There’s no better way to understand why classical music doesn’t speak to many people these days than by comparing pop and classical music reviews. I’ve chosen some from the New York Times, both because I read that paper every day and because the reviews on both sides of the fence are more than reputable. So the comparison, broadly speaking, is fair.
So here’s a bit of Ben Ratliff’s review last Thursday of Gilberto Gil:
His set was a deep fusion of pop and folk culture…
The name of his band, Banda Larga Cordel, means broadband, and Mr. Gil’s communications-technology thoughts lie somewhere between cybertheory and metaphorical poetry about practical things….He’s not necessarily interested in the status or time-saving aspects of, say, cellphones; he’s an artist, the opposite of a salesman. But he is also the minister of culture for Brazil. In interviews, and in songs like the new “Banda Larga Cordel” and the old “Pela Internet” (“On the Internet”) — a tune from 1996 that he played on Tuesday — he casts broadband technology as an empowerment issue, a cheap way to have an entire country, and ideally an entire world, included in political and social discussions.
Brazilians have long been obsessed with the past and the future at the same time, a double consciousness that has helped produce a lot of good music over the last half-century. Mr. Gil in particular made peace with popular culture before many of his contemporaries did; the tropicália movement, which he helped build in the late 1960s, was playfully anti-nostalgia and ferociously anti-purist. He is the same as ever, a man of big ideas.
An interesting artist, you’d have to say. (And Minister of Culture! Note to everyone at NPAC who wanted a Cabinet-level arts department in the U.S. government — beware of getting what you wish for. Suppose Obama wins, sets up a Department of Cultural Affairs, and names John Mellencamp to head it. And suppose Mellencamp, an outspoken populist, says that he thinks symphony orchestras get too much money.)
Now read Anthony Tommasini, the same day, on a New York Philharmonic concert in Central Park:
Standing at the podium looking south from the Great Lawn to the skyscrapers of Midtown, the conductor Bramwell Tovey declared the sight “one of the great views in the world.” Best known to New Yorkers from his guest stints conducting the Philharmonic’s Summertime Classics concerts, Mr. Tovey brings droll British wit to his impromptu commentaries. He was in good form on Tuesday night.
After opening the program with an exuberant account of Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture,” Mr. Tovey tried to explain to concertgoers how they could vote to choose an encore for the orchestra. “No superdelegates here,” he added….
After intermission there was a refreshingly straightforward performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812” Overture. The composer may have been embarrassed by this made-to-order occasional piece, but Mr. Tovey and the orchestra treated it as a respectable score with a knockout finale, here punctuated with booming cannon shots courtesy of an electric keyboard. The concert ended with three marches by Sousa that had the crowd clapping and children marching up and down the grassy aisles.
If I were a smart Martian, new to the earth, I’d read all this, and decide that pop music is serious, and classical music is light entertainment, a blend of Las Vegas and the fourth of July. Somebody, of course, might object that the Philharmonic concert was designed as entertainment, a happy, unchallenging night in Central Park. To which I’d reply that there’s also a pop series in Central Park, and Gilberto Gil could well be on it.
Here’s Steve Smith, also on Thursday in the Times, about the Brooklyn Phlharmonic in yet another Central Park orchestral event:
The 29-member ensemble was amplified but still had to contend with an idling truck, cellphones that were answered rather than silenced, and other sporadic nuisances. The performance too had its rough edges. Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto sounded scrappy, with balances often less than ideal; the robust finale came off best. In Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 the soloist, Tim Fain, played with an easy brilliance and sweet tone. Competing with a nonplused sparrow and a cavorting bystander only seemed to intensify his megawatt smile. Once again, the last movement was strongest.
I took in those works from a seat near the front, then moved to the plaza behind the seats for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. There the sound was clearer and better blended, and [the conductor’s] careful attention to dynamics and rhythm was more readily discerned.
Classical music here seems like a technical exercise. The pieces are known. So how were they played? Badly or well? The Martian visitor — or any smart person, reading the Gilberto Gil review and this one — could be forgiven for simply declining to care. Only at the end of Steve’s review, and in parentheses, comes something that might spark some interest:
(During the Adagio sounds from the New York Philharmonic concert wafted on wayward breezes, briefly creating an Ivesian jangle.)
And this, of course, has — strictly speaking — nothing to do with the meaning or purpose of the concert, or at least not with any meaning the Brooklyn Philharmonic might have intended.
Please note: I’m friendly with both Tony and Steve, and I’m absolutely not saying that either is a bad critic, or that Ben Ratliff (whom I also know) is better than they are. I’m saying that pop music gives Ben more ideas — more substance — to work with.
See, I think that what you’re comparing isn’t pop vs. classical, but composer/performer vs. recreator. What Ratliff has to work with that Smith and Tommasini don’t is Gil’s particular place in the current world. Comparing a review of Gil to, say, a review of Meredith Monk would level the playing field. Or a recreative pop singer to a recreative classical art song recital.
