment”. If you’re really a composer, go compose. Don’t bother me about it.
What I have done for 25 years to make certain projects were about what I felt was needed for the repertoire to evolve, includes: making friends in the business – composers, conductors, administrators, gain financial support for these projects, choose titles and synopsis, collaborate with composers on ideas – all of these contribute to bringing significant new works to the repertoire and the public. Composers need to make a living to recreate, and we, as performers, need to make a living to re-create. It’s a win-win-win for composers, performers, orchestras/audiences. Yes, it takes hours and hours of work, but it’s worth it.
Yes, but if we don’t have an audience to start with – many of whom have not returned after the pandemic except for those who want to be seen where they are, then we are in trouble.
I love this stuff!! Only a professional musician with a job at a respectable conservatory can say these things! They know everything, so much so that they don’t need to write music themselves! It’s about time we get these composers down under, yes Sir.
Sally
12 years at a conservatoire ? Wow that’s a lot of resits.
That’s a bit insulting!
You have to be a trombone player. I agree with all your comments!
Or don’t know the difference between a crotchet and a bull’s foot – or quarter note in America of course, which doesn’t quite fit into our British humour – yes, spelt with a U!
I’m a former trombone player and sometimes I don’t know the difference between a trombone and a water slide – at least when some ‘contemporary’ music is being performed.
I would say the 100% of the audience know the difference between a slide trombone and a water slide. I pay for at least 50 concerts a year and my pet peeve is musicians that look down on their audience. Where do you play so I can save my money?
The USA is based upon a democratic principle, as the first nation in world history as far as I know. This is antithetical to the arts, in a social context, which are hierarchical and ‘elitist’ by nature. It seems that countries without much real cultural support are either too poor or too populist or suffer from dictatorship.
Athens was the first democracy. Theatre, music and philosophy flourished.
Mmmm…. that was not a real democracy, it was a first experiment, on the basis of an immense army of slaves and suppressed women. But yes, the idea was their invention.
“…an immense army of slaves and suppressed women”. So – exactly like the USA then! A nation mired in hypocrisy from its very inception! 🙂
Where do Eastern European countries since WWII fit in your argument?
They were conquered by the Russians who forced the arts into propaganda instruments.
Not sure I agree. America has contributed to arts, but in which arts it has excelled has less to do with democratic principles and more with its relatively young age.
Let’s start with dance. In spite of a significant number of world class ballet dancers, it is fair to say that its major contribution was in the area of modern dance. Sure, there was Balanchine with his immortal choreography, but he was an exile who found the conditions in which he can best express himself in America; that’s not a small thing. But generally speaking, I believe modern dance is what American artists’ contribution will be mostly remembered for. Young art form.
Likewise music: jazz and musical theater is what American most greatly contributed to; again, young, new art forms. Even in the realm of classical music, the two figures that entered in the world Pantheon, Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin, did not transform classical music. We would lose a number of great pieces is they would not have been born. Still, the course of classical music would not have change. But they have revolutionized musical theater.
There is also the not small thing that some of the best orchestras in the world are American and that they have contributed to launching some landmark works of the 20th century, especially the Boston Symphony or the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Finally, another young art form: cinema. Let’s leave apart the trash coming out of Hollywood; there’s plenty of Eurotrash cinema out there as well.
While the birth of cinema is credited to the French Lumière brother, it was an American, D.W. Griffith, who showed that cinema could be a “serious art” for lack of a better term. And of course, American filmmakers have been responsible for some of the greatest films ever made, from Citizen Kane to The Godfather or The Searchers. This is not to say that wonderful films have not been made all over the world; they have.
Not true. During 25 years of commissioning new music, in 2006, the Schleswig Holstein Landestheater Orchestra in Flensburg co-commissioned Lowell Liebermann’s “Third Piano Concerto”; in 2010, Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic co-commissioned William Bolcom’s “Prometheus”; in 2011, Canada’s Niagara Symphony co-commissioned Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s “Shadows”, in 2018, Finland’s Jyvaskyla Philharmonia co-commissioned PDQ Bach’s “Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra”.
