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interesting, mediocre, horrible – or simply practical?

Stephen Marc Beaudoin takes a look at this year’s OSO programming, and he doesn’t like much of what he sees.  Here’s a brief sample:

The Oregon Symphony is playing fifteen Classical Series concerts this season. Five of the programs are terrible. I will hasten to add that an additional two of them are mediocre.

Of the fifteen, I find but three of them to be really inspired and hey, three out of fifteen is a good place to start, Oregon Symphony. The rest I could take or leave (but won’t attend). So on the whole, I find more than half of the Symphony’s Classical Series concerts to be utterly and thoroughly uncompelling. I’m sorry, more than uncompelling: dead on arrival. (Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Tchaik make a number of appearances)

Read the complete post here.

It’s one of those posts that have me straddling the fence – I’m not so much opposed to the content as in the way it is presented.  I do have to say that I’m shocked that anyone would hate the Brahms Violin Concerto so much, but it is possible that Anne Midgette has made anti-Brahms sentiment the critical default mode.

Part of the puzzle of putting together programs is that to get a “name” artist, you have to book several seasons ahead.  At that time, there is often no repertoire attached to the artist – you don’t know exactly what the artist will have on offer until maybe a year ahead of time.  So, while Josh Bell could play Corigliano or Bernstein, he wasn’t offering those pieces this year, so we got Mendelssohn.

What you see this year is programming that is trying to tread a delicate balance between being stimulating for the cognoscenti and at the same time having no small amount of populist appeal (i.e., butts in seats).

7 replies on “interesting, mediocre, horrible – or simply practical?”

As lang lang demonstrated recently, it is not only what you play but HOW you play it. SMB cannot escape the desire to appear to be one of the “cognoscenti” and that entails a certain disdain for the “classics” and embracing “exciting” programming, even if some of that stuff is unlistenable (some of it literally, such as John Cage’s 4′ 33″ of silence)
I disagree with the asertion that “five of the programs are terrible”

I think the “Linz” symphony is boring, SMB finds it “a beaut”, that does not mean it is the Oregon’s Symphony mission to reconcile our tastes. I am also lookinf forward to the Sibelius 1st, Beethoven 4th combination. I also think it is quite an achievement for the OSO to present Bell, Lang, Skreide, Koh and all these bright starts in poor little PDX. Let’s get some perspective here.

For what it’s worth, Josh Bell played the Corigliano in Montreal with Nagano just over a week ago. And it brought down the house. So he is touring with it this season — too bad Portland won’t hear it…

Interesting, I was told that he was offering either Mendelssohn, or a mixed program of smaller works (like Tzigane, Poeme, etc.) – maybe it was a geographical thing?

Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head, and concert attendance and crowd reception so far support the programming decisions. Considering the constraints that OSO programming occurs under (financial, logistical, pieces that soloists/conductors will play) I think it’s respectable. I guess I could take issue with a few programs but ultimately, considering the compromises that have to be made, my complaints would be pretty minor.

i’m thrilled to get another chance to hear Walton’s 1st Symphony live. it’s one of the truly great symphonies of the 20th century. a season highlight. check it out!

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