{"id":1214,"date":"2008-09-24T08:53:04","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T15:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2008\/09\/constructing_the_concert_exper\/"},"modified":"2008-09-24T08:53:04","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T15:53:04","slug":"constructing_the_concert_exper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/constructing_the_concert_exper.php","title":{"rendered":"Constructing the concert experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Ross in The New Yorker<\/i> offers a quick history of the classical concert<\/a>, and reminds us that what we now believe to be ”traditional” and ”pure” in the concert environment is, in fact, a rather recent construct. Sitting silently in the dark and listening to a full program of complete works wasn’t the way it always was…even for many of the composers we now insist on presenting this way. Rather, the tradition, if there is one, favors continual give-and-take between artists and audiences, and places the performance as a background of social activity in the hall, rather than the focus.<\/p>\n

I’ve touched on this point before<\/a>, but Ross’ review of two books on the subject (Kenneth Hamilton’s After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern
\nPerformance<\/i> and William Weber’s The Great
\nTransformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to
\nBrahms<\/i>) brings the history into sharp relief. Says he:<\/p>\n

When the concert rite emerged in its perfected form, circa 1950–the ban
\non applauding after movements took hold only in the early twentieth
\ncentury, almost certainly prompted by the passivity of home
\nlistening–it seemed to elevate and to stifle the music in equal
\nmeasure. Composers were empowered by the worshipfulness of the
\nproceedings, but, generally, only if they were dead. Performers thrived
\non the new attentiveness, but struggled against the monkish strictures
\nof conservatory training and certain inexplicable regulations governing
\nbehavior and dress. (The overarching problem of classical music is the
\ntuxedo.) Listeners, too, come away feeling both liberated and confined.
\nJames Johnson identifies what he calls “the paradox of bourgeois
\nindividualism” — a culture of conformity encircling an art of untrammeled personal expression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, as we collectively struggle to rethink the concert environment among shifting social expectations and preferences, it’s worth asking: which tradition are we seeking to uphold?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Ross in The New Yorker offers a quick history of the classical concert, and reminds us that what we now believe to be ”traditional” and ”pure” in the concert environment is, in fact, a rather recent construct. Sitting silently in the dark and listening to a full program of complete works wasn’t the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}