{"id":1488,"date":"2008-12-05T16:09:57","date_gmt":"2008-12-06T00:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=1488"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:09:21","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T03:09:21","slug":"the-sky-isnt-falling-the-sky-isnt-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/05\/the-sky-isnt-falling-the-sky-isnt-falling\/","title":{"rendered":"the sky isn’t falling, the sky isn’t falling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Levine has an excellent post<\/a> today that goes along very well with my post of a couple days ago.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a response to a recent posting by Greg Sandow, which you can find here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the first two paragraphs of Robert’s excellent response:<\/p>\n

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Greg Sandow recently wrote a typically insightful and provocative post<\/a> on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ways that classical music doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t connect with the world we live in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth reading. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely worth a response. So here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mine.<\/div>\n

1.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the music at classical concerts comes from the past. So we’re rarely engaged with contemporary life. (Is this one reason the people who go to these concerts like them?)<\/strong><\/div>\n

I could be snarky about how very little music comes from the future. But I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t; Greg is right that most of is played at classical concerts (orchestral ones in particular) predates WW II. There are good reasons for this. One is that orchestras have learned that programming contemporary music is like a restaurant making all its patrons eat liver; people stay away in droves. There are anecdotal tales of orchestras programming \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new music\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to great box office success, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not heard of any that really stand up to hard-headed analysis. (The idea that LA has been successful with such programming ignores the poor houses they experienced prior to building Disney Hall, for example).<\/p>\n

I think that orchestras have an obligation to perform and promote new music. But they also have an obligation to play what people want to hear. And they have an obligation to survive. These are not easy to balance. Simply stating that orchestras need to play more new music is not proposing a solution to this problem.<\/p>\n

2.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Formal dress looks archaic, and out of touch.
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n

Yes. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad. The New York Pro Musica achieved great success when performing the old medieval passion plays by getting it right musicologically and<\/em> visually \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and that meant both using original instruments (or as close as they could come) and appropriately archaic costume. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the appropriate costume for performing Beethoven for paying patrons? It may not be tails. But I doubt it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s street clothes either. This also is hard to get right.<\/p>\n

When I joined the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 1978, the guys wore blue velvet suites with white cravats (and good luck trying to find one even in 1978, by the way). That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appropriate costume for performing anything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Levine has an excellent post today that goes along very well with my post of a couple days ago.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a response to a recent posting by Greg Sandow, which you can find here. Here’s the first two paragraphs of Robert’s excellent response: Greg Sandow recently wrote a typically insightful and provocative post on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[225,183,115,1045,2],"tags":[860,585,359],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloggers","category-contemporary","category-music","category-programming-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-abu-bratsche","tag-orchestras","tag-robert-levine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-o0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/16\/alex-ross-outs-the-classical-internet\/","url_meta":{"origin":1488,"position":0},"title":"alex ross outs the classical internet","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Alex Ross, the classical music critic for New Yorker (and blogger par excellence), wrote a column (which I spotted in the online version today) about the effects of the web\/internet on classical music.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds as though there is a clear new golden age of classical music emerging these days\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2202,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/20\/more-vortex-response\/","url_meta":{"origin":1488,"position":1},"title":"more vortex response","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Brett Campbell writes enthusiastically about the recent Oregon Symphony premiere performances of Tomas Svoboda's Vortex for Orchestra, as well as the rest of the concert.\u00c2\u00a0 It's a nice, tight review, well-written and very nice to see in the pages (web) of the Willamette Week. The major local work premiered last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":999,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/06\/02\/tidbits-for-monday-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":1488,"position":2},"title":"tidbits for monday morning","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I just caught Robert Levine's latest blog entry about the Milwaukee Symphony's recent concerts with Hilary Hahn. \u00c2\u00a0Robert is one of the smartest guys out there, I'm coming to appreciate, and reading this post had me scratching my head and wondering \"why couldn't I have said that?\". \u00c2\u00a0I like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/19\/more-columbus-analysis\/","url_meta":{"origin":1488,"position":3},"title":"more columbus analysis","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Robert Levine*, at his blog Abu Bratsche (best blog name I've seen in a long, long time!), points out that the problems that are coming to a head in Columbus are not financial in origin. The management and board of the Columbus Symphony have released a document with the Orwellian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":516,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/06\/oso-president-responds-to-crosscut-article\/","url_meta":{"origin":1488,"position":4},"title":"OSO president responds to Crosscut article","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"[This was forwarded to me by OSO president Elaine Calder - a truncated version will be published at Crosscut.com.] Response to: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can Anybody fix the Oregon Symphony?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stephen Marc Beaudoin Crosscut Seattle Friday, November 2nd, 2007 Of course it will take more than an endorsement from Thomas Lauderdale to fix\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2054,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/04\/schubert-dammit\/","url_meta":{"origin":1488,"position":5},"title":"schubert, dammit!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Edmonton Symphony music director Bill Eddins has another great post up today on his blog. \u00c2\u00a0It concerns the still pervasive elitist attitude in the symphony orchestra world. \u00c2\u00a0Here's his opening salvo: Strangely, I have lately run across a certain mentality in the orchestra business that I thought was heading into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"franz_schubert","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/franz_schubert-200x228.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}