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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

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Stating the obvious

June 30, 2006 by Greg Sandow

Here's something I found in the July issue of Food and Wine magazine, a quote from chef Graham Elliot Bowles: I'm inspired by artists who use a limited palette, like painter Piet Mondrian and The White Stripes, two musicians who create an incredible sound. And the moral of this story? Maybe it's not so obvious. Or at least it's not obvious in the classical music world. We tend to think that classical music is serious musical art, and that because of that, it has a very special status. Meanwhile, out in real life, people find musical … [Read more...]

For Lisa Kaplan

June 30, 2006 by Greg Sandow

See Lisa's comment. Here's eighth blackbird on the cover of MUSO, looking pretty damn good:: … [Read more...]

Footnote to MUSO

June 29, 2006 by Greg Sandow

In a comment on my last post, someone I respect says something that of course I should have expected--that MUSO, the magazine I praised, makes "classical music about the sex appeal of young performers." Now, that's not all the magazine does. As I pointed out, it supports new music, putting a composer and a new music ensemble on the covers of the two issues I've seen. But the comment isn't completely wrong. MUSO likes good-looking young classical musicians, which, when I think about it, is part of what I meant when I called it a "real" … [Read more...]

Lively magazine

June 21, 2006 by Greg Sandow

Everyone should know about  MUSO, "the music magazine that rewrites the score," to quote its own line about itself. Or, more simply, "the magazine for the younger, more open-minded generation of classical music fans." It's smart, lively, and most of all, it looks and reads like a real magazine, not like a dowdy classical music ingroup publication, tarted up to look contemporary. (Not convincingly, of course.) Here's one recent issue: The cover boy is Mason Bates, a composer and electronica DJ (and former student of mine at Juilliard). And … [Read more...]

Don Giovanni, partly improvised

June 20, 2006 by Greg Sandow

For the most recent episode of my book, I'd promised something about how the finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni was partly improvised at the opera's premiere. And then I forgot to put that in the episode. I'm going to add it, but because it's such fabulous stuff, I thought I'd put it here in the blog, too. It comes from Thomas Forrest Kelly's book, First Nights at the Opera, and should be filed under the heading "How spontaneous classical music could be, before it became classical." Here's what Kelly writes: The famous finale of act 2, … [Read more...]

Last book episode till fall

June 12, 2006 by Greg Sandow

I'm happy to announce the ninth episode of the new version of my book on the future of classical music, online right now. In it you'll find some delightful details of performance practice in the past. Or maybe a better term would be performance non-practiced, since what I'm talking about is improvisation, which should sound spontaneous, rather than practiced (no matter how much work went into it). Here I'm continuing my portrait of classical music before the concept of classical music existed, and one key difference between then and now … [Read more...]

Classical recording — from the inside

June 3, 2006 by Greg Sandow

The following comes from Klaus Heymann, the founder and CEO of Naxos. Klaus posted it as a contribution to the ongoing debate about Allan Kozinn's New York Times piece, and I'm crossposting it here. It's important reading, since it's so full of details -- including financial particulars -- about how Naxos functions. I'm grateful that Klaus took so much time to write all this out. Dear Greg, I have been following your book episodes with great interest and I have also been reading your comments on Allan Kozinn's essay in the New York … [Read more...]

Contribution to the debate

June 2, 2006 by Greg Sandow

Here's a pithy and (I think) important comment from Joe Kluger, who ran the Philadelphia Orchestra for many years. He stepped down a year or so ago, and now works very happily as a consultant. He sent these thoughts to me as part of a private e-mail, and I'm posting them here with his permission. (I've also put it into the absorbing debate on Allan Kozinn's piece that's raging on one of my comments pages.) I agree with those on your blog who say that his premise and yours (or Noteboom's in Symphony?) are not mutually exclusive. I think … [Read more...]

Discovery

June 1, 2006 by Greg Sandow

We talk a lot about the age of the classical music audience. Generally people now assume it's always been (or at least for generations has been) more or less what it is now, 50 and up. That's what Allan Kozinn said it's been in the essay we're debating on one of my comments pages, and I can't blame him. After all, this is what everyone says. But is there any data to support this common view? I've never seen any. And in fact I've seen data that opposes it. Some years ago, I found a 1940 book that reports the results of a 1937 study of … [Read more...]

