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?
I think your thread title is erroneous. You talk not so much about class but about ethnicity. There's a world of difference between these two.
again? well at least you're giving the fops some work to do.
This (http://www.artsjournal.com/artswatch/aw-deathofclassical.htm) website contains some interesting information on current trends in the classical music market.
Quote from: Mark on July 18, 2007, 01:30:14 AM
I think your thread title is erroneous. You talk not so much about class but about ethnicity. There's a world of difference between these two.
Read Marx, then come back in six months.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 04:33:07 AM
Read Marx, then come back in six months.
Read current (politically correct) EU legislation. Then come back ... if you can understand it at all. ;D
My point? Class isn't a word which many would associate with ethnicity. Do that in the UK, and expect to be classified a racist. Class is about social standing, 'breeding' (whatever the hell that is), and more. NOT about the colour of your skin, or the plain fact that you're not a WASP. I think you're attempting to oversimplify just to get a rise.
Quote from: Todd on July 18, 2007, 04:36:32 AM
Groucho or Richard?
Listen to transcripts of Harpo . . . .
Im a poor jewish boy, oh and im Syrian. Does this mean I have to give up Mozart? :'(
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 01:18:09 AM
What can be done to spread classical music to different races and class, within our very ethnically diverse nations?
Why this thing about spreading classical music? Give the masses a bit of culture for once? Sounds a little self-aggrandizing to me.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 01:18:09 AM
What can be done to spread classical music to different races and class, within our very ethnically diverse nations?
The first step, without which everything else will fail, is to cut once and for all the political correctness crap. ;D
This thread, as well as your last thread, exists because for some reason you see classical music as "rich man's music," which is simply not true. Look around, talk to music students, go to concerts. You'll see that the audience is made up of much more than elderly rich white men.
Quote from: Kullervo on July 18, 2007, 06:01:56 AM
This thread, as well as your last thread, exists because for some reason you see classical music as "rich man's music," which is simply not true. Look around, talk to music students, go to concerts. You'll see that the audience is made up of much more than elderly rich white men.
That's true. These men often drag along their wives too.
Seriously, though, nothing has done more to bring classical music within the reach of the average person than recordings and other technology such as television. It was said that when the Met did a telecast of La Bohème with Pavarotti some years back, more people experienced this opera that night than on any night in history.
The Eroica was premiered in an aristocrat's palace. Had you, I, or any of us lived in 1804, do you think we would have had the access to classical music that we take for granted today?
As for the class thing, it's undeniable that the "working people or ethnic minorities," as you call them, do look with suspicion on classical music. I don't know how to break through to such people, as the barriers are so strong, and some of them feel very aggrieved or angry if you speak to them about classical music. They think you're being an elitist or snob. But at least the opportunity for them to know this music is there, perhaps more than at any other time in history.
BTW, I'm Jewish, not a WASP, and I daresay a love of classical music is fairly common in Jewish-American families.
I thought classical music was big in e.g. Japan and that it has a lot of respect there that seems to have been lost to a certain degree in Europe/America.. But that's just an impression I have, and it might be exaggerated..
You lot are harder to wind up than you used to be. Or perhaps you've just vented your frustrations in the last thread
Classical music is grotesquely Euro-Centric, though.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 06:56:31 AM
Classical music is grotesquely Euro-Centric, though.
That's an unflattering caricature of the fact that Europe is where it developed.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 06:56:31 AM
Classical music is grotesquely Euro-Centric, though.
One can equally say that the No theatre is grotesquely Japano-centric. Or that philosophy is grotesquely Helleno-centric, nay, Plato-centric.
This nonsense is a welcome example of what I had in mind when talking about PC crap.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 06:56:31 AM
You lot are harder to wind up than you used to be.
So sorry we lot are disappointing you.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 06:56:31 AM
Classical music is grotesquely Euro-Centric, though.
So what? It is not our fault if we were composing great music something about 6 Centuries before the American declaration of independence.
You know the world really doesn't get exposed to enough indian classical music...or african music...i wonder why african music is such an african thing? Makes no sense.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 01:18:09 AM
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?
I think the main problem is one of a huge stereotype and lack of information: the phrase "dead white males" being a perfect example, when in fact that is no longer true and there are many counter-examples, for example Unsuk Chin, whose 2002 Violin Concerto is one of the best of the century so far I think. But who besides specialists knows about her? Or who has heard Qigang Chen's "Reflections of a Vanished Time", based on an ancient Chinese melody, or any of the interesting composers from Azerbaijan (for example Fikret Amirov, Gara Garayev, ... ). There is also a ton of great Japanese music which combines the "western tradition" with Japanese traditional elements, the best example being Toru Takemitsu.