What you quote of Ratliff doesn’t make me want to hear the music under review. The review would interest me more if Ratliff said more about Gil’s music. My first question about music I don’t know is always “What does it sound like?”
Wrote that with a perfectly straight face, did you?
Incredible.
ACD
I was with you until the last line: do these reviews suggest that “that pop music gives Ben more ideas — more substance — to work with”, or is there something about the business of writing pop reviews that allows more room for substantive ruminations on the music than is possible in classical reviews? (That itself might be down to many factors: a particular editorial line; differences in relative training; differences in reader expectations; etc.). I don’t think you can conclude on the evidence here that pop gives reviewers more to work with; it may just be that pop reviewers are more likely to dig deeper.
It’s an interesting idea, that pop music provides more ideas/substance to work with — but I’d venture to say that it is Gilberto Gil that gives Ben R. more to work with. (An artist with a rich musical and personal history, and one who specializes in the connections between music/cultural shifts/ideas.) Artists like Gil, I would venture to say, are not the majority in pop or any other kind of music. (Leaving aside the question of “what is pop” at all.) And if you know Gil’s work well, then reading the umpteenth review of one of his shows may not seem so fresh and invigorating. (Unless, of course, it is written by Ratliff!)
Not buying it, sorry!
Yes, classical music criticism has loads of problems, but so does pop music criticism.
Every jot and tittle that pop critics have ever written could disappear tomorrow and it would still ‘speak to many people’.
The problem classical music faces in finding an audience are hardly the fault of its critics.
To the Illustrious Polypod Avram Boond-ss’bb Fomalhaut (Piscis Australis)
In the name of the Southern Cross, peace, my dear Polypod. Allow me to report on the initial research concerning the journo-literary artefacts of musical endeavour on planet Earth.
Based on the extract provided we were uncertain as to whether Mr Gil is in fact a performing musician. But the brief fragment at the top, the revealing words “set” and “played” and the identification of two songs suggests that he can in fact be included in our data. The overwhelming perception, however, is that he (or at least his observer) is more interested in ideas, texts, technology and politics than in music. We regret that we are left with little sense of what his creations or performances might be like or indeed of what quality, beyond the set being “a deep fusion of pop and folk culture” and a loose impression of cultural context. There is no doubt that his observer finds him interesting – “a man of big ideas” – but we have no sense of whether Mr Gil’s music or performance has had any affective impact on the observer.
The Brooklyn Philharmonic, we can report, is a 29-member amplified ensemble that plays outdoors. However, their observer gives so much attention to the extra-performative factors of the location that we are tempted to conclude that this is not their normal mode of operation. Either this, or that this is not the normal performance environment for the musical works identified. Their observer gives much attention to the quality of the performances and there is a tone of implied comparison (perhaps to an imagined ideal) that indicates these works are not exclusive to these performers. (Mr Gil’s songs, we are inclined to believe, are his alone.) Again, we regret that the observer gives little indication as to the character or effect of the music performed – there is a fleeting attempt in the assessment of the performance of the Mozart work. As with the report of Mr Gil, this fragment does not leave us with a strong sense of the affective impact of the performance on the observer. We detect an attempt at balance and neutrality, and little passion.
The third fragment is a report of another outdoor performance (a seasonal phenomenon which has perhaps skewed our data for this expedition), this time by the New York Philharmonic, an ensemble of unspecified size but large enough to require a conductor and large enough to perform two musical works for which we have subsequently established the customary forces. The conductor, according to the observer, possesses a “droll British wit”, although the observer has (perversely) reported only the least witty sayings in his attempt to demonstrate the conductor’s “good form”. [Cultural differences may have prevented our fully appreciating the intended humour.] The context suggests that the “good form” applies specifically to the impromptu commentaries and cannot be necessarily applied to the conductor’s musical performance. As with the second fragment, the focus (rather more subdued) is on the quality of the performance rather than on the character of the music – although there are fleeting attempts at this, for example with the apparently crowd-pleasing Tchaikovsky work. This again indicates to us that the musical repertoire is not exclusive to its performers and that interpretative matters are more important to the observer.
But, as with Mr Gil’s observer, this observer seems more interested in what the performer has to say than in the music or the effect of the performance (although he does comment on certain aspects of the audience response). We are also left with the impression that what this particular performer has to say is distinctly less interesting or important than what Mr Gil has to say. But on both counts we find that neither performer (at least as reported by their observers) has anything to say about his music or his music-making.
Our researches to date demonstrate that the inhabitants of this planet find music of any kind an intensely difficult subject about which to verbalise and these artefacts, each in its way, do support these findings.
Your most devoted, etc.
