I keenly anticipated the Metropolitan Museum’s current Winslow Homer retrospective. Titled “Cross-Currents,” it comprises 88 oils and watercolors, a 200-page scholarly catalogue, a “visiting guide,” an audio guide, and docents readily at hand. The driving aspiration is to newly frame a major nineteenth century American painter, with due regard for our current wrestlings with issues of American purpose and identity.
In short – it is a necessary exercise in curating the American past, something our museums do and our orchestras do not.
As I write in Dvorak’s Prophecy, cities (I mention Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh) whose art museums “regularly scrutinize the American cultural narrative” host orchestras innocent of this endeavor. And I specifically cite a 2018 Metropolitan Museum exhibit tracing the lineage of the painter Thomas Cole, adding:
“Were an orchestra to do something similar, it might be a contextualized presentation of the symphonies of John Knowles Paine (1875, 1879) – crucial progenitors of the American-sounding Second and Third Symphonies of George Chadwick. I would not call Paine a ‘great composer.’ But he is a great and necessary figure in the history of American classical music. American orchestras do not even know him.”
Were an American orchestra to “do something similar” to the Met’s Winslow Homer retrospective, it would be a celebration of our greatest symphonist: Charles Ives, whose 2024 Sesquicentenary is nearly upon us. Will anything like that take place? There is a tool kit at hand: the “Brevard Project” this July. It’s a week-long think tank/seminar exploring the ways American orchestras can “use the past” to serve the nation and reinvigorate their mission..
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Devouring the Winslow Homer galleries, I was impelled to recall the 1895 Civil War oration of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., with the immortal words: “Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.”
Self-made, virtually self-taught as a painter, Homer (1836-1910) apprenticed to a commercial lithographer at nineteen and became a frequent illustrator for Harper’s Weekly and Ballou’s Pictorial. He was all of 25 years old when the Civil War erupted. He became its most memorable painter. This singular apprenticeship “touched with fire” powered his destiny with gathering force. He seized the elemental – and, with his signature seascapes, became the recorder of man at war with his surroundings in an indifferent world. Many an iconic Homer canvas shows sailors at the mercy of a sullen sea. At the Met, I was galvanized by the existential power of “Lost in the Grand Banks” (1885), with its brooding and featureless gray sky.
The trope of the self-invented, self-made American artist figures prominently in Dvorak’s Prophecy. I apply it to Walt Whitman, Hermann Melville, and – most especially – to Ives. It connects to something as “unfinished” as the United States itself. The Met’s Homer retrospective documents years of renewal, but also – at least to my eyes – pronounced terminal decline. My impression is that his lack of formal technical training ultimately became a source of limitation.
Many years ago, an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum cruelly juxtaposed the watercolors of Homer and John Singer Sargent. Homer was proud of his watercolors, and justly so. But Sargent’s command of this treacherous medium was sovereign. As a technician, he disclosed a virtuosity beyond Homer’s reach.
Seizing the Civil War, grappling with man’s war with the elements, Homer was an artist whose themes sometimes exceeded his means. And Sargent’s means can surpass his themes. It is in the music of Charles Ives – music still under-performed and under-recognized – that great American themes and uncanny, idiosyncratic means jostle in a wondrously dynamic equilibrium.
The Ives Sesquicentenary seems to me a make-or-break moment for our struggling orchestras.
Yes, history matters. It’s always been puzzling how classical music loves historical repertoire but tends to ignore its historical and cultural context. How we listen has a history.
The music of John Knowles Paine is not altogether unknown in America . Some years ago, former New York Philharmonic music director Zubin Mehta performed and then recorded one of Paine’s symphonies with the orchestra , and a number of his other works are available on recordings .
And other prominent American conductors such as. Gerard Schwarz, Leonard Slatkin , Michael Tilson Thomas to name only a few, have championed. long neglected works by lesser known but worthy American composers .
Mr.. Berger is technically correct (in fact Mehta and the New York Phil recorded both Paine Symphonies for New World records), but the Horowitz premise is more correct now than ever.
Schwarz, Slatkin, MTT, David Zinman are not nearly as active as they once were, and only JoAnn Falletta has ably assumed the American music mantle.
One can listen to her recordings of the Paine Symphonies with the Buffalo Philharmonic on Naxos, and the newer renditions compare favorably to Mehta’s IMHO.
One only needs to plow through the orchestra’s online performance databases to see that the great American music of the 20th century is now woefully underrepresented. For example, the orchestral music of Charles Martin Loeffler has not been performed by the Boston Symphony since 1959. Loeffler was assistant concertmaster of the orchestra from 1883 to 1903. Considering his ties to Isabella Stewart Gardner, he is a perfect example of the possibilities Joseph Horowitz has so ably cited above.
And I led a community orchestra in Chadwick’s Noel from his 4 Symphonic Sketches in 2019. Steven Ledbetter and I figured out that it was the first performances in New England since April 1931, when Serge Koussevitzky led it in memory of the composer. Chadwick deserves much better.
The primary problem is not the U.S. orchestral establishment, although Joe Horowitz is right that the establishment has much to answer for. The primary problem is the audience, which opens its wallets only for a steadily contracting core of the orchestral repertory. They don’t want challenge, they don’t want adventure. They want to hum the tunes they already know as they leave the concert hall.
Is that not the definition of conservatism? Nowadays, it seems that it’s not so much a “taste” but rather a political choice. (One which I feel history shows to be nearly always a backwards choice.)
Blaming your audiences is the real problem.
