{"id":2054,"date":"2009-03-04T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2009-03-04T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:32:25","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T03:32:25","slug":"schubert-dammit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/04\/schubert-dammit\/","title":{"rendered":"schubert, dammit!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"franz_schubert\"<\/p>\n

Edmonton Symphony music director Bill Eddins has another great post<\/a> up today on his blog. \u00c2\u00a0It concerns the still pervasive elitist attitude in the symphony orchestra world. \u00c2\u00a0Here’s his opening salvo:<\/p>\n

Strangely, I have lately run across a certain mentality in the orchestra business that I thought was heading into extinction. \u00c2\u00a0Silly me.<\/p>\n

With a heavy sigh I report a sighting of that creature that we had all hoped had died out – the Convince-sualist. \u00c2\u00a0These are the people who believe that Classical Music is Sacred. \u00c2\u00a0Our Music is obviously Superior to yours, and you need to come to the Orchestra to be Convinced of our Superiority. \u00c2\u00a0As so, there should be No Talking Ever at an Orchestra Concert as it disturbs the Holy Concert. \u00c2\u00a0Clapping between Movements is strictly VERBOTEN! \u00c2\u00a0At no point should an Orchestra stoop to the level of the poor audience and actually Entertain them – Mahler Forbid – but we should Convince them of our Artistic Brilliance and the Genius which is the One True Music. \u00c2\u00a0If we would just play MasterWorks at every Worship \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 uhh\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I mean Concert, and never ever EVER play anything that is remotely identifiable as having been influenced by those lesser noises (I even shudder to mention the word Jazz or, Mahler Forbid, Pops), then the Great Unwashed Heathen will flock \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.. FLOCK I SAY!!! \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to our doors and bow themselves down before The Brilliance which is our Sonic History.<\/p>\n

Proof positive that denial ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just a river in Egypt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that people who actually subscribe to the attitude that Bill so cleverly skewers should remember that a few hundred years ago, Franz Joseph Haydn was actually making orchestral fart jokes (or their closest musical equivalents) in his symphonies in order to — hold on, wait for it — ENTERTAIN his audience.<\/p>\n

Along similar lines, Greg Sandow has a perceptive post<\/a> about orchestras and ensembles trusting their audiences:<\/p>\n

Now, I could even name advatnages we’d get from an active audience. If we want their attention, we’ll have to earn it. And it’s not at all clear to me that 18th century audiences didn’t pay attention. Mozart’s famous letter about the premiere of his Paris Symphony shows an audience apparently alert to what he compose. He teased them by starting the last movement quietly, instead of with the loud, resounding coup d’archet<\/em> — stroke of the bow — that in Paris was traditional. They immediately shushed each other, taken by surprise, then burst into cheers when, a few bars later, Mozart brought in the whole orchestra, forte. They understood the joke that was played on them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 extinction. \u00c2\u00a0Silly me. With a […]<\/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":[148,225,115,1045,2],"tags":[55,62],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-bloggers","category-music","category-programming-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-orchestra","tag-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-x8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3294,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/26\/a-new-way-to-look-at-the-oregon-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":2054,"position":0},"title":"a new way to look at the oregon symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"After our last classical series concert, the orchestra stayed for an extra 30 minutes to get an important job done: it was orchestra photo night.\u00a0 Every few years, a new portrait of the orchestra and its music director is taken.\u00a0 In virtually every other year, the photo is a standard,\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":"RCO001_VanBoxteljpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/RCO001_VanBoxteljpg-400x322.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":669,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/17\/eschenbach-to-national-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":2054,"position":1},"title":"eschenbach to national symphony?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently the rumor mill at the Philadelphia Orchestra is buzzing with news that Christoph Eschenbach is due to be named music director of the National Symphony - Peter Dobrin of ArtsWatch reports: That's been the backstage rumor lately at the Philadelphia Orchestra - that the Washington, D.C. ensemble is set\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/ml.2.7.gallery.16.thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4063,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/15\/former-pyp-conductor-named-md-of-memphis-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":2054,"position":2},"title":"former PYP conductor named MD of Memphis Symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Mei-Ann Chen, currently Assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, has been named the new Music Director of the Memphis Symphony! Congratulations to Mei-Ann! Here's the press release from the Memphis Symphony: Mei-Ann Chen Appointed Fourth Music Director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra Rising star begins tenure with the MSO in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1197,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/01\/orchestral-blogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":2054,"position":3},"title":"orchestral blogs","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I write one of the few blogs independently-penned by an orchestra member, and I'm not sure why it's such a lonely job description.\u00c2\u00a0 However, a rapidly expanding area of classical music blogs are blogs that are written as part of a symphony orchestra's public relations and\/or artistic arms.\u00c2\u00a0 Here's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/ssoblog-400x105.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/08\/28\/oregon-symphony-v20\/","url_meta":{"origin":2054,"position":4},"title":"oregon symphony v2.0","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We're into our first rehearsals with Music Director Carlos Kalmar for the upcoming Waterfront Concert at Waterfront Park at the west side of the Hawthorne Bridge on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me tell you, the orchestra is a different animal than even the last couple of years since\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":6347,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/05\/10\/wall-street-journal-on-carnegie-series\/","url_meta":{"origin":2054,"position":5},"title":"wall street journal on carnegie series","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"From tomorrow's issue of the Wall Street Journal: Most of the concert offerings assembled by the orchestras are truly inventive, forging intriguing thematic links or presenting works considered dicey at the box office. On Wednesday, the Dallas Symphony will give the New York premiere of \"August 4, 1964\" for chorus,\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","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=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}