In addition, a whole lot of modern composers have been influenced by various Eastern cultures: Messiaen's Hindu rhythms, Lou Harrison's quasi-eastern melodies and gamelan pieces, Aho's songs after Chinese poets, Reich's music influenced by African drumming....
As an example, one of the most interesting CDs I heard last month combines music by the Aka Pygmies along with works by Reich and Ligeti:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41OTDtv99qL._AA240_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/African-Rhythms-Gyorgy-Ligeti/dp/B00008UVCD)
Hardly Euro-Centric! And it is great music.
There is also a wonderful disc on Philips with the "Missa Luba" an African Mass conducted by Boniface Mganga, a most beautiful work; and the CD also includes Kenyan Folksongs.
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/5103GRJ3C8L._AA240_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Missa-Luba-African-Mass/dp/B00000412X)
The composer of this work is unknown (listed as Anonymous) but it somewhat in a western tradition in terms of form (Kyrie, Gloria, etc).
So... my point is that there is a lot of non-euro-centric 'classical music' by composers of various ethnicities, it's just that how many people have heard of the above?! I've only learned of it all after years of intense interest in modern music and personal research. I have never met anyone outside 'the interweb' who didn't think of 'classical music' as the common old stereotype, which is because it is very difficult to see past the stereotype because all of the popular sources of information do nothing to dispell it. I was 16 or so before I realized there were composers of 'classical music' still alive! And this was only because I became interested in Chopin and Beethoven at the time and eventually learned of living composers and it was quite a surprise. I think this is a common situtation for people today, getting most of their information from TV, newspapers, and other people who also only get their info from TV, newspapers... :)
it's not about money or class or ethnicity, it's about exposure, and education. If we can manage to let everyone on this planet to hear Beethoven and Mozart, i'll bet that there will be more people around all parts of the world (not saying there aren't that many, because there are LOTS!) listening to classical music.
of course, you are gonna ask HOW to expose this music to them, well, what's great about Europe is that they have so many good orchestras, and this music is essential to their culture, but it is very alien to all other cultures in the world, and without proper introduction and further education, people might be somewhat xenophobic about listening to a music from far far away, i think this is the fundamental problem, and it can't be fixed.
for example, Chinese people would like to listen to Chinese music, because it relates more to their culture, and therefore themselves.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 01:18:09 AM
Most of us are WASPS.
What can be done to spread classical music to different races and class, within our very ethnically diverse nations?
You don't have any idea if most of us are WASPS; this is just another comment that you throw out to us to create controversy.
Why try to spread classical music? Are you going to embark on a mission? If so, stop gabbing about it and do something constructive.
Unless Michel is being dishonest, his postings and subjects reveal that he does not have a strong love of classical music. Since most of us here possess this strong love, I do wonder why Michel is a member of the board.
Quote from: Don on July 18, 2007, 09:29:38 AM
Unless Michel is being dishonest, his postings and subjects reveal that he does not have a strong love of classical music. Since most of us here possess this strong love, I do wonder why Michel is a member of the board.
Perhaps because my love isn't as strong as yours, I should be banned. Outlawed for not having the same values, like you Americans do to the rest of the world.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 09:44:28 AM
Perhaps because my love isn't as strong as yours, I should be banned. Outlawed for not having the same values, like you Americans do to the rest of the world.
nobody is saying that, you are making things up by yourself, again.
Here's some information on the Missa Luba: ('Wikipedia - I stiil have that single!)
The Missa Luba, by "Les Troubadours du Roi Baudoin", is a version of the Latin Mass arranged for and performed by a choir of Congolese children. A recording was released on the Philips label in 1965. The contiguous "Sanctus" and "Benedictus" sections were released as a single, which spent some time on the record chart in the UK. There was a later version, recorded by different singers. Until 2004 both were hard to find. Generally the later version was the one advertised for sale. In 2004 Philips released the original recording on CD with the later version on an accompanying DVD as a video. The CD also includes a Missa Criolla and Missa Flamenca.
The Sanctus featured prominently in the 1968 film If.....
Father Guido Haazen arrived in the Congo in 1953 from Belgium. In 1954 he founded the Troubadours as a choir of 45 boys aged 9 to 14 and 15 teachers from Central School in Kamina. In 1958 the ensemble toured Europe to acclaim, at one point singing with the Vienna Boys Choir. There was a high degree of improvisation in the performances, based around traditional song forms. The Sanctus is based on a Kiluba farewell song.
