Conservative Programming Policy

[Florestan]

This year I did not renew my subscription to the concerts of the Romanian National Radio Orchestra and for good reason. The whole announced programme is just another parade of warhorses, consisting in a percentage approaching 90% of usual suspects: Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Now, I love them all, but for God's sake, I have in my collection all the pieces they'll be playing and in performances that far surpass anything they can offer.

Looks like for the managers of this orchestra the classical music suddenly died somewhere around 1890, and even before that date only a handful of composers were active.

I'm not sure about the reasons of this outrageously conservative, bordering on reactionary, programming policy but they have certainly lost me this year.

What's the situation in your area?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

They might just be playing it safe in difficult economic environment. Who knows. BTW, does Romania have the kind of subsidies for new or obscure music that exist in Germany and some other countries?

In "my area" (i.e. the city of Moscow, which covers a lot of territory and contains more orchestras and ensembles than I can keep track of), my impression is that things have gotten a bit more conservative in the last couple of years, but given the number of concerts on offer, you can find all kinds of stuff if you look hard enough. It's not just Rachmaninoff & Tchaikovsky warhorses (thank God).

[Florestan]

does Romania have the kind of subsidies for new or obscure music that exist in Germany and some other countries?

Are you kidding? The orchestras don't even get a subsidy for playing Enescu's music, although otherwise the officials in charge of cultural affairs lose no opportunity to boast of him as "the national composer". And the same treatment goes for all other Romanian dead composers, whose music is rarely, if ever, heard in our concert halls. It's a really shameful situation.

Now and then a 10-minute contemporary piece by a living composer happens to be played, but only in the beginning. What follows is usually Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (or something similar) and Brahms' Fourth Symphony (or something similar). And all this for a subscription the price of which has doubled since last year. Thanks, but no thanks.

[MN Dave]

See for yourself.

http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/

[Florestan]

See for yourself.

http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/

Wow! Sibelius, Bartok, Prokofiev and Stravinsky! Compared to the Romanians, the Minnessotans propose a radically innovative season.

[Lethevich]

My nearest has some okay stuff. Almost nothing truly new, but plenty of things first-half of the 20th century.

http://www.bsolive.com/concerts/listings

If anything, it's very fortunate that they programme Shostakovich, Nielsen, etc, because it's the only professional orchestra in the entire south-west of England so it might be expected to just pander to the people who want to hear Beethoven's 5th without travelling all the way to London.

[Superhorn]

 Unfortunately, many orchestras today are forced to program little but the same old familiar masterpieces because of the conservative tastes of many concertgoers. If audiences vote with their feet, these orchestras are in serious trouble.
  But there are notable exceptions. Despite ridiculous accusations by critics of "stodgy" brogramming, the New York Philharmonic has offered
an amazingly wide variety of works ranging from Bach,Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven etc to Tan Dun, John Adams, Thomas Ades, Kaaia Saariaho,Magnus Lindberg, William Bolcom, Christopher Rouse and other leading contemporary composers in our time, both under music directos and guest conductors.
  The orchestra does play the popular works of Beethoven,Brahms,Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Mahler,
and other composers of the past, but it also regularly revives interesting works from the past which had been long neglected.
  While some subscribers in New York are also conservative in their tastes and reluctant to hear new or unfamiliar works, the orchestra continues to give new music a chance to be heard on a regular basis.
 

[Florestan]

My nearest has some okay stuff. Almost nothing truly new, but plenty of things first-half of the 20th century.

Seems fairly balanced indeed.

[Drasko]

I'm basically ok with Belgrade Philharmonic this season, there is substantial amount of warhorses but there is also some completely new stuff and some older but rarely heard.

http://www.bgf.co.rs/_english/season-2009-2010.html

[some guy]

Unfortunately, many orchestras today are forced to program little but the same old familiar masterpieces because of the conservative tastes of many concertgoers.

There is only one thing wrong with this observation. And that is the suggestion ("today") that this is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Check out William Weber's The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms. "Today" is a span of time of over two hundred years!!

[listener]

A practical explanation: economics.
If the work is out of copyright and the score/parts are in the orchestra's library, there may be a considerable saving by not having to pay performance rights and music rental.    And because the piece may be familiar, there can be a cut on the rehearsal time.

[Florestan]

http://www.bgf.co.rs/_english/season-2009-2010.html

That's actually a very interesting schedule.

A practical explanation: economics.
If the work is out of copyright and the score/parts are in the orchestra's library, there may be a considerable saving by not having to pay performance rights and music rental.

True, but even so, I can think of at least a dozen composers whose music is long out of copyright: Hummel, Clementi, Kalkbrenner, Moszkovsky, Taneyev, Arensky, Balakirev, Gade, Sinding, Berwald, Stenhammar, d'Indy --- and the list could go on and on.

  And because the piece may be familiar, there can be a cut on the rehearsal time.

Yes, I suspect this is the main reason: why exploring wild territories when one can stay safely at home, by the fireside?

[Novi]

A couple of bands play regularly in my town.

The RSNO tends towards the conservative; every season has its obligatory handful of Beethoven warhorses, although there's usually some less familiar works - I've heard some Dutilleux and some Roussel this past season, for instance.

http://www.rsno.org.uk/index.php

The other group, the SCO, has a busier season - they play almost every week - and a smaller hall to fill, so perhaps has more leeway to be a tad more adventurous. So alongside the Beethoven/Haydn/Mozart type gigs (and there are a lot of these), they also have the odd contemporary work or new commission. Sadly, these latter ones tend to be less popular, maybe only about 70% capacity. The orchestra has a very loyal following though (largely an older demographic), and they seem supportive of the group, if not enthusiastic about the new music.

For instance (ok, the Sibelius has been around for 100 odd years now):
Ligeti          Concerto Românesc
Tüür           Symphony No 8 (world premiere)
Sibelius       Symphony No 3 in C, Op 52
Olari Elts     conductor

Or unexpected pairings, like this:

Dvořák         Legends (selection)
Ligeti           Piano Concerto
Beethoven   Symphony No 6 in F, Op 68, 'Pastoral'

Robin Ticciati   conductor
Tom Poster      piano

http://www.sco.org.uk/

[Superhorn]

  Someguy, I've heard of this book and am aware of its general argument,and would definitely like to read it.
But today, we have an unprecedented amount and variety of orchestral music available to us,old and new. There is actually greater diversity of repertoire being performed at concerts(and opera) today than ever before in the history of western classical music . In the course of the season of a major orchestra, you can hear everything from works by Bach,Handel,Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven etc, to the latest works by
living composers.
  Composers and critics who complain that we concentrate too much on the music of the past today and long for "the good old days" when"all or most music was new", fail to take certain facts into consideration.
In the time of Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven, the orchestra as we know it was a relatively new thing, and the enormous accumulation ofrepertoire we have today did not exist.
In addition, there were only a tiny fraction of all the orchestras which exist today, and far fewer concerts.

The whole world of classical music is infinitely bigger and more diverse  it was in the past.