Truly engage with your communities. Show them “why” a piece is challenging/adventurous in their space – do not expect them to come to you. Provide opportunities to learn and to engage without making them feel “dumb” for not having the years and years of training/studies that we’ve had. Without building that trust and authentic relationship with the actual people that we serve, we’ll never advance the arts in the coming decades.
Most people are not experts in the arts. They’re humming those “tunes” because they’ve connected with those “tunes”. Connect with them and they’ll connect with you.
It seems to me that most orchestras have been trying their best to do exactly this kind of outreach for some time now. Could you give some concrete examples of “engagement” that’s working?
Community Engagement isn’t as simple as it sounds and one can’t expect results within a season. This takes hard work, years and collaborations to make a substantial impact. We’re talking about the impact this work will have in the decades to come, not within a season or two. Here are some initiatives that have been incredible.
Of course: the Cleveland Orchestra’s Ensembre HD performed at Happy Dog Saloon to bring classical music to non-traditional performance venues. This resulted in a greater community awareness and appreciation – a Neighborhood Residency emerged from the positive reception from the local community.
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago initiated a yearlong creative residency (Mark Bradford Project) focused on community engagement (not to sell tickets, but to connect with the students at Lindblom Math and Science Academy) which also resulted in a residency showcasing the student works along with the main exhibition. Education lead to interaction in this case.
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra organized a “One City, One Symphony” campaign in which musicians would play the last movement in Beethoven’s 9th (I know, it’s part of the very well known tunes) Ode to Joy in various non-traditional parks AND encourage the community to dance, rap, sign, sign, etc. along with the musician. This created participation (not just spectators) that connected individuals with the symphony. This was all recorded as a marketing video montage of the entire city singing and dancing along to Beethoven. People learned about the piece and learned that it was just one part of the whole work – people were encouraged to attend the entire performance afterwards. They also have a great Community Programs page: https://www.cincinnatisymphony.org/education-and-community/community-programs/
We have great examples. However, it takes years and money to authentically build these bridges. An organization can’t just give free tickets and expect people to attend. What about transportation costs? Do those communities know where to park near the performance venue? Is the attire intimating to some? Is it a weekend performance – some parents have to work weekends. Are those guests invited to attend or taken advantage of by being tokenized once there? I’m taking minorities, young adults, students – anyone who hasn’t felt welcomed before.
You build that connection and they’ll listen to anything because they’re buying into that relationship, not just buying a “product”. An artcentric view of the arts will be it’s ultimate demise. Please, I do greatly encourage you to read Doug Borwick’s Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts. or Donna Walker-Kuhne’s Invitation to the Party: Building Bridges to the Arts, Culture and Community.
People can’t just be invited to the party. They have to be asked to dance. And they should be asked to help pick out the music and the food. That’s engagement.
Thank you. I have read Borwick and Walker-Kuhne, Such strategies will work only as long as orchestras have the money to stay in business, of course, and fund educational/outreach projects. We don’t have a European system; orchestras have to play to the market. There we are.
Bravo. Well said. Connecting is a two-way street, though — it requires receiving as well as sending. We’re understanding the audiences we want to attract, and how to turn them on to music they don’t know. That is not the audience’s fault.
How come no one ever talks about classical music radio stations like WQXR, WCRB, WETA, KUSC, etc.? These stations are all available to everyone on the internet and they play a wide variety of classical music from Marin Marais to John Williams. Currently (on the radio) Florence Price and William Grant Still, along with Amy Beach, are probably the American composers you will hear most often. I suspect that the audience that listens to classical music on the radio is far larger than the audience that attends performances. Classical music on the radio is not perfect–it has a limited playlist, never plays 20th-century American composers aside from Gershwin and Bernstein, avoids contemporary music in general (except for movie scores), avoids vocal music almost entirely, plays little chamber music, and in fact plays little piano music apart from Chopin. There is hardly any analysis or appreciation. But it IS where the audience can be found 24 hours a day, and the music comes into our homes.
Many years ago I was consulting with a large NPR station about repertory. We discovered that a substantial percentage (majority?) of classical FM was used as office background music, hence the ban on vocal music, dissonance, and you know the rest. I’m not sure how much radio/internet listening leads to discovery. Additionally, this was before the days of Spotify/Apple playlists, which I would guess serve a similar function now.
Well, Orchestras better indeed do something! Whether inspired by the “Museum Model”
that Mr. Horowitz explains or simply to keep great music alive. For me both as an educator
and a music fanatic, it’s painful that classical music is regarded as something esoteric or
no longer relevant. Frankly, I’m optimistic (despite the baleful climate) that if we can re-
introduce serious music back into the schoolrooms, or if parents are able to stress the
beauty and life-affirming feeling it can give, we’ve got a shot !
Perhaps it’s time to address the real problem: a sad one. Our society now opts musically for quick
gratification. And music needing a video to make it at all compelling. The source of this phenomenon can be
seen in the dependency on remote control, cell phones, computers where what’s not IMMEDIATELY exciting
can be removed just as immediately. Moreover, what I find appalling (lest this sound terribly elitist) is that
fellow “professors,” often charged with teaching Literature or Western Civ, have such an abjectly poor
knowledge of great music. You know: the popular culture has always been around. And popular music, such
as great rock and roll, can be wonderful. But the surrounding cultural environment, the musical ecosystem,
does not seem to want to sustain even the most canonical of great symphonies or operas.
It’s weird to have someone tell me (with a mixture of awe and disdain), when I’m singing to myself,
let’s say, “E lucevan le stelle” : “HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!” AND WHY DO YOU LIKE IT!”