Anne Midgette weighs in on the discussion over on her blog The Classical Beat:
I do think it’s unfortunate, though, when there’s no sense of a
person behind the playing. Classical music can suffer from a sense of
entitlement: there’s an idea that the music is so great it’s enough
just to play it, and everyone should be in awe. Yes: the music is that
great. That’s precisely why the performer has to work so hard to delve
into it, to bring it across, to make it more than merely notes executed
well. (The same thing, incidentally, holds true of reviews: in an ideal
world they should be more than merely obedient reports.) As for the
extra-musical aspect: historically, audiences have always been hugely
interested in the figure of the performer on a personal level. To say
that this aspect should be off-limits, or is not relevant, is to draw
an artificial boundary.But how far, in our age of media saturation, do you go? Are people in Washington this month going to be more likely to go hear Jeremy Denk if they read his blog (they should!), or Augustin Hadelich if they know he was badly burned in a house fire when he was in his teens, or Anne Schwanewilms if they know that she was involved in the story of Deborah Voigt and the little black dress?
Even more to the point, for marketers: How do you distinguish Garrick
Ohlsson from Emanuel Ax in the season brochure in a way that would help
a first-time ticket buyer to understand which of the two he might
rather hear? (That question is usually answered, in practice, with the
egregious overuse of terms like “great,” or “leading pianist of his
generation.”)
Click here for Anne’s entire Smart-and-Good-As-Always post.
Last weigh-in, I think. I really like what Anne has to say, on top of being pleased that this conversation seems to have legs (tentacles?). But in connection with her remarks, several of the comments, and Matthew’s last post, I want to clear up what I meant with the “vessel” analogy. I do not think that the performer should subjugate him/herself to the composer or sublimate his/her feelings for the music. And I *especially* don’t think that “merely the notes, executed well” could in any way add up to a good performance. Actually, for me the problem is that the self-consciousness in performer and audience alike that is often the result of manufactured expectations/the persona dominating the experience is that what transpires between the performer and audience becomes *less* rich and expressive than it might otherwise be, not more.
Richard Goode is a supreme example of the alternative for which I’m advocating. I’ve been to so many concerts of his where I felt breathtakingly close to the music, without the sense of him as an intermediary. And yet I also left those concerts with the feeling that in some abstract but very important way, I understood him. His passion; his commitment; his motivations. (Full disclosure: by now, I know Richard very well, but that was not the case when I heard the first several of the concerts I’m referring to.)
OK, that’s enough out of me. It’s been great to converse with so many people who are obviously passionate about music and bringing it to people. That, to me, is very special. And I mean it.
One of the big reasons it’s hard to make a distinction between great performers is because the same repertoire keeps getting performed. You can’t be like, ‘Beethoven Sonatas AGAIN by a more special pianist than the last one that played it three days ago!’
In terms of media saturation, the question of how far to go is something I think even ‘regular’ musical artists grapple with. In classical music, we are either super cautious about it or not innovative enough. We’re a little too scared to immerse ourselves in marketing because we don’t want to seem like we’re whoring it out, due to our views of how classical music is ‘better than that.’ But music is just music, marketing is just marketing, and trying to find a way to get it out to people doesn’t mean anything about the music itself changes–it’s just about using bait to lure them in initially; that bait could be a concrete facet of the artist that might catch the audiences attention initially.
Completely agree Sugar.
A further comment about ‘specialness.’ Here’s the deal. I think it was Jonathan and Matthew who brought up the issue of specialness in programming, and how a lot of what counts as ‘specialness’–i.e. lights, venues, playing with a rock band etc. can come off as tacky. Part of the problem with that mindset is that what we’re considering ‘special’ is not all that special at all. Using lights to augment a concert isn’t really all that novel, it’s regularly used to great effect in pop concerts and most people under 40 are already well attuned and used to that by now. Classical Music thinks it’s special but it’s not really. It’s just special to Classical Music. Worst of all, these things are used in such an amateurish way that it’s no wonder that it falls flat on the face. People who know how ‘s properly used in arena rock or a club laugh at it, and people who don’t, also don’t like it, since it just seems like someone randomly decided to tack on some weird light effects in the middle of the Grosse Fuge.
The point is, we (classical music establishment generalization) often tack on extra stuff with no consideration of context, reason, or purpose.
Another thing. As much as some apologists like to rationalize, mainstream classical music treats new music like the red-headed stepchild. If it can’t be a health ratio of the repertoire, it’s never going to be healthy. Both composers and performers have to come together to fix this problem…but it has to be done.