Father Haazen died in 2004.
Peter
I did not believe Michel's allegation until I had the house staff (who are mostly darkies of one sort or another) gathered and played exerpts from Chopin's 4th Ballade from Rubenstein, Zimerman and Cortot and they could not identify which was which! Now as it was my summer home it was admittedly a small sample, but I am confident that when the same test is applied to my other residences, that Michel will be proven right.
Quote from: bwv 1080 on July 18, 2007, 10:46:27 AM
I did not believe Michel's allegation until I had the house staff (who are mostly darkies of one sort or another) gathered and played exerpts from Chopin's 4th Ballade from Rubenstein, Zimerman and Cortot and they could not identify which was which! Now as it was my summer home it was admittedly a small sample, but I am confident that when the same test is applied to my other residences, that Michel will be proven right.
;D
Etymology of "classic"
1613, from Fr. classique, from L. classicus "relating to the (highest) classes of the Roman people," hence, "superior," from classis (see class). Originally in Eng. "of the first class;" meaning "belonging to standard authors of Gk. and Roman antiquity" is 1628. Classics is 1711; classical is 1599, "of the highest rank." Of music, first recorded 1836.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 09:44:28 AM
Perhaps because my love isn't as strong as yours, I should be banned. Outlawed for not having the same values, like you Americans do to the rest of the world.
Reading comprehension doesn't appear to be one of your strengths. I question your interest in being a member, not your right to be a member. So, why are you here?
Given the social backgrounds of most of the worlds leading composers and performers within classical, over the past 400 years, it appears the original poster is wrong.
I found this text by Peter Maxwell Davies at http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/04/an_education_in_classical_musi.html. Do read also the comments - they balance Peter Maxwell's thoughts.
De Divisione Naturae, written in the 9th century, Erigena, more popularly known as John the Scot, wrote: "musica innata est quaedam communis secundam seipsam delectation". That is, "music, by its very nature, is a delight to everyone". I shall take his dictum as my central proposition, remembering that "diversi diversis delectantur"; "different people enjoy different things". And that, according to Vitruvius, "ars sine scientia nihil potest"; "art is powerless without knowledge".
In a recently published essay, Susan Sontag wrote: "Take care to be born at a time when it was likely that you would be definitely exalted and influenced by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, and Turgenev, and Chekov." I understand her enthusiasm for those four Russian writers, but the choice of examples for influence could be almost infinitely varied: on many lists would appear the names of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, for instance, as well as far less well-known authors.
What all these authors have in common is that they are serious, their work concerned with the most fundamental aspects of our humanity, our relationships with each other, and with our environment. All require time and patience to get to know. To return briefly to Sontag, she adds something I think is most significant: "be serious, which doesn't preclude being funny."
An educated person could construct a list of authors who have influenced his whole life and outlook, and will be able to refer to characters and situations, and even to quote directly - it is extraordinary how, in Britain, phrases and characters from Shakespeare and Dickens have made their way into the collective imagination and into everyday conversation; although there are now attempts by educators to undermine this, and dumb down a young person's contact with literature, as if this were something from which the young must be shielded.
Let us turn to music.
How often do we meet people who are otherwise cultured and educated, who have no awareness whatever of even the very existence of serious music? The epitome of this ignorance is particularly cruelly exposed on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, where you listen to the musical choices of someone whose work you admire enormously, who can discourse on science, theatre, literature and most things cultural outwith his speciality, but who is happy to display absolute ignorance of our musical culture.
Of course, one has sympathy with the Desert Islander's choice of a musically insignificant gobbet that happened to be playing when marriage was proposed and accepted, and Mahler and Shostakovich have demonstrated how such a musical morsel can be highlighted to make private significances become universal in the course of an extended symphonic argument.
This is a time when one cannot only be "definitely exalted and influenced" by Dostoyevsky, etc; but we have an equal chance, theoretically, to be influenced by Tchaikovsky, Borodin, or whomsoever. However, it would appear that young people are being ever more actively dissuaded from having contact with these masters than with the literary giants.
Before I attempt to elucidate what I think of as some of the unique qualities of serious western classical music, I would like to mention certain attitudes within the professions of music and music education that have disturbed me most.