Assistant to the Supreme Anthropologist, Late Baroque
The Pasticcia offers her deep apologies to Umberto Eco and Paul Micou
“I’m saying that pop music gives Ben more ideas — more substance — to work with.”
I think the orchestral concert format (or chamber music format)–is dead. I’m so glad you pointed out that classical concerts are generally pretty empty in content these days. Not the music itself of course, but how the concert is put together. Looking at any concert season calendar for your typical orchestra (let’ say the CSO’s 08-09 season), you see concerts like “Shostakovich 5” with an MTT piece for the brass section, Sibelius 4 and Shostakovich ‘s 5th. This kind of programing is typical. If we take the artistic product (the concert) as a whole, I can’t really think of a reason why those three pieces belong together on a performance. Maybe MTT can find a connection between all three pieces (a motivic or thematic connection between the pieces? Or a common harmonic progression? Or a common time period? Or may ‘they all use the chaconne?’) If there IS such a connection, I guarantee you that most of the audience including myself can care less about it, and more likely, there IS no connection at all. It’s simply a random three-course meal.
Now, I’m also not advocating for the ‘thematic’ concert, esp if this is what we get: “Echoes of Russia” with Glinka, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. Really? Am I in the 3rd grade doing a ‘multicultural’ project? Truly pathetic. Is this remotely artistically daring? Once in a while that’s ok, but when every season, at every orchestra, there’s a similar “Russian” program, that’s just pathetic.
Perhaps part of the problem is the conservatory model. The student is taught that a balanced recital usually includes a baroque piece, a Classical sonata, a Romantic character piece and a ‘contemporary piece’ (usually Debussy or some safe neo-tonal composer). I’m waiting for the day when some violinist plays the Cage Freeman Etudes next to Beethoven and Brahms. Now that I’d go to. So the ‘theme’ of every ‘ideal’ recital? “Let’s travel through history!” How refreshing and not juvenile!
When authors like Dave Eggers are dealing with topics like the Sudanese refuges in novels and when establishment museums like the Met have exhibits that engage in themes like bio-ethics and superhero/comic inspired costumes, what can we say about the ‘tour through history’ at nearly every classical concert? I’d rather read Ishiguro or watch The Dark Knight than pay $25 (or soon to be more after I graduate and can no longer buy rush tix) to an orchestra that treats me like a kid with their programming.
Thank God for people like you, Alex Ross, Ronen Givony and Marin Alsop…a whole range of people from administrators and critics to composers and musicians doing and advocating for something interesting. Otherwise, I’d have given up a longtime ago.
Anyway, the point is, if I’m Tony Tommasini and I had have to review concerts like ‘Echoes of Russia,’ I don’t think I really would have much to write about other than how ‘the balances weren’t ideal’ or ‘the brass played out of tune’ either.
Unfortunately, the ‘interesting’ in Classical is still very much in the fringe, while in other art forms (though not perfect), the interesting is either already the mainstream or is quickly becoming the mainstream.
P.S. It was great running finally meeting you last Friday!
P.P.S. I think what MTT does is usually interesting…but this particular concert isn’t particularly inspiring.
“I’d read all this, and decide that pop music is serious, and classical music is light entertainment”
This is because pop music writers have a chip on their shoulder, maybe?? I recently received a free subscription to SPIN magazine (why not, I thought. It’s FREE.) It’s the funniest, most absurd thing I’ve ever read in my entire life. Cringe-worthy, to say the least. The July edition had a feature about Coldplay – five or six pages long with corny photos – and the writer, in all seriousness, describes Coldplay’s struggles to design appropriate concert t-shirts. The rest of the article goes on and on about how their previous album didn’t sell enough. Pathetic. What choice did he have, though? It’s not like their music (or pop music in general) is worth writing about. I’d shoot myself if I had to write about such thin material.
Thank you so much for replying to my post.
“But have you read any good rock criticism? I’d recommend The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, the pop critics in the New York Times, Stranded…”
I guess I’m not really qualified to comment on rock criticism. Besides SPIN, I’ve only read one issue of Rolling Stone, and I almost tossed my cookies. It was so pretentious & I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes (ex. “nü metal” –yeah. sure. spelling it with an umlaut makes it SO much better…*barf*)
The only pop music I have listened to includes: the Beatles (boring), the Pet Shop Boys, and Kajagoogoo (yes, I grew up in the 80s. I’m 30.) I’d rather die a violent messy death than read articles about these groups, and I don’t even hate their music. Go figure!
I am obviously not the intended audience for rock/pop criticism. They can continue to wax poetic about repetitive bass beats, and I’ll continue to wonder what all the fuss is about. :o)
Well, you were the one who wrote about the hypothetical of a martian preferring rock over classical criticism. I am almost like that martian. Having read some rock criticism, it does not inspire me to seek out that music. But, whatever. I shouldn’t have commented in the first place.
