An article that I’d heard about but not read until today – it’s in this week’s Seattle Weekly, and ostensibly it’s a review (by the excellent writer/critic Gavin Borchert) of the Chiara Quartet’s concerts in two completely different Seattle venues: Meany Hall and the Tractor Tavern.
Here’s Gavin’s excellent (and if I may say so, exquisite) set-up:
Whenever the future of classical music is discussed, on blogs or in print, you won’t be far from complaints about the concert experience and the traditions of audience protocol. The words “suffocating” and “oppressive” are likely to crop up, and the conclusion drawn is that the formality, pretentiousness, and oppressiveness of expected concertgoing etiquette is turning off the potential new audiences necessary to keep the classical world from collapse.
A couple of things puzzle me. First, the classical concert experience is, in all essentials, identical to that of dance, theater, literary events, or for that matter—barring the munching of popcorn and cheering the fireball deaths of villains—movies. Go to the performance space, buy a ticket, sit down in rows, watch and listen, try not to disturb your fellow audience members. Yet it’s only in conjunction with concerts that you hear complaints about what a crushing burden this all is. Second, why is sitting quietly considered such an unendurable ordeal? Millions of people do it every night in front of their televisions.
And here’s his almost equally satisfying conclusion:
So what have we learned? Well, maybe people behave the way they do at concerts not because it’s an artificial standard imposed by ironclad tradition but because the music sounds better that way. Maybe listeners feel classical music most deeply when they pay quiet attention to it. Maybe sometimes not clapping is OK, and we don’t need to rush in and obliterate every silence. Maybe true innovations in concert presentation—new ways of getting music and music lovers together—will be concerned not with questions of formal vs. informal, loose vs. uptight, but with what setting best allows music to work its magic.
The concert experience as we know it could stand some fine-tuning—I don’t mind hearing musicians talk to the audience, and I’ll be the first to cheer when the tuxedo finally dies—but it’s evolved into a simple, commonsense, even efficient format for the communal experience of art, whatever hall you’re in. What’s the problem?
Apparently, many readers agreed – click here to read their comments.
