Classical music and class

[71 dB]

Last time I visited my parents I had one disc of Mozart with me. I put it on while we were having dinner. I made my parents guess who is the composer (piano concerto No. 21 was playing). My mother (b. 1945) guessed Shostakovich and my father (b. 1939) guessed Chopin. 

Their knowledge of classical music is nonexistant. My father listens to jazz only. He told me when he was young classical music was made so dreary he learned to hate it. He says only now he is able to see positive things in classical music when I play it to him. He likes tonal 20th century music the most (Elgar, Finzi, Hovhaness, Rodrigo...) Bach's music he finds too old and undevelopped.  Beethoven he does not like at all.

[Bonehelm]

Last time I visited my parents I had one disc of Mozart with me. I put it on while we were having dinner. I made my parents guess who is the composer (piano concerto No. 21 was playing). My mother (b. 1945) guessed Shostakovich and my father (b. 1939) guessed Chopin. 

Their knowledge of classical music is nonexistant. My father listens to jazz only. He told me when he was young classical music was made so dreary he learned to hate it. He says only now he is able to see positive things in classical music when I play it to him. He likes tonal 20th century music the most (Elgar, Finzi, Hovhaness, Rodrigo...) Bach's music he finds too old and undevelopped.  Beethoven he does not like at all.

Yeah if your father listens to smooth jazz Beethoven is just too dramatic and furious for him.

[Steve]

Most of us are WASPS.

What can be done to spread classical music to different races and class, within our very ethnically diverse nations?

Why is it not commonly enjoyed by working people or ethnic minorities? Is it because we associate more with a Haydn, and they associate more with Bib Bill Broonzy? A facietious question, certainly, but does it contain some truth?

Do some people feel so alienated from the producers of the music, being as they are dead white males most of the time, that they struggle to see what the music could do for them so they don't even bother trying? And when they do try, does this fact turn them off when they listen?

It surely doesn't help us when we listen to Hip Hop that we are listening to the very unsavoury characters we build our suburbs for with gates and fences around them to protect us. Of course we consider it rubbish, it threatens us, and classical music threatens them. Is this true, or am I yet again a fool?

As I've maintained in previous threads, any serious discussion on spreading classical music interest, must first consider the importance of musical education. Just as the study of the 'Classics' has largely been absent from our classroom, so has classical music. There is a degree of rigorosity of study (and a certain base of knowledge) required to develop a love for Classical music. For that, we need to stop cutting funds for Music education programs, and begin instilling music into curricula at a younger age.

The reason that much of the Classical repertoire remains outside the reaches of many people, is much the same as the reason that most of society remains ignorant of Plato, Aristotle, Dante... and the rest of the Western Canon - namely, the lack of a Liberal Education.

[Florestan]

As I've maintained in previous threads, any serious discussion on spreading classical music interest, must first consider the importance of musical education. Just as the study of the 'Classics' has largely been absent from our classroom, so has classical music. There is a degree of rigorosity of study (and a certain base of knowledge) required to develop a love for Classical music. For that, we need to stop cutting funds for Music education programs, and begin instilling music into curricula at a younger age.

The reason that much of the Classical repertoire remains outside the reaches of many people, is much the same as the reason that most of society remains ignorant of Plato, Aristotle, Dante... and the rest of the Western Canon - namely, the lack of a Liberal Education.

Excellent post!

[PSmith08]

The reason that much of the Classical repertoire remains outside the reaches of many people, is much the same as the reason that most of society remains ignorant of Plato, Aristotle, Dante... and the rest of the Western Canon - namely, the lack of a Liberal Education.

It's not the side-effects of the cocaine, or thinking that it must be love. It's too late to be grateful. It's too late to be late again. It's too late to be hateful. The European Cannon is here. I think that the great British philosopher David R. Jones once said that, in his magnum opus, Station to Station - a trenchant meditation on class, love, and the transitory nature of life.

All kidding aside, all music has about as much to do with the Western canon - and I've spent a lot of time immersed in just that - as pancake syrup has to do with Rudolf Diesel. All it can do is provide context, and - in the final analysis - context doesn't do much for the appreciation of anything. All context does is open a vector for the reader (viewer, listener, or whoever) to impose their views on the text and feel justified. "I don't like this work, and since it was composed for the bourgeois nobility, I shouldn't like it - it represents wage slavery and class oppression." If you're going to impose your views on a text, which is what you're doing when you make any judgment, then have the confidence to do it by fiat and fiat alone. "I don't like this work." Period. Full stop. So on. So forth. Context, not goodness, is nothing in the furnace of art.