Greg: You asked — or, rather, challenged — me to provide an explanation of the reasons for my above posted two-line comment. I would have thought my reasons obvious, and I wish you hadn’t asked. But as you have, you leave me small choice. So…
You wrote:
Please note: I’m friendly with both Tony and Steve, and I’m absolutely not saying that either is a bad critic, or that Ben Ratliff (whom I also know) is better than they are.
But that’s precisely what you’re saying in your above post, your above transparently disingenuous disclaimer notwithstanding. You then compound that indecorous public comparison of the work of your friends and colleagues by coming to the absurd conclusion (i.e., absurd as a conclusion drawn from what preceded it) that Mr. Ratliff made a better job of it because “pop music gives Ben more ideas — more substance — to work with,” which absurd conclusion betrays the real agenda and raison d’être underlying your post: viz., to provide you yet another opportunity to hawk and cheerlead for your idée fixe: pop culture and everything pop-culture related.
There’s nothing per se amiss with hawking pop culture, shallow and largely squalid though it may be. There is, however, something very much amiss with hawking pop culture under the guise of acting in the best interests of the highest of high culture: classical music.
Knowhadamean?
I trust the above answers your question and satisfies your challenge.
ACD
Yes, there are some „serious“ pop (rock?)critics. But are there many more than the few you mentioned? And did you notice, that they all started out in the 60s? Which brings me to my point:
Critics of “classical” music had some build in credibility because their subject was regarded as worthwile. When pop critics entered the field, pop music had no credibility at all. See Adorno. So writers like Christgau, Bangs, Frith and Marcus had to proof their (and their subject’s) worth by “inventing” theories to analyze pop music.
Conclusion: Pop critics have to work extra hard, because pop music has / seems to have so little substance (compared to “classical” music).
For anyone interested in the critical analysis of pop music journalism see Steve Jones (Editor), Pop music and the press, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.
The point I would make, which others seem to miss from your post, is that much classical music criticism does not allow an outsider to become the slightest bit acquainted with the music by reading a review in the paper. That is whole point of a review of pop music.
Classical music reviews that I read do not discuss the music’s sound and character and the feelings invoked in the reviewer. It is as if they expect the reader to know what the music sounds like without having been at the concert. Then they move onto whether or not it was as good as previous performances. Whereas in pop music reviews, they discuss those ramifications.
I must say that some classical music critics do write in such a way to make the uninformed (and the informed) want to run out and hear the music. For example, Alex Ross’s book. That was a great impulse buy.
Hi, Greg –
Points well taken, as usual. This especially caught my attention:
“Classical music here seems like a technical exercise. The pieces are known. So how were they played? Badly or well?”
That’s my great objection to song recitals (forgive my obsession) – the very term “recital” to me has always suggested an academic test: stand up in front of the room and recite a memorized assignment. You will be graded on the accuracy of your “recital”. And so often, the “student” being graded looks and acts as though it were an academic test, upon which his entrance to – what form of higher education? – depends. Classical performers don’t seem to be enjoying themselves: they’re so earnest, trying to get through their assignment correctly. Worse, they sometimes indulge in stagey grimaces that are meant to be smiles of delight. Happy to be here? Usually, they don’t seem to be happy to be here…
And yes, “popular” music often has real intellectual content, or at least has some reference to life in today’s world; whereas most “classical” music reflects, at best, a world which has vanished.
All this, because I asked you to tell me why you disagreed with me. Seems like a reasonable request. I can imagine many reasons why people think I’m wrong, or even ridicule me, but you didn’t say what yours were.
Had you asked me to tell you why I disagreed with you, I would have been more than pleased to do so. But that’s not what you asked. What you asked — or, rather, challenged — me to tell you was what was wrong with your post that provoked my, “Wrote that with a perfectly straight face, did you?” to which you replied, “Perhaps you’d care to say what was wrong with it,” which is precisely what I did in my last comment.
ACD
A fascinating and provocative post, Greg, and I’ll bow to absolutely no one in my admiration for Ben Ratliff’s writing.
Let me ask you this one thing, though: You’re assigned to review the Brooklyn Philharmonic event I describe, under the conditions I describe, in exactly 350 words or fewer.
Would you spend time contextualizing the role Robert Woods Bliss played in Stravinsky’s life and era, or why Beethoven’s Fourth is arguably grossly underrated among the works of his overall oeuvre? Or would you use the space to describe, as best you could, what you were presented with in the moment, assuming out of necessity that most non-Martian denizens of New York City might be at least cursorily aware of Mozart and Beethoven, maybe even Stravinsky?
You know I’m not challenging you here; I’m genuinely curious. God knows I’m always trying to improve what I put out there into the world.