In support of music in America, my work to help evolve the repertoire in classical contemporary, jazz, pop results here from 25 years of commissioning new music in America: 118 orchestras, 26 new works, orchestras of all levels embracing the expanse of America – with a few abroad:
Aberdeen University/Civic Symphony (SD)
Acadiana Symphony Orchestra LA)
Alabama Symphony Orchestra
Albany Symphony Orchestra (GA)
American Symphony Orchestra
Anchorage Symphony Orchestra
Arapahoe Philharmonic (CO)
Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra
Augusta Symphony (GA)
Austin Symphony
Bangor Symphony Orchestra
Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra (2002, World Premiere, “Concerto America” by Charles Strouse)
Brevard Symphony Orchestra (FL)
Buffalo Philharmonic
Butler Philharmonic (OH)
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Canada, 2011, Canada Premiere, “Prometheus” by William Bolcom)
Canton Symphony Orchestra (2022; “A Planets Odyssey”, by Dan Perttu)
Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra
Central Ohio Symphony
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (2000, World Premiere, “Millennium Fantasy” by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich)
Colorado Symphony (2016, World Premiere, “Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra”, by P.D.Q. Bach)
Columbus Symphony Orchestra (GA)
Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2021, World Premiere, “Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich; “Reflection of Justice: RBG” by yours truly, orchestrations by Harrison Sheckler)
Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra
Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Duluth Supoerior Symphony Orchestra
East Tennessee Symphony Orchestra
El Paso Symphony Orchestra
Empire State Youth Orchestra
Endless Mountain Music Festival (PA)
Etowah Youth Orchestra
Evanston Symphony Orchestra
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra
Florida Philharmonic
Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra
Greater Bridgeport Symphony (CT)
Greeley Philharmonic
Gulf Coast Symphony (FL)
Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra (2018, World Premiere, “Concerto no. 2” by Christopher Theofanidis)
Hartford Symphony Orchestra
Honolulu Symphony Orchestra
Huntington Symphony (West VA)
Huntsville Symphony Orchestra
Idaho Falls Symphony Society
Idaho State Civic Symphony (2021, World Premiere, “Shadows for Piano and 7 Players” by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich)
Juneau Symphony
Jyvaskyla Sinfonia (Finland; European Premiere, “Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra” by P.D.Q. Bach)
Kamuela Philharmonic (HI)
Kenosha Symphony
Key Chorale (2024; US Premiere, “Legend of Bijan and Manijeh”, Farhad Poupel)
Key West Symphony Orchestra
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (2013, World Premiere, “Piano Concerto: In Truth” by Lucas Richman)
Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra
Lake Washington Symphony Orchestra (WA)
Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra
Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (2011, World Premiere, “Shadows” by Ellen Taafffe Zwilich; 2013, World Premiere, “Dreams of the Fallen” by Jake Runestad)
Lubbock Symphony Orchestra
Mansfield Symphony Orchestra
Meridian Symphony Orchestra
Mid-Atlantic Symphony
Mid-Texas Symphony
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (2006, World Premiere, “Concerto no. 3” by Lowell Liebermann
Missoula Symphony
Montgomery Symphony Orchestra (AL)
Muscatine Symphony Orchestra (IA)
Music in the Mountains Festival (CA)
Niagara Symphony (Canada Premiere, “Shadows” by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich)
New England Music Camp
New Hampshire Music Festival (2022, World Premiere, “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” by Jim Stephenson)
New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra, Inc.