"There is nothing outside the text." Which text? This text. Any text. Take your pick, or my pick.

[71 dB]

Yeah if your father listens to smooth jazz Beethoven is just too dramatic and furious for him.

I wouldn't call it "smooth". Have you ever heard free jazz? That's very anarchistic and raw music! He listens to almost only jazz from 50's and 60's (Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Dollar Brand, Gil Evans...)

[Iago]

Why this attempt to "save souls" and enlighten the masses to the joys of classical music?
If some members of society don't care for classical music, why does it seem to become some evangelical mission on the part of those that do, to convert them?
I say, "screw em' ". They don't know what they're missing.

[mahlertitan]

Why this attempt to "save souls" and enlighten the masses to the joys of classical music?
If some members of society don't care for classical music, why does it seem to become some evangelical mission on the part of those that do, to convert them?
I say, "screw em' ". They don't know what they're missing.

word

[Don]

Why this attempt to "save souls" and enlighten the masses to the joys of classical music?
If some members of society don't care for classical music, why does it seem to become some evangelical mission on the part of those that do, to convert them?
I say, "screw em' ". They don't know what they're missing.

I just say, "Let people listen to what they want and stop thinking your type of music is so superior".

[Mark]

With due apologies to Steve for picking at his view on this matter, I'd like to challenge this:

There is a degree of rigorosity of study (and a certain base of knowledge) required to develop a love for Classical music.

Really? Says who? I have absolutely zero musical education, yet I love classical music like the air that I breathe. Certainly, I've picked up a few facts from sleevenotes, this forum, specialist magazines and so on, but this doesn't count as ' ... rigorosity* of study ...'

Haven't studies of a different kind shown that when young people are being consciously 'educated' about serious music, they tend to switch off and end up more likely to reject than revere it? I'm sure I've read this someplace. I'm all for exposure - of the type that hooks onto whatever grabs the ears and hearts and minds of each new listener, and gradually introduces them to this wide and wonderful world - but reducing something as sublime as Western Art Music to the level of mere scholastic study won't, I'll venture, win it much in the way of an audience among successive generations.



*Great word! Wish it really existed.

[mahlertitan]

With due apologies to Steve for picking at his view on this matter, I'd like to challenge this:

Really? Says who? I have absolutely zero musical education, yet I love classical music like the air that I breathe. Certainly, I've picked up a few facts from sleevenotes, this forum, specialist magazines and so on, but this doesn't count as ' ... rigorosity* of study ...'

Haven't studies of a different kind shown that when young people are being consciously 'educated' about serious music, they tend to switch off and end up more likely to reject than revere it? I'm sure I've read this someplace. I'm all for exposure - of the type that hooks onto whatever grabs the ears and hearts and minds of each new listener, and gradually introduces them to this wide and wonderful world - but reducing something as sublime as Western Art Music to the level of mere scholastic study won't, I'll venture, win it much in the way of an audience among successive generations.



*Great word! Wish it really existed.

I also agree with Mark, I fell in love with classical music when i was relatively young and uneducated, I didn't need any "base of knowledge", because i didn't have any!

There is no need to explain why you like something, you just do.

[Steve]

With due apologies to Steve for picking at his view on this matter, I'd like to challenge this:

Really? Says who? I have absolutely zero musical education, yet I love classical music like the air that I breathe. Certainly, I've picked up a few facts from sleevenotes, this forum, specialist magazines and so on, but this doesn't count as ' ... rigorosity* of study ...'

Correction, Mark, you have absolutely zero formal Musical Education. You listen critically to pieces, read reviews, appear acquainted with the the composers and the eras in which they live; I would call that musical education.

You're right to point out of course that 'rigoristy' is not a word. I offer my apologies.

I suppose the best way to respond to your point, Mark, is analogically. We, as Twentieth Century Westerners are denizens of a particular culture. We are fully aware of its various nuances and idioms, and we have in common a historical past with which to approach artistic works of that tradition.

Think, for a moment, of classical literature. Hidden in the Western Canon is a collection of wisdom, most of which is still extremely applicable today. Yet, it does not come to us packaged in the familiar wrappings of our modern culture, but is instead wrapped-up in a cultural tradition which is very much unlike our own. In order for us to access these works, we consult Historians and Sociologists, Classical Scholars, in addition to our Literature instructors.