Hi Greg,
I think one of the problems here is that you’re comparing apples and oranges–but it’s not your problem, it’s a problem with the industry. The bulk of rock criticism is focused on reviewing new material and its creators, which means focusing on explaining the music itself and the relationship between the artist and his or her creation. The bulk of classical criticism is focused on reviewing the umpteenth performance of music in the standard repertoire, and that’s even more the case with summer pops concerts. The reivewers of the classical concerts you cite can’t review the pieces themselves–who needs yet another review of the actual music of the 1812 Overture? As a result, the classical reviews end up being reviews not of the music but of the audience experience–how was the performance, how was the environment, who was there, what were the highlights, etc. This sort of classical review is intended for insiders who either already know the rep or are willing to presume that because it’s “classical” music performed by important ensembles it must be good. So no, it’s not going to win any converts, and maybe that’s a problem.
But if we’re going to compare pop and classical criticism and draw conclusions like “pop music gives Ben more ideas — more substance — to work with” we need to also make apples to apples comparisons. For example, in today’s Times Steve Smith reviewed a concert of music by contemporary women composers: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/arts/music/01barg.html?ref=music
Here, because the music is new to the readership, he has to set the stage and describe the music, much in the way Ratliff had to do for the review you quote. Smith first dispenses with the “women composers” business, observing that parity is a serious problem but that working toward parity doesn’t mean sacrificing standards or engaging in the kind of “corrective polemic” that turns people off. He also deals with questions of ethnicity in much the way Ratliff does: “Two sections from “Cuatro Bosquejos Pre-Incaicos” by Gabriela Lena Frank, whose roots are Lithuanian, Chinese and Peruvian, vividly imagined the throbbing flute and gusty panpipes of Peru’s pre-Incan cultures.” And he describes the music in terms that make me wish I had heard the music: “In ‘Cover,’ by Belinda Reynolds, vaporous tendrils of melody slowly curled over constantly shifting rhythms.” and “Ms. du Bois commented from the stage that ‘The Storm,’ her sonata for cello and piano (originally for violin and piano), recast the turbulent emotions she felt at 18 as a roiling tempest. Romantics might have deemed this sturm und drang; nowadays, to borrow a term from rock, it was pure emo.”
I didn’t have to go hunting for this review, it was the first review I saw of contemporary music when I went to the Times’s website a few minutes ago.
@Eric:
Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony has been called his “bleakest, most dissonant” symphony by Paul Griffiths, so it seems to me to be a nice foil to Shostakovich’s Fifth, which followed what I think is Shostakovich’s bleakest and most dissonant. The pairing opens up a whole series of important questions about the creative process and how composers end up writing the music they write.
If those are questions that only insiders will ask, there’s still the fact that audiences will hear a questioning symphony that’s immediately followed by a hearty, affirmative Russian one that blazes out in D major, right? Except that it’s not that easy, and, in the right hands, Shostakovich 5 may end up being even bleaker than the Sibelius.
Isn’t this a bit less black-and-white than is being presented?
You write “There’s no better way to understand why classical music doesn’t speak to many people these days. . .” but, first of all, there were 61,000 people at the Philharmonic concert vs. about 2,000 for Gilberto Gil. Which was the more relevant and meaningful event to more people?
Secondly, Tommasini reports that “there was a refreshingly straightforward performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812” Overture. . . Mr. Tovey and the orchestra treated it as a respectable score with a knockout finale. . . The concert ended with three marches by Sousa that had the crowd clapping and children marching up and down the grassy aisles.” So, at least on this occasion classical music was speaking to a whole bunch of people, and a younger audience to boot!
And what of the music @ Gil? Ratliff writes “Through much of the set, the curiosity and generosity in Mr. Gil’s words and ideas didn’t get into the music. . . The band was doing a Brazilian version of foursquare rhythmic professionalism. . . The show included uninspired reggae versions of the bossa nova standard “Garota de Ipanema” (“The Girl From Ipanema”) and George Harrison’s “Something,” as well as pickings from Mr. Gil’s own work since the late ’70s, mostly not his best. . .So much of the show seemed to separate theory from practice.”
Now, is Gil playing “Girl from Impanema” and The Beatles really all that different from the Philharmonic playing 1812?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Gilberto Gil fan; I’ll be forever in debt to David Byrne’s “Beleza Tropical” for turning me on to him, which leads me to my last point: citing Gilberto Gil as an example of pop music in general is paying quite a compliment to the Britney Spears and Mariah Careys of the world, dontcha think?
My point is, there are substantial and powerful artists as well as shallow and schlocky ones in both pop and classical music. One does not hold a birthright over the other in this regard. Yes, pop is more popular, and classical is less contemporary, but then I look at 61,000 for the Philharmonic vs. 2,000 for Gilberto and I find myself just wishing these labels would go away and we’d all just look for music of substance and power wherever we can find it and regardless of what we call it.
p.s. Yes, I’m affiliated with the Philharmonic but I hope that doesn’t disqualify me from having an opinion on the matter.