New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJ)
New Mexico Symphony Orchestra
New Philharmonic (Newton, MA)
North Charleston Pops (SC)
North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra
Norwalk Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra Kentucky (World Premieres of: “Moderato ma non troppo” by Peter Tork; “Peanuts Concerto” and “Burt Bacharach Concerto” by Dick Tunney
Orchestra Omaha (NE)
Paducah Symphony Orchestra
Pacific Symphony Orchestra and Pacific Chorale (2010, World Premieres: “Mirrors” by Richard Danielpour; “Prometheus” by William Bolcom; 2024-25: World Premiere, “Piano Concerto” by Adolphus Hailstork)
Philharmonia Northwest
Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey
Peninsula Music Festival (WI)
Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra (Oregon)
Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra (Boston, MA)
Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra
Rogue Valley Symphony (OR)
San Diego Symphony
Schleswig-Holstein Landestheater Symphony Orchestra (2006, European Premiere, “Concerto no. 3” by Lowell Liebermann)
Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra (WA)
Shreveport Symphony Orchestra
Signature Symphony (OK)
South Arkansas Symphony Orchestra
South Bend Symphony (2003; World Premiere, “Dreaming the Rag Waltz Blues’ by Marjorie Rusche)
South Dakota Symphony
South Florida Symphony
South Shore Symphony Orchestra
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra
Southwest Symphony Orchestra (UT)
Space Coast Symphony Orchestra (2022; “Thanksgiving Variations”, by Christopher Marshall, and, “Three Reflections” by yours truly)
Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MA; World Premiere, “Piano Concerto: Spiritualist” by Kenneth Fuchs)
Sun Cities Symphony Orchestra (AZ)
The Missouri Symphony
Traverse Symphony Orchestra
University of Kentucky at Lexington
Utah Symphony
Vermont Youth Orchestra
Virginia Arts Festival
Vocal Essence (Minneapolis, MN)
West Virginia State Philharmonic Orchestra
Western Piedmont Symphony (NC)
Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra
Wheeling Symphony Orchestra
Wichita Symphony Orchestra
Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (2022, World Premiere, “Legend of Bijan and Manijeh”, by Farhad Poupel)
Wyoming Symphony Orchestra
Youth Orchestras of San Antonio
1: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Millennium Fantasy (2000; 27 orchestras, 25 states; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra premiere, Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducting; Naxos recording with University of Florida Symphony Orchestra, Tallahassee)
2: Charles Strouse: Concerto America (2001; Boston Pops premiere, Keith Lockhart conducting; intended first 50 state project without buy-ins from orchestras)
3: Marjorie Rusche: “Dreaming the Rag Waltz Blues” (2003; South Bend Symphony premiere, Tsung Yeh conducting)
4: Lowell Liebermann: Concerto no. 3, Opus 95 (2006; Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra premiere, Andreas Delf conducting, 17 other orchestras, first American project with a Europeans orchestra, Schleswig-Holstein State Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Oskamp conducting)
5. Daniel Dorff: Piano Concerto (2007; composed for me separate from my projects; Etowah Youth Orchestra premiere, Mike Gagliardo conducting)
6: Richard Danielpour: Mirrors (2010; Pacific Symphony premiere, Carl St. Clair conducting)
7: William Bolcom: Prometheus, for piano, orchestra and chorus (2010; Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale premiere, Carl St. Clair conducting; Naxos recording Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale; Canadian premiere Calgary Philharmonic and Chorus)
8: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Shadows (2011; Louisiana Philharmonic premiere, Carlos Miguel Prieto conducting; Canadian premiere Niagara Symphony, Bradley Thachuk conducting)
9: Lucas Richman: Piano Concerto: In Truth (2013; composed for me separate from my projects; Knoxville Symphony premiere, Lucas Richman conducting; recording with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, composer conducting)
