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My spring semester Juilliard course has started — “Classical Music in an Age of Pop,” about the future of classical music.
And, wow…this is the 20th year I’ve taught it. Which is one way to tell how long the crisis in classical music has been going on. At least 20 years, because if there hadn’t been a thought, back then, that classical music was in trouble, then why would they have invited me to teach the course?
Though of course the crisis dates back even earlier.
You can read a course overview here, and a full class schedule, week by week, with links to all assignments here.
Next week’s assignment, the first the students will do, is all about the classical music crisis. They read about how classical music used to be, before the crisis hit. Including a 1923 NY Times piece, about teenagers mobbing the final Met Opera appearance by a star soprano.
And a 1862 story from Life, then one of the most popular magazines in the US, about the piano. Including a piano work they commissioned from Copland! In full musical notation, for their readers to play.
You wouldn’t see that now.
A highlight from the first class
I’ve got two students from Juilliard’s jazz program. Don’t often have that! I’ve encouraged them to speak up, bring jazz into our discussions, tell us how things are in the jazz world. And specifically to contrast how things are with jazz when we talk about how things are with classical music.
They’ll know all that much better than I do.
There’s much to say about what I teach in the course. i’ll touch on that as the semester proceeds.
But here’s the first assignment:
reading:
classical music before the crisis:
Greg Sandow, “Before the crisis” (a post from my blog)
Greg Sandow, “When opera was popular” (Another post from my blog, featuring a New York Times story from 1923, about the farewell performance of Met Opera soprano Geraldine Farrar. Farrar had teenage fans, and they went wild. Reading about this is like taking a trip to another world, a world that really did exist, in which the classical music audience was young.)
“One and Two and…” (Life magazine, June 29, 1962. Life, in those days, was one of America’s most popular magazines. Here it celebrates the piano, complete with a newly commissioned piano piece by Aaron Copland, which it printed for its readers to play.)
[Follow the link, which takes you to the June 29, 1962 issue of Life, as archived on Google Books. The story on the piano starts on page 38. To go there, find the words “Front Cover” in small print just above the full reproduction of the cover of the magazine. Click the down arrow next to those words, and find the link to the story, either by looking for its title — “One and Two and…” — or by looking for page 38.]
the crisis now:
Greg Sandow, “Portrait of a crisis” (blog post)
Greg Sandow, “Timeline of the crisis” (blog post)
David Pitt, “Piano Stores Closing as Fewer Children Taking Up Instrument” (news story from the Associated Press, January 2, 2015)
An article in Life Magizine from the 1800’s is held up as a standard that will not be met today? I know you have You Tube… Every orchestra, conductor , and almost every piece of music ever written is being accessed at levels that Life, Time, etc never came close to combined. Maybe you should focus on the economic model of the orchestra and try to find a way to attract the audiences that watch it for free. There is greater access to classical music than ever before, just not folks to spill out the bucks to sit in the far reaches of a hall.
I hope your jazz students make you aware of the fact that jazz is experiencing some of the same problems that classical music is facing.
Hi Greg, It’s good to hear that you’re addressing the crisis in classical music with your Juilliard students. Looking back to the beginning of the 20th century, Dvorak was counseling American composers to use our country’s spirituals, indigenous music, and folk songs to create a truly American voice – but only a few composers followed his advice. Instead, from Europe there came the avant-garde movement, which pretty much dominated the scene for many decades.
My late husband, Ernst Bacon, whom Virgil Thomson called “one of America’s best composers,” studied in Vienna, rather than in Paris. Observing the post WWI decadence and dejected spirit in that once-glorious musical city, he understood how serialism could have been embraced there, But returning to America, he realized that our vibrant, optimistic country was not a suitable home for the avant-garde. As a composer, he wanted to capture the large-hearted spirit of America, as Whitman and the New England transcendental authors had done in literature. Growing up in Chicago, he became a good friend of Carl Sandburg, who introduced him to our heritage of folk songs and encouraged him to use them as thematic material in some of his instrumental music.
Ernst’s Symphony #2 also incorporates big band sounds; and its final movement is a full jazz fugue. It has received several performances in the SF Bay Area but has never been heard in the East. The populist composers considered him too serious, and the serious ones thought him too populist. He was outspoken against the avant-garde, which he considered an aberration, and was consequently ignored. In the last 25 years of his life, he basically went underground, continuing to pursue his own path of imagination and heart. In recent years, Ernst Bacon’s music has begun to be revived, along with that of other “Forgotten Americans.” (“Forgotten Americans” is the name of the Arabesque CD recorded a few years ago byJoel Krosnick and Gilbert Kalish, who have championed Bacon’s cello-piano work, “A Life.”) Slowly but surely Ernst’s music is being re-discovered; and in fact tonight, Jan. 19, Bill McGlaughlin included his elegy, “Remembering Ansel Adams,” in the American Masters series of his program, “Exploring Music.”
I think there must be many “forgotten Americans” whose music could revitalize the repertoire with a fresh appeal to current audiences; and I’ve also discovered many living composers on Orchestralist who are enjoying success with their imaginative works. Perhaps the music of these composers could help solve the crisis of classical music, which I’m glad you are exploring in your teaching. With fond memories of Olga’s masterclass 50 years ago and best wishes for the new year. Ellen Wendt Bacon