Wow, I am amazed at how many stuffed shirts there are talking about Classical Music as if it has some lofty purpose while pop music is hardly worth the effort it took them to write the word “pop”…
1 – There is a lot of great pop music out there, music that is a great deal more than just pop. (There is a lot of c*** too, but that doesn’t take away from the great artists – we have millions of paint by number works hanging in people’s living rooms, but that doesn’t mean Monet is worthless).
2 – There are a number of good critical reviews of pop music. Not all artists get good reviews, and not all reviews are good (well done).
3 – As you mention in your last rebuttal, a lot of Classical music used to be popular music in its day, so the idea that classical is somehow more elevated is just incorrect. It’s only been the last 60-70 years that we’ve separated the forms – and it’s a huge mistake (IMHO).
While you only comment on 2 reviews, I personally think it shows a trend in our view of classical music verse pop music that really needs to change. Attempting to affect a change is just what a good portion of my own blog is about.
Thanks for responding, Greg. You’re totally right: if you look at old programs – from, say, Patti’s time – there’d be a mixed bag: maybe a movement from a string quartet, a flute solo, an aria, an operatic duet or maybe the Sextet from Lucia or something, a piano solo, perhaps a couple of the better-known songs of Schubert or Brahms, and popular or traditional songs like “Home Sweet Home” or “Comin’ Through the Rye”. Solo recitals were uncommon before the last years of the 19th century. And they were indeed entertainment: featuring the more popular arias from contemporary operas etc. And they were intended to entertain their audiences, not bore them to death with High Art.
As for “recital” – again you’re right, I only want to add that it was a common part of education, certainly in the US and Canada, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, for students to be given dramatic scenes or poems to memorize and recite to their class; these were a feature of private parties also, and some people actually made a living on the touring circuit, just doing these literary recitals. A dramatic recitation of “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, that sort of thing. Those were the days, before television – even predating silent films. So this was salon entertainment, and why not use the term for a musical salon program as well?
I couldn’t agree with you more. I suspect the prevalence of shallow classical music criticism is more than ever a reflection of what’s happening on stage, or not happening.
Classical musicians (I speak as one) often deride pop and rock artists as technically unskilled and unadventurous harmonically and rhythmically, but in my experience the reverse is just as true. I recently did a stint as a guest teacher at a piano festival, and was reminded of how limited in scope young classical musicians are allowed and even encouraged to be: one Chopin chestnut after another, four Pathetique sonatas. I performed some modestly contemporary works for an evening concert, including the Elliott Carter Sonata, and you would have thought I was on the cutting edge of modernity from their curious responses.
I also agree that too many classical reviews devolve into simple comparison-this or that Transcendental Etude not as flawless or gripping as last season’s-without telling us anything of the artistry involved, or the emotional quality of the experience. I recently re-read James Huneker’s brilliant introduction to Joseffy’s 1915 edition of Chopin’s Preludes, and was reminded of how much of the spirit-connection in music writing and performance has been lost or suppressed over the decades. When he describes the last three notes of the 24th Prelude as “the final clangor of overthrown reason”, you KNOW you’ve been told the real story.
The musical education system still continues to support the notion of the recital as technical proving ground, the ultimate reality competition show for classical musicians. Anyone who has listened to “From the Top” on NPR (a sobering, nauseating experience for me) has heard this dog-and-pony show approach in full swing. Classical music can be about so much more, both in content and performance. I applaud your efforts to turn things around, and I’m inspired by your online book.
Greg,
Many apologies if I came across as suggesting quantity = quality, I intended no such thing! I was simply saying that, on this occasion, there were quantitatively more people for whom the supposedly ‘classical’ event was relevant and meaningful than there were for the ‘pop’ event, which to me shows why drawing a line in the sand between the two is problematic.
Re. Ms. Carey & Spears, I was considering the statement “pop music gives [writers] more substance to work with.” I guess it has to do with what the meaning of ‘pop’ is. If I was to try to find a representative pop act, I’d probably consult Billboard or Pollstar, and there I bet I would find Mariah Carey more emblematic of the pop music norm than Gilberto Gil. In fact he might not even been considered a pop act at all — he might be world music. And, if I were to look at the Philharmonic’s schedule for a representative classical concert, Central Park it would not be.
I certainly agree that there is substantial pop music, but there is substantial classical music too. It isn’t black-and-white, there’s a touch of grey (to quote a pop song).
p.s. Re. Gil’s ‘Girl from Impanema and ‘Something’ being different from 1812 because “not everyone in pop music covers “Something,” and covers are, compared to original material, relatively rare, we expect something interesting to happen.”
What, then, of the Phil’s cover of “Purple Haze” as an encore at that Central Park concert?