10: Jake Runestad: Dreams of the Fallen, for piano, orchestra and chorus (2013; Louisiana Philharmonic and Chorus premiere, National WWII Museum, James Paul conducting; recording May 2023, True Concord Voices & Orchestra, Eric Holtan conducting)
11: Dick Tunney: ‘Monkees’ Concerto (2015; Orchestra Kentucky of Bowling Green, Kentucky, premiere, Jeff Reed conducting)
12: Peter Tork: Moderato ma non troppo, for piano and orchestra (2015; Orchestra of Bowling Green, Kentucky premiere, Jeff Reed conducting)
13: P.D.Q. Bach: Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra (2016; Colorado Symphony premiere, Christopher Dragon conducting, other US orchestras, European premiere in Finland w/Jyvaskyla Sinfonia, Eero Lehtimaki conducting)
14: Kenneth Fuchs: Piano Concerto “Spiritualist” (2016; Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MA) premiere, Kevin Rhodes conducting; 2018 Grammy for Best Classical Compendium, London Symphony Orchestra JoAnn Falletta conducting)
15: Giovanni Allevi: Piano Concerto (2017; Orchestra of Bowling Green, Kentucky, premiere, Jeff Reed conducting; composed for me, separate from my projects; 2017 recording with Giovanni Allevi conducting the Sinfonica Italiana)
16: Dick Tunney: Burt Bacharach Concerto (2018; Orchestra of Bowling Green, premiere, Jeff Reed conducting)
17: Christopher Theofanidis: Concerto no. 2 (2018; Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra premiere, Stuart Malina conducting)
18: Dick Tunney: Peanuts Concerto (2019; Orchestra of Bowling Green, Kentucky, premiere, Jeff Reed conducting)
19: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for mezzo-soprano, piano and orchestra (2021; Dallas Symphony Orchestra, premiere, Lidiya Yankovskaya conducting, Denyce Graves, mezzo-soprano)
20: Dan Perttu: A Planets Odyssey (2022; Canton Symphony Orchestra premiere, Gerhardt Zimmermann conducting)
21: Jim Stephenson: Piano Concerto (2022; New Hampshire Music Festival premiere, Paul Polivnick conducting)
22: Farhad Poupel: The Legend of Bijan and Manijeh, for piano, orchestra and chorus (2022;Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Chorus premiere, November 2022, Robert Franz conducting; Key Chorale, US premiere, February 2024, Joseph Caulkins conducting)
23: Christopher Marshall: Thanksgiving Variations (2022; Space Coast Symphony Orchestra premiere, November 2022, Aaron Collins conducting; composed for me separate from my projects)
24: Peter Boyer: Rhapsody in Red, White & Blue (2023; revival of first 50 state project without buy-ins from orchestras)
25: Melissa Manchester: AWAKE, for Piano and Orchestra (2023; orchestras to be announced for 2024-26)
26: Adolphus Hailstork: Piano Concerto (2024-25; Pacific Symphony, World Premiere)
Impressive! That is the way it should be done. Cudos.
Thank you, John. The sharing of this massive list is to provide readers with what has been done to help add to the repertoire and in its performances at home and abroad. Pianists are lucky to have a large repertoire from the 18th-20th centuries. In addition to my list, there are many wonderful new works composed. Hopefully, in 2075, pianists will be able to look back and draw upon this list and play what they wish. The goal is to have repertoire for others to perform. I love doing these projects for composers, for pianists and for new audiences. I don’t get paid for the thousands of hours working at these projects in fundraising and acquiring the first performances. But the gratification to give life to new music says it all. In May, Kenneth Fuchs’s Piano Concerto (Spiritualist) will be performed by Angelina Gadeliya and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. It is a wonderful feeling to see this happen. Just because a writer for one newspaper or magazine doesn’t know this list exists, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. I have learned it is very important to do your homework before stating anything online. It has to be selfless, for the cause. I don’t know if the commenter is reading this, but I hope he/she will find a way to make it work. Make friends at the conservatory – especially the composers. You never know when, some day, you might commission them to compose something for you.
How many have been performed by US artists outside the US?