The first and most common abuse hurled at the likes of me is that an education towards an understanding of, and working with, serious western classical music is "elitist". Michael Billington, discussing this year's Edinburgh Festival in the Guardian, wrote: "there is a strange reversal of values, particularly in the media. A concert or opera attended by 1,000 people or more is seen as 'elitist'; a small-scale event attracting a dedicated handful is regarded as 'popular'" - ie, inverted snobbery at its most pungently destructive.
"Classical" music these days, as Colin Bradbury has pointed out, does not mean music from the classical era of Haydn and Mozart, as opposed to Baroque or Romantic music; but everything from plainchant to Palestrina to Purcell to Puccini to Prokofiev to Penderecki, as opposed to other genres from folk to pop to the latest "popular" music fashion, as elucidated in page after page, with additional specialist "music" supplements, in the most respected national newspapers; while "classical" music receives ever less coverage, relegated, often heavily edited and cut, to obscure nooks and crannies.
I have great respect for Marc Jaffrey, of the Music Manifesto, and have had what I hope has been constructive dialogue with him: he is, however, working for an utterly philistine government, whose prime minister recently read a platitudinous speech about the health of the arts in Britain, when his own horizons are rock and pop. I do not wish to be unfair, but the only minister I ever saw at a "cultural" event was Roy Hattersley at an Ibsen play - apart from the last night of the Proms, and a royal concert I arranged to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the second world war, which they had to attend.
Perhaps one should turn Howard Goodall's complaint around: "how many hip-hop commentators, teachers and pedagogues have diverted their analytical skills to classical music?"
When I was working at the Royal College of Music a few years ago, as part of an "outreach" programme, I met music teachers who thought that even to teach standard western musical notation was to indulge in extreme elitism, claiming that it would inhibit the children's creativity, and was alien to the "working class values of ordinary people". Just imagine not teaching how to write the alphabet, or numbers ...
QuotePerhaps one should turn Howard Goodall's complaint around: "how many hip-hop commentators, teachers and pedagogues have diverted their analytical skills to classical music?"
Will it bring in the babes?
By the truckload?
Having some time to kill, I spent about 15 minutes going back over Michel postings prior to his "self-aggrandizing" thread. Almost seems like a different person. Prior to that thread, he appears to be a true-blue classical music lover covering the type of topics most of us cover. But with the self-aggrandizing thread, he seems like a person who has been betrayed by some aspect of the classical music world.
I also noticed that Michel sometimes referred to me in a warm manner in prior postings. Then, all of a sudden, I'm a target for his negativity.
What's up Michel? Why the detour?
Quote from: Don on July 18, 2007, 12:51:44 PM
Having some time to kill, I spent about 15 minutes going back over Michel postings prior to his "self-aggrandizing" thread. Almost seems like a different person. Prior to that thread, he appears to be a true-blue classical music lover covering the type of topics most of us cover. But with the self-aggrandizing thread, he seems like a person who has been betrayed by some aspect of the classical music world.
I also noticed that Michel sometimes referred to me in a warm manner in prior postings. Then, all of a sudden, I'm a target for his negativity.
What's up Michel? Why the detour?
maybe he read one book too many...
Quote from: MahlerTitan on July 18, 2007, 02:57:00 PM
maybe he read one book too many...
Must be the Bible. Damn, it always work.
Quote from: Bonehelm on July 19, 2007, 07:44:15 PM
Must be the Bible.
Yes, the Marxist Bible with
scholia by Antonio Gramsci. ;D
Quote from: Florestan on July 19, 2007, 11:03:06 PM
Yes, the Marxist Bible with scholia by Antonio Gramsci. ;D
Precisely.
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. ;D
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. ;D Beethoven he does not like at all.
Quote from: 71 dB on July 20, 2007, 02:01:44 AM
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. ;D
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. ;D Beethoven he does not like at all.
Yeah if your father listens to smooth jazz Beethoven is just too dramatic and furious for him.
Quote from: Michel on July 18, 2007, 01:18:09 AM
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.
Quote from: Steve on July 22, 2007, 02:33:30 PM
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!
Quote from: Steve on July 22, 2007, 02:33:30 PM
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.
Quote from: Bonehelm on July 20, 2007, 02:48:37 AM
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...)
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.
Quote from: Iago on July 23, 2007, 09:12:00 AM
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
Quote from: Iago on July 23, 2007, 09:12:00 AM
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".
With due apologies to Steve for picking at his view on this matter, I'd like to challenge this:
Quote from: Steve on July 22, 2007, 02:33:30 PM
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. :D
Quote from: Mark on July 23, 2007, 03:02:23 PM
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. :D
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.