Opening oneself to the wonders of classical music, requires much of the same effort. Just because we take to this task of our own voltion, as opposed to a traditional classroom, does not make it any less significant. In order to access the cultures of other civilizations, we must put an effort to study the very framework in which those works were created.

With every review or album note that I read, from each musical biography, to each documentary, I constantly open new avenues to classical music, I am studying the culture which produced the wonderful audio masterpieces that I enjoy so completely.

Of course, my initial post was not directed at the faithful devotees of classical music here at GMG. I am talking about the people who never undertake the effort to unravel the cultural masterpieces in the tradition to which we belong. I speak of third-graders who aren't played Mozart's Piano Sonatas at nap-time, or given the oppourtinity to learn the piano or violin. I enjoy classical music today, largely because of my own interest and study. Yet, the reason that I begun my interest so young, was largely the work of my parents. I was exposed to the world of Classical music as a youngster. There was always live music playing, or a discussion about a performance in my house. I was given the keys to an artistic tradition that never ceases to impress.

I hope that I have provided a sufficient response.

[Mark]

Steve, if 'effort' and 'exposure' are the thrust of your argument, then I suppose such together might lead to 'education'. But I stand by my point that formal education in anything we might call 'culture' can be more of a turn-off than a turn-on.

[Steve]

But I stand by my point that formal education in anything we might call 'culture' can be more of a turn-off than a turn-on.

Yes, that is certainly true. But, it needn't always be so. Certainly, some programs have more success than others.

[Mark]

Yes, that is certainly true. But, it needn't always be so. Certainly, some programs have more success than others.

Clearly, you didn't attend MY school!

[Steve]

Clearly, you didn't attend MY school!

I have the advantage, Mark In these discussions, I can always point to the ideal for my argument. Let's implement the ideal musical education program. Would that be effective? Of course. It is, by definition, the ideal program. Ah... a little Anselm in the wee morning. 

[Larry Rinkel]

Why this attempt to "save souls" and enlighten the masses to the joys of classical music?
If some members of society don't care for classical music, I say, "screw em' ". They don't know what they're missing.

Because if they knew what they were missing, they might grow to love it as much as most of us do.

[Larry Rinkel]

I just say, "Let people listen to what they want and stop thinking your type of music is so superior".

I can agree with the first part of your statement but not the second.

[jurajjak]

It's unfortunate that this thread has devolved into sniping and bickering, because the original question, even if poorly framed (I am neither Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant nor wealthy), raises an important issue, not only regarding class but also age.  On the rare occasions that I go to Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center in NY (rare only because it's too expensive), I'd say at least 70% of the audience is over the age of 55-60.  Recently, our local New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (led by Neema Jarvi) had to scale back its annual concert series because they couldn't sell enough tickets.  As distasteful, uncomfortable, and/or unpleasant as raising issues of class, race, and/or age may be, there is a serious practical issue here:  in 20 years, when the current 50-something and 60-something (and white) classical music audience is dead, who will take their place? 

This past year, there was great publicity around the fact that the Metropolitan Opera was beaming live simulcasts of six productions into movie theaters.  To everyone's amazement--even mine--the movie theaters were entirely sold out, even months in advance.  Obviously, this is very encouraging news for classical music.  Nevertheless, when I went, at least 70% of the audience (once again) was over the age of 60 (give or take).

However, I am wary of generalizing too much from this--each metro area has its own demographic make up and so forth, and obviously conditions in other countries are different (i.e., in Russia, where classical music is not thought of in terms of class).


Andrew

[Don]

It's unfortunate that this thread has devolved into sniping and bickering, because the original question, even if poorly framed (I am neither Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant nor wealthy), raises an important issue, not only regarding class but also age.  On the rare occasions that I go to Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center in NY (rare only because it's too expensive), I'd say at least 70% of the audience is over the age of 55-60.  Recently, our local New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (led by Neema Jarvi) had to scale back its annual concert series because they couldn't sell enough tickets.  As distasteful, uncomfortable, and/or unpleasant as raising issues of class, race, and/or age may be, there is a serious practical issue here:  in 20 years, when the current 50-something and 60-something (and white) classical music audience is dead, who will take their place? 
Andrew

Another group of folks more than 50 years old, so don't worry.