I don’t know. Most often, that takes decades for future generations to take on the hed pieces championed by living artists. Take the Barber Sonata and Concerto. Now, they’re played more. Unless a conductor wants one of the pieces, and they are not under contracted artist exclusive, they can be performed. For your question, and onus is on other pianists and conductors. I can lead the horse to water, but I can’t make them drink it. It does, however, take time for new music to find a way into the repertoire. Prokofiev played his Third Concerto, Rachmaninoff’s Third similarly. Took time for others to join the parade.
Not sure. That could take a generation to happen. Typically, the pieces written for musicians get played by those artists, or the composers themselves, and future generations take the pieces on and some make it into the mainstream repertoire. Take Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and Concerto. It took a few decades to catch on with other pianists. Gershwin and Prokofiev played their own works, and after they passed, became popular with other artists. I personally do not expect to see this happen during my lifetime, however, other pianists have indeed already played the above-mentioned works by Zwilich, Tunney (Peanuts Concerto), Runestad, Richman, Perttu, Fuchs, and Dorff. That’s actually pretty good considering they are somewhat new compared with older repertoire. Speaking of the ‘Peanuts Concerto’, this was not an easy challenge. I had to go through the family of Charles M. Schulz, then to Peanuts Worldwide LLC which then brought me to Lee Mendelson Film Productions. The family and company of Peanuts needed a contract, as did Lee Mendelson as owner of the rights to the music by Vince Guaraldi (the company still owns the rights, even though Lee passed away on Christmas Day a few years ago). None of these projects came easy. I tell pianists it is not easy, but very gratifying to see through, if they wish to go this route.
Wow! What a list! but I must say that I don’t think that I have heard a single one of them, sadly.
It takes a generation or two to get into mainstream repertoire. However, the Zwilich, Fuchs, Runestad, Perttu, Richman and “Peanuts” concertos have been performed by other pianists. That’s my goal. It’s working.
Peter Tork? . . . as in The Monkees? . . . (if so, COOL!)
Yes. You can Google search “Moderato ma non Troppo”. At first, Peter was reluctant. A few weeks went by, and he said, ‘I think I’d like to do this!’ One of Kenneth Fuchs’s students helped him with the orchestration.
I like the indication ‘Moderato ma non troppo’, gives a whole new idea of tempo.
Dudamel to his credit, performed a mostly American show with Vienna Phil at their sommernachtskonzert a few years back… and that concert is, of course, likely the 2nd most internationally seen/heard classical concert of any year. AND along with the LAPhil, he toured Europe & the US East Coast in 2022 with music exclusively from N. & S. America from what I remember.
I blame Hollywood. Every bloody film or streaming show or tv programme shown in the States has the men in black tie and the women in ball gowns ovating at the end of a concert or opera.
As a result the image is these are the kind of people tuat go to concerts and opera. Mind you the ghastly snobbery of US boards bakes that in.
That’s why there is no commercial reason for music magazines its a market for rich folks.
I’m more inclined to believe we Americans look up what interests us online, and don’t spend our money durin these very recessionary times on 10 or 12 dollar magazines.
Also, won’t the greatest legacy of MTT be his thankless promotion & performance of American music? He used to bring SFS and a chapter of his “American Mavericks” series to Carnegie Hall yearly. Memories among classical music snobs should really extend beyond a encyclopedic list Fritz Reiner’s recordings of the 1950s. lol.
The above blogpost quotes out of context and misrepresents the great newspaper’s obituary of Andrew Davis.
We do have at least one classical music magazine: American Record Guide, which is published bi-monthly. But the magazine business in the US in general has died. The internet has crushed print media. Time, Newsweek, US News, and others are no longer important to get information. Newspapers all over the country have folded and given their strident leftist bias that’s ok with me. Our local newspapers used to have a fine classical music reviewer. They ran stories frequently about the symphony, opera, ballet and choral groups. There was a listing of the playlist for the upcoming week on the local classical FM radio station. But as readership dwindled that’s all long gone and never coming back. I used to subscribe to BBC Music and Gramophone, but not now: UK-based online MusicwebInternational is better and far more up-to-date. And free.