Quote from: Mark on July 23, 2007, 03:02:23 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Mark on July 23, 2007, 03:53:39 PM
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.
Quote from: Steve on July 23, 2007, 03:59:01 PM
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! ;D
Quote from: Mark on July 23, 2007, 04:01:36 PM
Clearly, you didn't attend MY school! ;D
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. ;)
Quote from: Iago on July 23, 2007, 09:12:00 AM
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.
Quote from: Don on July 23, 2007, 09:46:41 AM
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.
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
Quote from: jurajjak on July 26, 2007, 09:45:08 AM
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.
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on July 26, 2007, 04:06:18 AM
I can agree with the first part of your statement but not the second.
1/2 a loaf is better than nothing.
Quote from: jurajjak on July 26, 2007, 09:45:08 AM
in 20 years, when the current 50-something and 60-something (and white) classical music audience is dead, who will take their place?
No-one? It is possible. Personally I would blame those who at the moment have 50-60 years. If the genes of classical music appreciation won't spread in the population, I will personally blame the sterility of certain mentalities that dwell the classical music fauna.
On the one hand classical music is challenged by post-modern shallowness and aesthetical vacuum, but on the other we lack the personalities who are really capable to make young people get into classical music. Certainly we cannot persuade young people to get into classical music by promoting a mere stale worshipping of the past, as usually happens in my opinion.
Half a loaf, half a loaf, half a loaf onward!
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 26, 2007, 10:48:24 AM
No-one? It is possible. Personally I would blame those who at the moment have 50-60 years. If the genes of classical music appreciation won't spread in the population, I will personally blame the sterility of certain mentalities that dwell the classical music fauna.
On the one hand classical music is challenged by post-modern shallowness and aesthetical vacuum, but on the other we lack the personalities who are really capable to make young people get into classical music. Certainly we cannot persuade young people to get into classical music by promoting a mere stale worshipping of the past, as usually happens in my opinion.
Hey, Pierre Boulez had young folks sit
near him, on the
floor, no less, for some concerts. Concerts of music, often very modern, that kids
just love. Why, I had to admonish a young shaver for walking down the street shouting "Machen Sie auf!" and whistling the music from the scene: he transposed a tone row down a third. Sacrilege! These kids. We all know that Pierre Boulez was the legal definition of hip in twenty-three states and seven countries.
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 26, 2007, 11:43:34 AM
Hey, Pierre Boulez had young folks sit near him, on the floor, no less, for some concerts. Concerts of music, often very modern, that kids just love. Why, I had to admonish a young shaver for walking down the street shouting "Machen Sie auf!" and whistling the music from the scene: he transposed a tone row down a third. Sacrilege! These kids. We all know that Pierre Boulez was the legal definition of hip in twenty-three states and seven countries.
Pierre Boulez, now we're cooking!
Well, you're lucky. I've met a lot of appraisers who used to write in
dolce stil novo as sign of distinction and anti-modernism (I'm not joking! Things like:
lo grazioso brano che mi venne in attenzione l'altro dì. Dude! We're in the third millenium, who writes like Dante Alighieri in colloquial contexts? ???), were shocked by anything not composed in Forma Sonata and were programmed to repeat the "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" thing countlessly.
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 26, 2007, 12:21:05 PM
Pierre Boulez, now we're cooking!
Well, you're lucky. I've met a lot of appraisers who used to write in dolce stil novo as sign of distinction and anti-modernism (I'm not joking! Things like: lo grazioso brano che mi venne in attenzione l'altro dì. Dude! We're in the third millenium, who writes like Dante Alighieri in colloquial contexts? ???), were shocked by anything not composed in Forma Sonata and were programmed to repeat the "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" thing countlessly.
You think the old-timers are doctrinaire? Read some Boulez, especially when he was still an
enfant terrible. You have the reactionary sorts suggesting that if you don't dream in Latin and haven't already worn a groove in the stalls at Bayreuth, then you aren't really immersed in
Kultur, but you have Boulez edgily suggesting that all opera houses should be exploded.
Every pancake has two sides.
Things have never been what they used to be, of course.
It's the core paradox of great art. It's got ties to the past, and the more artful the ties, the better. But, the artist has something new to say.
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 26, 2007, 12:32:03 PM
You think the old-timers are doctrinaire? Read some Boulez, especially when he was still an enfant terrible. You have the reactionary sorts suggesting that if you don't dream in Latin and haven't already worn a groove in the stalls at Bayreuth, then you aren't really immersed in Kultur, but you have Boulez edgily suggesting that all opera houses should be exploded.
