My client David Lang wrote this article, “A Pitch for New Music“”, for some newspaper that I think is called “The New York Times”? Something like that. Anyway.
The Times has been running a series called The Score on the Opinionator blog, described as, “The Score features the writings of composers on their work and the issues involved in creating music in the 21st century, as the traditional notion of ‘classical’ continues to be reconsidered, revised and reimagined.”
Spurred by the Anthony Tommasini Top Ten Composers List of Destiny, David wrote about classical music and baseball. He writes:
Certain things that happen in classical music would be unthinkable in baseball. Imagine a baseball game in which all the players dress up in the uniforms of a hundred years ago, and then follow, pitch by pitch, a classic match-up from the past. Imagine watching a game, and saying that a hit or a run on the field in front of you is not as elegant or meaningful as a hit or run from a game 50 years before. Imagine seeing your favorite team win a game, but discounting it because you remembered a previous incarnation of that team that was more talented or exciting. Or imagine going to a game that wasn’t as thrilling as a game you remember from your past and then deciding never to see another live game again.
That last one is the analog to classical music that bothers me the most.
Could baseball have a lesson for music lovers that would allow us to appreciate the past and the present at the same time? What is behind this ability of baseball fans to connect the present action to the sport’s past glory and still appreciate the moment-to-moment excitement of the players on the field? These aren’t distinct functions of sports fandom; they are closely related to each other, and they inform each other. A fan appreciates the successes of the past more as he or she sees contemporary players working to succeed now, and vice versa. This is the kind of thinking that the institutions of classical music need to promote if we want the field refreshed by new music and musicians.
Read the whole glorious thing here.
Also, since I’m always worried about missing an “m” and adding an “s” in Anthony Tommasini’s name, I Googled him.
Anthony Tommasini Google results
No results for “anthony tommasini opera” or “anthony tommasini critic” or even “anthony tommasini new york times”: just the list! Everyone loves a list.
I wonder what the fact that the list is the top google suggestion says about the classical music audience: is it growing, or are we becoming more and more the social in-casts that conservatory trained us to be, by stalking the same corners of the internetz, forming our own little fraternities?