Fanfare is still around, too, publishing nice fat issues every two months.
But of course, Fanfare and ARG only cover recorded music. With the shuttering of Opera News (or at least relegation to a supplement of UK-based Opera), I don’t know of any US-based publications dedicated primarily to covering live classical music.
Fanfare still exists.
And then there are the online reviews like Classics Today and MusicWeb. There’s also David Hurwitz’s channel on YouTube.
This may have been more true in the past, that there was a lingering “bias-against” American compositions for not being European. But the burden is always on the composer to write things that bear hearing again, if at all. Right now in America, audiences are being chocked to death with idiotic student compositions that are there for box-checking purposes. Every minimally experienced audience member knows that new music is to be avoided, when possible. It’s been this way for a long time. And all along, we have had William Schumann, Roy Harris, Piston and Barber, not to mention dozens of others who are actually enjoyable, but dead and male.
While I agree with most of what you wrote, your last sentence doesn’t quite fly. Those composers you listed weren’t frequently programmed even before the current moment to highlight gender, race, and other composers whose neglect is ascribed to those characteristics. I seem to remember James Levine with Boston Symphony programming and then reprogramming some of those composers over and over again and getting indifferent results from the BSO’s subscribers about his efforts in that regard. Maybe orchestra subscribers aren’t willing to try and retry established, modern composers in the way we’d like?
Orchestras too. I posit a guess that if more US orchestras were led by conductors who came up in the US, more American music would be promoted.
Pittsburgh Symphony just announced a tour to Europe, taking Mahler, Bruch, Mendelssohn, and okay a short concert opener by Adams which is completely ubiquitous.
Music is great, but how it is at all representative of Pittsburgh is a mystery. Shouldn’t orchestras on cultural exchanges like tours acting at least like they’re proud to represent music from home?
This happens most likely because 1) American orchestras want to show the Europeans that they can play their music just as well; and 2) European presenters want to sell tickets, and even the great John Adams doesn’t sell too many. Never mind Adolphus Hailstork or such.
It’s the same reason they’ll probably also have a well-known soloist playing a well-known concerto taking up 1/3 of the program. Because only Berlin, Vienna, Chicago, and Cleveland can consistently sell out houses around the world without a soloist to boost sales.
I totally agree: When orchestras tour abroad, they should show people what they do at home.
I have often wondered why American orchestras seem to program less 20th century American music (or, perhaps I should say fewer 20th century American composers, ’cause Gershwin and Copland do go a long way) than do British orchestras. I see almost no Hanson, Harris, Ives, Reich, Barber (aside from the greatest hits), Schuman, Piston, Ruggles, etc.
Because the business model relies on ticket sales and donations. Audiences and donors want to hear the (European) classics and things like scores played live to film screenings, and donors (who are often synonymous with boards) want to see full halls.
Also, the woeful state of music education in the States does almost nothing to foster a curious public.
Howard Hanson’s Piano Concerto deserves more play. So does Leroy Anderson’s Concerto.
And whatever happened to the piano concerti of Walter Piston, Vincent Persichetti, William Schuman, and David Diamond?
I have for years found Mr Borstlap’s comments a frequent source of entertainment on Slipped Disc, but rarely source of edification. However above he makes a crucially important point “…most contemporary music, in any period, is second rate or worse. But it has to be performed to find the good works”.
We can venerate the great composers of the past, but Mozart and Haydn (to take just one era) will have represented perhaps 1% of the many composers similarly engaged by rich patrons of the time. There are a few others who get an occasional airing, but many who have sunk without trace. We cannot hope for a similar legacy from the 21st century unless a similarly large volume of music from current composers is commissioned and performed, the 1% will emerge.
But ALL of my comments are edificatory. Only, they require careful reading and strong resistance.