Dear Greg,
I must admit that, even though I enjoy much classical music, I do seem to seek out good pop (and jazz) criticism while avoiding most mainstream writing on classical music. I especially like Wire magazine, where adventurous music of all stripes, including avant-garde jazz and modern classical, is intelligently reviewed on a monthly basis. I think the main reason for my avoidance of classical reviews is that, as has been amply discussed on this page, the culture of classical music seems on the whole far more sterile than its “rivals” pop, jazz, folk, etc. (by the way, I think of Ben Ratliff as a jazz critic who writes about pop when it interests him, and not at all a typical pop critic). I would, however, like to respond to an exchange that occurred in the comments here. You write in reply to an earlier post:
“And I’ll call a foul on your reference to Mariah Carey and poor Britney. It’s possible — in fact, quite easy — to have a fulfilling life in pop music without ever (or at least very often) listening to those two, or others like them. I did it. I don’t mean to whip this thought to death, but I really did go to shows many times a week, and didn’t hear much utter crap. (And would have heard less, I think, if the dominant style in LA when I was doing this hadn’t been hard rock played by hair bands. Which I could have avoided, but I got a strange, perverse kick out of them.)
Is this really a foul? I think that depends on where you are living. Yes, it is quite possible to have a fulfilling pop music life this way—but I would bet it is more possible in places like Los Angeles and New York than it is in my hometown of Cincinnati. I lived in Philadelphia for a short time, so I have experienced the difference between the cultural life of the Midwest (Chicago excepted) and that of the big city. Not only are good (and affordable) concerts scarcer out here, but the radio is wholly dominated by mainstream commercial pop. What this means is lots and lots of kids whose musical lives and point of reference tend to be narrow. I teach a music and culture course at a local college, so I do have some data on this. Occasionally I get a student who plays an instrument and knows some classical music, or an indie kid with an iPod full of intriguing sounds, but most of my students listen to new country, mainstream pop of the Mariah Carey/Britney and/or the same classic rock songs that were on the radio when I grew up. And good luck to you if you are looking for music criticism of the Ben Ratliff sort in the local paper. I guess my point is that the situation might look very different to you if you had tried your experiment with pop out here in the hinterland. It is still possible to find the good stuff, but it takes a bit of work.
Jay
Given that the apparatus surrounding classical music – the way it’s created, rehearsed, marketed, packaged, sold, and performed – is so different from pop, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me to compare reviews of it to reviews of pop. I’m moved in different ways by classical than I am by rock, whether it’s complex rock or not. It’s a different listening experience entirely. A better comparison may be to look at visual art or dance reviews and see how classical reviewers hold up against them. My 2 cents to this discussion.
Getting back to the Sibelius/Shostakovich thread for a second, I’m not at all convinced that the “contrasts are known” in advance, as you put it. Audiences aren’t as familiar with these works as we are, and there’s been a serious drought in Sibelius in Chicago that’s only recently been altered. I can’t help it if you don’t think those are interesting, but it’s those contrasts that happen to make classical music interesting to me as I try to find logic in programs, and it’s a nice, straightforward exercise that beginning listeners can be brought into, and feel a sense of ownership and knowledge about the music, and right themselves on the vast sea of repertoire. Classical music is historical music, mostly, and if operas and orchestras can bring history to life, people are free to apply it to their lives any way the please.
Lastly, the idea of placing the Fourth and Fifth symphonies together looks good on paper, but would be death for the overworked orchestra and beleaguered audience. We’ve had the Fourth here with two conductors the last couple seasons, so audiences are ready for the Fifth
Hi Greg,
Maybe I’m in a very small minority here and I’ll probably be misunderstood, but I’m not convinced this standard you’ve set up is fair. If I’m reading you correctly, what you miss in the typical classical concert is connections to external types of meaning that are socially/culturally relevant. For better or for worse, the classical music industry is better defined by the affection people have directly for the music, which often invites a wide range of responses that may or may not have anything to do with what the composer had in mind. Commenter Suzanne says “most ‘classical’ music reflects, at best, a world which has vanished.” Maybe that’s true. Who cares? I don’t listen to it because of the world it reflects, I listen to it because it’s worth listening to. The best of this music is as wondrously put together and aesthetically satisfying as anything humans have created. The fact that that’s not captured in most newspaper reviews is of trivial significance to me.
Although I agree that music (with or without lyrics) can be about something external, it’s the music that drew me in to this career, made me want to practice hours a day, etc. The other stuff is secondary at best. Maybe I sound like a latter day Hanslick, but I don’t mean this in the caricatured way he’s often understood. (I’ve actually read very little of what he’s written, so I don’t really have an opinion about him.) I love Wagner and Scriabin, but I don’t buy much of what they say about their music, even if what they said helped inspire them to write. The music stands on its own. Yes, people like to wrap big, meaningful words around the experience. That’s fine if it’s what you’re looking for, but I often feel that when composers, critics, performers go about that, they’re spinning their own ideas around the music as much as anything.
