Noisy episode

Difficult modernist music has been forced on an audience that doesn't want to hear it

I keep hearing that, but I don't understand how it could have happened this way. No symphony orchestra in the cities I've lived in has tried to make modernist repertoire a significant part of its concerts--sure, the CSO might have had Boulez's "Notations" open a few concerts, but they only last a couple of minutes long and are among his least difficult works. All modern music is consigned to special concerts where only those who are already interested in it are likely to come.

And this isn't, I should imagine, a recent thing, either. After all, the Darmstadt generation had most of its works premiered at special festivals for new-music cognoscenti. The only way Boulez could get Webern heard was through the Domaine Musical concerts he set up himself. New music in the U.S. is stocked at only large stores in bigger cities, and the staff usually let it languish in neglect.

So, how has modernism been forced on anyone?

I led a conversation with members of the audience after a concert by one of America's most famous orchestras. The people in the conversation with long-time subscribers. Nobody from the orchestra had ever asked them what they thought. This orchestra does a fair amount of modernist new music, and the people from the audience just hated it. Their anger, simmering for all these years, but never before expressed, was just amazing to encounter.

This is just one of many examples I could cite. You'd look at this orchestras's programming, Christopher, and you might well say, "Well, what's the problem? They don't do all that much modernist new music." But however much it might seem to you, it was far too much for their audience.

You mentioned the Chicago Symphony. Their audience hated the new music that Barenboim programmed. After Barenboim left, the orchestra played less of it, and subscribers wrote letters, expressing their gratitude.

Talk to people in the classical music audience, and ask them what they think of new music. Many, if not most of them, grit their teeth in advance, expecting what to them is a horrible experience. Some people, I'll grant you, think something as innocent as the Barber Violin Concerto is horribly dissonant. (I've run into that, firsthand.) But many others are happy to accept new music that's written in some musical language that they find they can understand. (Which does NOT mean that it has to be simple or tuneful!)

I don't think a piece of barely-modernist music here or there in a season filled overwhelmingly with traditional repertoire can possibly be seen as "forcing" the music on anyone. Even if you have a subscription, there's no obligation to attend every concert.

In any event, please do name this orchestra, since I'd fly there to attend their concerts. Really, I mean that. Ever since I discovered modern-classical music, I've been waiting desperately to be a regular concert goer. But of the cities I've lived in since, Madrid, Chicago, Cluj-Napoca, and Helsinki, there's maybe two concerts in a six-month period that have anything modernist.

Well, go argue with the people in the audience who DID feel the music was forced on them. Remember that they might want to hear other pieces on the program with the modernist work they hate. Remember that they might not be able to go another night. In fact, try to have some sympathy for people who think differently from you! Even if you think the audience is entirely wrong for thinking what they think, they think it. And they're not going to change. So if you run an orchestra, you can either speak to them, and try to find some accomodation, or tell them to go pluck themselves. That latter option, it seems to me, is the one you're picking.

I can't tell you which orchestra I talked about in the last comment. I was working with them as a consultant when I led that conversation, and my work with my clients has to be confidential.

If you want to hear new music, modernist and otherwise, move to New York. There's a lot of it there. London, too. You're silly to live in the cities you chose. You're just not going to get the concerts you want. (See, now I'm treating you the way you treated those poor people in the audience.)