Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

A helpful reader -- after I'd complained (in an earlier post) about classical music search engines on the web -- recommended Amazon's advanced classical search. Certainly it offers more choices than the normal classical search, but…when I looked for Album/Work Title "Symphony" and composer "Beethoven," the first thing that came up was Sarah Brightman's greatest hits CD, with no symphonies or Beethoven anywhere on it. And two days ago I was browsing on the new (and legal) Napster, which turns out to have more or less -- or maybe exactly -- the … [Read more...]

If you're curious to hear what I said on the radio yesterday -- my subject was the audience for new music -- go here. I start about halfway through the program ("Soundcheck," on WNYC, in New York) and I don't mind getting second billing to Michael Tilson Thomas. … [Read more...]

From the "Circuits" section (technology, computers) of today's New York Times, a letter to the editor: To the Editor: Re "It's Got a Good Beat, but Where's the Cover?'' (Nov. 6), on the decline of album art and the potential for digital offshoots online: I regret that the article discussed this issue only in terms of popular music. In fact, the writer's apparent certainty that online music distribution will replace the compact disc demonstrates a perspective that relegates recorded classical music to the fringes of the market. Classical … [Read more...]

From Harper's magazine, in a provocative article by Thomas de Zengotita, which suggests how a proposed new liberal TV talk show ought to work: Whatever his style, the Host must embody [a] fusion of high and popular culture. That is the key to our enterprise. Why? Because the base of a renewed progressivism in this country is made up of young people for whom that fusion is a way of life. People in this base have read Foucault and spent time in chat rooms discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. From interns to associates, these people drive the … [Read more...]

Sam Bergman writes (he's a violist in the Minnesota Orchestra, and news editor here at ArtsJournal): I didn't hear the recital, obviously, but that review drew some awfully broad conclusions about the soloist's personality and outlook on his newfound celebrity. Unless Tommasini interviewed him before the recital, I'm not buying a word of it. Lang Lang opened our season this year, and I thought he was fantastic. Is he showy? Over-the-top? Perhaps even a bit too into his own head? Sure. He's also, what, 21? I'd hate for my whole career to be … [Read more...]

Wednesday, November 13, I'll be on the radio talking about new music, and why it's such a problem in the classical music world. This will be on John Schaefer's wonderful music and talk show, Soundcheck, on WNYC, New York's public radio station, sometime between 2 and 3 PM Eastern time (in the US). 93.9 FM, or live on the web. … [Read more...]

Here's Lang Lang, photographed as he gave his first-ever recital in Carnegie Hall: Change is in the air. Some years ago, Jean-Yves Thibaudet made waves just by wearing red socks. And now this! (Doesn't matter, I think, that Lang Lang is getting slammed -- in Anthony Tommasini's Times review, and by others -- for distorted, showy playing. That's related to what he wears, obviously, but not inevitably related. Others will come along, and in fact are surely here already, who dress in their own spectacular fashion, without puffing up the … [Read more...]

The Boston Globe, weighing in on public radio, is notably unhelpful: Bring back music and culture programming. NPR's news reports are thoughtful and compelling. Its talk shows are topical and a nice way to bring listeners into conversations. And "Car Talk" is great entertainment. But occasionally all this talk is wearying. Balance could be provided by music shows and radio documentaries. But as anyone who's actually studied this subject knows, public radio listeners overwhelmingly don't want music. They want talk. The Globe's editors are … [Read more...]

Again from the New York Times Book Review, this time from last week's review, by Carlos Fuentes, of what sounds like a wonderful new translation of Don Quixote: This Don Quixote [translated by Edith Grossman] can be read with the same ease as the latest Philip Roth and with much greater facility than any Hawthorne. Yet there is not a single moment in which, in forthright English, we are not reading a 17th century novel. This is truly masterly: the contemporaneous and the original coexist. Not, mind you, the "old" and the "new." Grossman sees … [Read more...]

In today's New York Times Book Review there's a review of a book on ancient Greece -- Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. I was interested; if Cahill could tell us why we should pay attention to ancient Greece today, maybe we could learn something about why classical music matters, too. Not that I'm consigning classical music to the distant antiquity of Homer and Euripides, but the parallel (partial, not complete) ought to be obvious. When I got to the end of the review (by Joy Connolly, "who teaches classics and … [Read more...]

I've been reading Kyle Gann's blog with the greatest admiration, and hesitated to comment only because I thought that -- to do justice to what Kyle does -- I'd have to write something long. But that's not so. I can say it simply. Kyle's blog is the most important one here, because, while the rest of us carry on about issues and opinions in the arts, Kyle writes deeply about art itself. Of course I know that Terry and Tobi talk about arts events, and so do I sometimes, but Kyle does it from the inside. And not just because he's an artist … [Read more...]

From a musician in a major orchestra, speaking about whether classical music should be "relevant": We shouldn't be relevant. We should be be prophets. … [Read more...]

I'm always flattered, when I'm linked on the main ArtsJournal site. And today's link gives me a chance to add something to my column this month in NewMusicBox, which is where the link goes. In this column, I suggest a new term for new classical music -- "alternative classical," a useful term, I think, because it addresses two things: First, that much of new classical music doesn't sound classical (though it uses classical techniques), and second, that there's an audience already tuned to alternative pop, that would like a lot of "alternative … [Read more...]

  In my NewMusicBox column, I quote a lot from some helpful e-mail I've gotten from Cory Schwarz, a composer in New York, who has a post-rock band (his term for it). Among much else, he wrote:   There is an audience for [new music]. I have many friends in and around Brooklyn with very modern tastes in music and [who] listen to some pretty crazy things even by my standards. And there is good new music out there. However, what these “hip young Brooklynites” are listening to isn't modern classical. It's post-rock and art rock. Groups … [Read more...]

A group of musicians, all of them from mid-sized American orchestras, were asked what advice they'd give to young conductors. The question came from someone who's organizing a conductor training program. And the musicians' answers were amazing, for two reasons. First, because so much of the advice was so basic, and because it wasn't aimed just at young conductors. Some of the players said their comments could just as well be aimed at their well-traveled, experienced music directors. "Speak up," the musicians advised. "Don't mumble." "Speak … [Read more...]