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December 12, 2003
TT: A really big show
My mailbox continues to silt up with good stuff, which I'll dole out drib by drab. First is a reader's response to my posting on the growing irrelevance of regional orchestras:To me, the chief benefit of having a third-tier regional orchestra (aside from the employment it provides to classical musicians, which, admittedly, is a poor reason for anything) lies in the children. True, an adult familiar with the classical repertoire would be better off listening to a Beethoven symphony on a CD or DVD rather than spending an evening at some small-town auditorium, but children are a different story.
I spent my first 11 years in a small town in Belarus, and my very first concert was hearing the Soviet equivalent of a third-tier orchestra. I don't remember what was played and I certainly was in no position to gauge the quality of the playing. But the experience was permanently etched in my memory. This was my first introduction not to the music so much, but to the concert experience. It was the grandness, the pomposity of the occasion that I found so fascinating. The music was almost beside the point. It was that evening when my love for concerts (which later evolved into the love of music itself) began.
Later, we moved to New York and I attended various music schools, including the old High School of Performing Arts. Three of my four children now study music at one of the schools I attended. When I though it was time to take my oldest to a symphony concert, it didn't matter to me so much whether it was the Chicago Symphony playing at Carnegie or some Bergen County orchestra playing in Englewood. I wanted him to develop a love for the spectacle of a symphony concert.
My concern is that if regional orchestras disappear, the already shrinking audience base for classical music would, within a generation, disappear with them.
I've gotten a lot of smart letters defending regional orchestras (more of which will turn up here in days to come), but this is the first one that seemed to me to move the argument in a significantly different direction. I really did underestimate the power of sheer spectacle, didn't I?
As I read this letter, I recalled the first time I ever heard a symphony orchestra in person. It was the St. Louis Symphony (a second-tier ensemble of high quality, to be sure), performing Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony with a local university choir. I can't remember a thing about the music or the way it was performed, but I can still close my eyes and see all those musicians up on stage. Granted, I was already in high school when I saw that concert, by which time I was already well on the way to becoming a performing musician. Looking back, I'd say the most important orchestral "experience" I had during my formative years was watching Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on TV. Still, I'm inclined to go along with what my correspondent says about how seeing a symphony orchestra in person--be it good or fair or merely adequate--might well help set a young listener on the right path.
Posted December 12, 2003 12:01 PM