Spinning ideas can be a great thing, by the way, and I agree with you that music reviews would be better if critics were more openly subjective. I very much enjoy writing that helps catalyze my listening, and ideas about external meanings can do that, even if the ideas aren’t really embedded in the music. Jeremy Denk’s writing is extraordinary in this regard, going off on all sorts of wild flights of fancy, but generally with the purpose of exploring how he experiences the music, not so much about extramusical meanings in the music. In other words, I really like writing that points me back to the music; I’m less interested in music as a way to open up ideas about politics or whatever. The world offers plenty of ways to engage such ideas – frankly, I think music is overrated as a carrier of big ideas, often functioning in a “preaching to the choir” sort of way.
Penderecki’s famous “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” no doubt gets a head start in engaging its listeners because of its “meaningful” title – but he only added the title after having written the piece. In other words, that music isn’t really “about” the victims of Hiroshima, but the association works well and probably helps people to find their way into its expressive world. Ben Zander tells people to think of a loved one who died while they listen to him hack through Chopin’s E Minor Prelude; it’s hokey, but it probably does help get some audience members to experience the tensions and longings in the music. Sure, many works were inspired by specific events/ideas and are meant to make us think about specific things, but the best music goes beyond. (Confession: I really get a kick out of the “1812 Overture,” but couldn’t care less about its historical context.) Think how many non-Christians find Bach’s sacred music to be profoundly moving, not because they necessarily believe what Bach was expressing, but because the music is so compelling in its own right. I love Mozart’s requiem, but I don’t find if very useful liturgically. It’s just, as Alex Ross might say, “awesome music.”
I further suspect that a large percentage of pop/indie fans don’t care as much about “message” as you tend to suggest. I’ve talked about this a good deal with a student pianist who plays classical and jazz seriously and also loves indie music. She wrote a paper for me (with mix CD included!) describing dozens of the indie musicians she loves, and she talked about how this music serves as a sort of soundtrack for her and her peers; yet she also said she doesn’t really spend a lot of time thinking about the lyrics (often doesn’t know them), or what the songs are about. She’s an English major, extremely bright, socially conscious, etc. and probably likes that the music has an aura that fits her identity, but it was pretty clear to me that the attraction isn’t so much intellectual as – well, she likes the music. I’m not denying that this music doesn’t get some strength from “what it’s about,” but I’d guess it’s a minority of listeners who really think of that as paramount. People like music because they like music.
None of this addresses the problem of how to get people to pay attention to classical music, but I’ve written enough for now. You wrote a little while back that, “the classical music business, as we know it today, is among much else a glorious basking pool. We can love that, if we want, but we shouldn’t confuse this with art.” Well, although I don’t thinking basking in the familiar should be all we do, I have confused it with art, and I guess that’s where we disagree.
I agree with Galen Brown that we’re comparing apples and oranges here. The parks concert by the New York Phil. conducted by Bramwell Tovey was a pops concert with a lot
of old chestnuts; nothing wrong with that, but
it isn’t typical of the the Philharmonic
plays during its subscription season.
And if some Rock or Hip Hop fans had gone
to that outdoor concert and just kept an open
mind, they might have really enjoyed it.
But unfortunately, many of them think that
classical music is”uncool”, and would never
give it a chance. This isn’t snobbery on my part; I don’t begrudge them their love for
Rock etc.
I don’t think there is a lack of good
classical music criticism today. Tommasini
is one of the most fair-minded and generous
music critics I have ever known,and it’s so
refreshing to have a classical music critic
who isn’t always dismissing and disparaging
today’s conductors,opera singers and instrumentalists, and longing for the “good old
days” of Toscanini and Rose Ponselle etc.
I also admire Alex Ross and Justin Davidson.
It’s unfair to criticize orchestras for playing music from the past;we don’t have any Rock music from 200 years ago.
Greg,
Your point may be very valid, but I do question whether two outdoor summer orchestra concerts are the best source of reviews to make such a comparison.
I met you in Seattle at that whatever-it-was-called arts conference last winter and enjoyed your thought-provoking comments.
Pop and Classical Music all depends on the individual’s ideal on what they may like to hear.
I assumed you wouldn’t post my previous reply!
“Hey, you’ve got something there. If you’re a Martian, you’re a Martian, and I can’t command you (or any other Martian) to have the Martian reactions I expect.”
Touché! Mr. Sandow, it tickles me that a professional critic can sink to my level of sarcasm & snarkiness, although my previous comments were never intended to attack you. Having a sense of humour about oneself isn’t a terrible thing, you know. Anyhow, it’s been a lot of fun! Cheers!