Leonard Slatkin and Gerard Schwarz both did far better than average in regard to American music. For that matter, Howard Hanson recorded a fair of amount of work by his peers (including his betters as it were.)
Here’s one of the problems. American orchestras play a decent amount of American music at home. But when they go on tour, they generally don’t. Why? Well, one reason is probably because they want to show the Europeans they can play their music just as well as the European orchestras can.
The other? Risk-averse presenters. The National Symphony recently did a European tour, with Hillary Hahn playing Korngold and Seong-Jin Cho playing Beethoven. With the big orchestral pieces consisting of Eroica and Shostakovich 5. The American music on the tour consisted of a relatively short work by Carlos Simon (whose music is great). If the NSO had instead proposed to play Copland’s 3rd or John Adams’ Naive and Sentimental Music – and as a concerto the Billy Childs Saxophone Concerto they played a couple weeks ago (after their tour) that they co-commissioned – and which got a huge reception for the brilliant soloist Stephen Banks – what do you think presenters in Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, and other places would have said?
Don’t put all the blame on the Americans.
The Bernard Holland quotation is ambiguous. Did he mean (a) it’s wonderful that British orchestras and the British musical press support British 20th century music and US orchestras and critics should do likewise for 20th century US composer’s or (b) all this tenth-rate 20th century British music would lie gathering dust on its publishers’ shelves if it were not for the nefarious activities of British critics and British conductors in over-promoting the stuff?
The cost of commissioning new music seems to have been overlooked. It’s much less for an orchestra than an opera company, of course, but each costs increasingly valuable and hard to come by cash. Scottish Opera, for example, has commissioned a number of operas over the decades, many sucessfully with critics but most never heard elsewhere. In the early-1970s it announced an ambitious scheme to schedule one new opera each season over four years, Robin Orr’s ‘Hermiston’ and Thomas Wilson’s adaptation of the excellent novel ‘Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ both seem to have died without even one revival. Iain Hamilton’s ‘The Catiline Conspiracy’ was revived (once, I believe) but has rarely had performances outside the UK. The only one of the four to have enjoyed some international success was Thea Musgrave’s ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ with performances in Germany and the USA (including New York City Opera) following those in Scotland. I think this is a shame as I loved the piece when I heard it in Stuttgart.
Kudos to the company for including these works during what critics had termed the company’s ‘golden years’, years when money was no doubt moe available. Yet at what total cost, I wonder, given that each had a limited run. Putting on any opera is mostly very expensive and most companies expect new productions to have several revivials to amortise the original production costs. Fully staged new productions that all but ‘die’ make new commissions far more of a gamble.
Perhaps doubters should be hoping for another Mendelssohn-like figure who, as with Bach, will rediscover the works in decades to come or later, as Jeffrey Biegel suggests in an earlier post.
One strong piece out of four opera commissions? That’s actually a pretty good batting average.
America does have its own “version of Andrew Davis” for lack of better term. Their names are Leonard Slatkin and Gerard Schwarz.
And to continue: Robert Trevino just recorded a collection of American music in Spain. James Levine always conducted a concert of American music every season in Munich.
Also, some of the “non-American” music directors of American orchestras programmed American music in Europe. For instance both Christoph von Dohnanyi and Seiji Ozawa programmed Ives with the Vienna Philharmonic, and Wolfgang Sawallisch brought Barber to Munich.
Going back: George Szell and Charles Munch almost always programmed American music in the tours of their Cleveland and Boston orchestras respectively. Generally, so did Bernstein in his tours with the NY Philharmonic. Less so when he guest conducted European orchestras, unless the composer is Bernstein.
Why should conductors be praised for nationalist motivations and condemned for woke motivations? It’s all identity politics. If you’re in on one, you should be in on the other.