Every pancake has two sides.
In this world requests for renewal sometimes need roughness to be heard. I say "in this world" because I think each revolution has its context.
I don't consider myself an avanguardist - take me to a silent medieval village and I will be at home - but I'm against a literal exegesis of the Past.
I'm not a WASP (Marian Roman Catholic; mostly Italian with German, Black, and Jewish blood). So maybe I'm an anomaly ;) ;).
I guess I'm a little stuck on what to write after that; this topic isn't really delineated enough.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 26, 2007, 10:55:05 AM
Half a loaf, half a loaf, half a loaf onward!
Munchkin Loaf!
"Tra-la my grains are really hopping *, my yeast is beepy-bopping**, I'm only half a loaf tra-la-ha hee-hee-hee WHEEEEEEE!"
*Big ,Corny BWA-ha here....
** errrr...SORRY!
Quote from: Haffner on July 26, 2007, 01:07:15 PM
"Tra-la my grains are really hopping *, my yeast is beepy-bopping**, I'm only half a loaf tra-la-ha hee-hee-hee WHEEEEEEE!"
Erm, I wouldn't ingest any more of that, if I were you. ;D ;D ;D
--Bruce
Quote from: bhodges on July 26, 2007, 01:14:06 PM
Erm, I wouldn't ingest any more of that, if I were you. ;D ;D ;D
--Bruce
;D
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 26, 2007, 12:32:03 PM
You think the old-timers are doctrinaire? Read some Boulez, especially when he was still an enfant terrible. You have the reactionary sorts suggesting that if you don't dream in Latin and haven't already worn a groove in the stalls at Bayreuth, then you aren't really immersed in Kultur, but you have Boulez edgily suggesting that all opera houses should be exploded.
Every pancake has two sides.
Agreed, such universal distinctions are nearly always guilty of being
false dichotomies. You will meet modern conductors who have a distinct love for traditionalism and conventional interpretation. If you read his post more clearly, Scriptvolant was not speaking of
conventional and modern
approaches to conducting, but rather the the climates in which those conductors lived. In the past, a man was not educated without a being well versed in the Classics, and it was believed that such texts held minimal value were they not read in their original languages. Hence their usage of Latin. For a modern conductor to pay homage to such an
antiquated notion, would be ridiculous.
I believe the two of you were speaking of
different pancakes. :)
Quote from: Steve on July 26, 2007, 01:17:36 PM
Agreed, such universal distinctions are nearly always guilty of being false dichotomies. You will meet modern conductors who have a distinct love for traditionalism and conventional interpretation. If you read his post more clearly, Scriptvolant was not speaking of conventional and modern approaches to conducting, but rather the the climates in which those conductors lived. In the past, a man was not educated without a being well versed in the Classics, and it was believed that such texts held minimal value were they not read in their original languages. Hence their usage of Latin. For a modern conductor to pay homage to such an antiquated notion, would be ridiculous.
I believe the two of you were speaking of different pancakes. :)
You might, if the spirit moves you, want to go back and read
my post. I used hyperbole and the example of Boulez to suggest that neither traditionalism or modernism in their extreme strains, nor in closely related strains, are intelligent and healthy positions. Both the past and the present lack necessary solutions to real issues: only some combination of the two is wholly successful.
By the by, I might have already known the place of the Classics in their original languages in the history of the West. Of course, the Romans held that no one was educated without facility in Greek literature. Therefore, if you want to be educated by the classical standard, you should buy a Liddell-Scott lexicon, a Smyth grammar, and the Munro/Allen OCT of the
Iliad.
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 26, 2007, 01:36:56 PM
You might, if the spirit moves you, want to go back and read my post. I used hyperbole and the example of Boulez to suggest that neither traditionalism or modernism in their extreme strains, nor in closely related strains, are intelligent and healthy positions. Both the past and the present lack necessary solutions to real issues: only some combination of the two is wholly successful.
By the by, I might have already known the place of the Classics in their original languages in the history of the West. Of course, the Romans held that no one was educated without facility in Greek literature. Therefore, if you want to be educated by the classical standard, you should buy a Liddell-Scott lexicon, a Smyth grammar, and the Munro/Allen OCT of the Iliad.
I appears now that I've misread your post. I would offer no refutation of the claim that extreme positions of traditionalism or modernism are unhealthy.