Terrific discussion

May 31, 2006 by Greg Sandow

Here's something wonderful. There's now a spirited and very civilized debate about Allan Kozinn's New York Times piece, in the comments to my last post -- with Allan himself taking part. Allan's piece, if you haven't seen it, was the cover story in the "Arts & Leisure" section this past Sunday, and says that classical music has never been healthier. Obviously, that's not the view I take. I weigh in a few times (well, maybe more than a few times), in comments to the comments. But the best thing is Allan's own participation, which makes me … [Read more...]

New book episode — and Allan Kozinn’s essay

May 30, 2006 by Greg Sandow

A new episode of my book is online today. Again it's about classical music history, the part they might not teach in music school. I'm trying to establish that classical music wasn't always classical. And in this episode, when I get to Baroque opera, things get a little crazy. The next episode goes online on Monday, June 12. That one might be crazier still. Vivaldi went to extremes, improvising as he led performances of his operas! Mozart's singers improvised part of the Don Giovanni finale! Isn't scholarship wonderful? On June 26, I'll post … [Read more...]

Comments

May 26, 2006 by Greg Sandow

I'm gratified by how many comments are coming in, and by how interesting they are. I have to say, with regret, that I'm not able to reply individually to each one, as I've tried to do with the comments on my book. I may not be able to respond to every book comment in the future, either. Precisely because I do much work on the future of classical music, my time is getting squeezed. I'm responding to many of the comments, though, if not most of them. And I'm grateful for all of them. I always learn a lot from everything that people say to me, … [Read more...]

The future is here

May 26, 2006 by Greg Sandow

It’s too late to stop pop and classical music from interbreeding. There’s just too much of it going on, and it goes way beyond the obvious, well-publicized crossovers (Ofra Harnoy putting out a CD of Beatles songs, Michael Bolton singing opera arias, etc., etc., etc., etc.). The good stuff has a real artistic edge. I’m thinking of Capital M, a New York rock band, which commissioned seven pieces from seven classical composers, and premiered them in March. I’m thinking of the Steve Reich remixes, by dance music DJs, that came out on Nonesuch … [Read more...]

Hitting a nerve

May 21, 2006 by Greg Sandow

A lot of people want classical concerts — both on stage and in the audience — to be livelier. Here’s some recent e-mail I’ve gotten on this subject, all of it wonderfully written, passionate, and of course quoted here with the writers’ permission. From Karen Pinzolo: I'd be very interested to understand, from a historical viewpoint, why I sit as an unembodied soul at a concert where the only hint of life is my chest rising and falling with each unconscious breath. When I listen to any other kind of music I can't help but sway, bob, and … [Read more...]

Good CD cover

May 21, 2006 by Greg Sandow

Mitsuko Uchida and Mark Steinberg play Mozart Violin and Piano Sonatas. The image says: Something’s going on here. These are people with something to say. Doesn’t matter whether the image evokes Mozart or not. The playing in fact is focused, inward, individual, sometimes sharp (with an edge), sometimes ferocious, not untroubled. So the image is accurate. It really does tell you — without words, without any thoughts it might be easy to name — why you want to hear this CD. … [Read more...]

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Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

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How to write a press release

As a footnote to my posts on classical music publicists, and how they could do better, here's a post I did in 2005 -- wow, 11 years ago! --  about how to make press releases better. My examples may seem fanciful, but on the other hand, they're almost … [Read More...]

The future of classical music

Here's a quick outline of what I think the future of classical music will be. Watch the blog for frequent updates! I Classical music is in trouble, and there are well-known reasons why. We have an aging audience, falling ticket sales, and — in part … [Read More...]

Timeline of the crisis

Here — to end my posts on the dates of the classical music crisis  — is a detailed crisis timeline. The information in it comes from many sources, including published reports, blog comments by people who saw the crisis develop in their professional … [Read More...]

Before the crisis

Yes, the classical music crisis, which some don't believe in, and others think has been going on forever. This is the third post in a series. In the first, I asked, innocently enough, how long the classical music crisis (which is so widely talked … [Read More...]

Four keys to the future

Here, as promised, are the key things we need to do, if we're going to give classical music a future. When I wrote this, I was thinking of people who present classical performances. But I think it applies to all of us — for instance, to people who … [Read More...]

Age of the audience

Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Here's evidence that it used to be much younger. … [Read More...]

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