Right now we’re witnessing a number of composers rejuvenating the symphony – you know, the form that audiences love to hear as the main course of a program which is placed either to end the first half in order to showcase a large-scale concerto like those Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky penned on the second half, or appear on the second half of a concert. The problem is that unless the composer has earned their reputation by becoming part of the pantheon of the great masters, upcoming composers, as well as those who have persevered in writing music for years but are barely known (if at all), are simply told to present that 10-15 minute work in order to ingratiate the interest of an audience conditioned to believe that only European composers of the 18th, 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries are the true guardians of this form, and even then most folks will only accept the music of the Austro-German symphonic school.
That said, conductors will do American symphonists, but they only do those that are deemed worthy of that pantheon (Hanson, Harris, Piston, Schuman, Still), and even then rarely do their entire corpus, yet many of them ignore established composers such as Antheil, Bill Banfield, Gloria Coates, Carson Cooman, Adolphus Hailstork, Mennin, Persichetti, Sessions, Siegmeister and Howard Swanson, and barely know lesser-known ones such as Stephen Douglas Burton and Crawford Gates that are worthy of re-assessment, and don’t even know of the symphonies of James Barnes, Frank Erickson, Julie Giroux or David Maslanka unless you follow the concert band world which many classical music lovers don’t because of another type of prejudice that these composers defy with their symphonies. Barnes’ third symphony and Maslanka’s fourth symphony can stand tall alongside those composers who almost exclusively compose for orchestra.
So conductors, as well as executive directors, should look more into new composers that are writing symphonies. Right now Quinn Mason is composing his sixth symphony while still awaiting orchestras to tackle his first two numbered symphonies and his unnumbered one in A-flat entitled “The Quiet Girl”, yet his music is making headway with numerous orchestras and wind bands both here as well as in Europe, and Brooke Pierson’s third symphony – his first for orchestra – will be premiered later this year as his first two for concert band have been performed, while the symphonies of Gerard Chiusano, Aria Donn, Howard Fox, Joseph Jones, Avrohom Leichtling, Elden Louis Steele III and Philip Wharton have yet to be performed, let alone considered, by any orchestra, and those by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, Ken Booker, David Gaines, Durwynne Hsieh, Kenneth Lieberson, Steven L. Rosenhaus, Michael Shapiro and Carolyn Yarnell await second, or even third, performances.
And let’s not forget our neighbors to the north. Marlene Moore, Michel Edward and Alan Belkin have written symphonies that await performances, most notably in Canada, while Heather Schmidt’s first symphony and Stephanie Martin’s choral symphony Babel await repeat performances.
Tristan Genoud, a young composer from France who has written music for several videos, has produced a grand symphony that recalls the glorious music of the recent past but also of our present day, has received more than three thousand listens via his mock-up posted on YouTube and also awaits a world premiere.
Finally, British symphonists. It would be nice to hear many of these symphonists live in the concert hall than on record though they do reach a wider audience through this medium, pending radio stations broadcast these recordings which we don’t see because they feel it may not garnish enough interest. While we are witnessing a slow revival with smaller-scale orchestras programming the music of George Lloyd (Sorry, Norman, but his music is not simplistic. Please give his fifth, seventh and eighth symphonies a second listen), composers like Steve Elcock, Christopher Gunning, David Hackbridge Johnson, Rodney Newton and Philip Sawyers have received the championship of such luminous figures as Martin Anderson of Toccata Records and conductor Kenneth Woods through recordings and performances, while unfamiliar names such as William T. Blows and James Cook have produced many symphonies in their catalogues that are receiving exposure via software mock-ups posted on YouTube and SoundCloud.
In conclusion, it is time for conductors and administrators to star looking outside the box and properly assess these composers whose time has come. Some may be more successful than others, some may not be considered top-drawer, but they do deserve their day in court to be judged.
Saw Sir Andrew conducting the National Youth Orchestra USA at the new center in Groton, Massachusetts last July and he was on fine form.
When asked why he stopped composing after his well-regarded youthful efforts, Sviatoslav Richter replied, “The world doesn’t need more bad music”.