Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

When I was younger, into the 1960s, the president of the US never appeared in public without a suit and tie. Or at least a jacket and tie. Then late in the '70s Jimmy Carter went on TV wearing a sweater. That was the beginning of a huge change. Now it's routine to see presidents and presidential candidates in shirtsleeves. Our society, in other words, has gotten lots less formal. So why shouldn't classical music follow suit? And if the might and majesty of the U.S. government now doesn't have to be represented by a gentleman in business … [Read more...]

(A portion of a famous photograph by Weegee, showing society women on their way to the opening of the Metropolitan Opera season in 1943. Yet another example of formal dress of a kind we just don't see anymore in real life.)First, the new comment system -- I love it, love it. Comments go online without waiting for my approval. So they go up fast, many of you comment on the comments, conversations start. And I don't have to do anything at all. I don't have to take time to approve each one, and I'm freed from the temptation of adding my own … [Read more...]

In response to DJA -- thanks for alerting me to check whether the new comments process really does work. Apparently it does, with just one glitch. All comments are posting automatically, as they're supposed to. Except for one, a comment on my formal dress post, which somehow landed in my inbox, marked "unapproved." I have no idea why that happened. Maybe there's a delay, sometimes or always, before comments appear, but with the one exception I've noted (and which I don't understand), everything you all post is getting on the site.If any more … [Read more...]

While I was away, I had many thoughts I could have posted in the blog. Here's one of them: This photo was taken in 1937. It shows two boys from Eton, one of England's leading public schools (we'd call them prep schools in the USA). They're visiting London -- not to go to the opera, or meet the king, but to attend a cricket match, with Eton's rival, Harrow. Working-class boys are gawking at them.The photo ran in the Guardian, the British paper, at the end of August. They used it to illustrate a piece on continuing inequality in British … [Read more...]

Singing in the shower this morning. "Il balen," the baritone aria from Il Trovatore, a good exercise for breath support. And as I sang, I suddenly heard the words I was singing:Il balen del tuo sorrisoD'una stella vince il raggioThe light of your smileOf a star outshines the raysStilted, no? I had to laugh. "Balen," also, is a poetic or obsolete shortening of the current word, "baleno." So how often, when we're reading titles in the opera house, are Italian operas translated in their full archaic glory? Hardly ever, I'd think, maybe never. The … [Read more...]

So, yes, I'm back from vacation, and already plunged deep into the new year. (Years really do seem to start in September.) Wednesday my Juilliard graduate course on music criticism began, and today, Thursday, I spent the day at a major music school outside New York, serving on a private panel to help the school decide what to do with technology. My Juilliard link, by the way, takes you to the same webpage the students use in the course, so you can do the assignments along with them, if you're somehow interested in doing that. You can also look … [Read more...]

I was going to return from vacation with a post about -- what else -- myself? (I'm a blogger, right?) But then I thought it'd be more fun to start with something about Joan Tower's concert last Saturday night, at Merkin Hall in New York. She celebrated her 70th birthday, and some top musicians played her music. I love her stuff, and especially liked hearing pieces live that I only knew from recordings. Even though I'd studied some of the pieces, and wrote liner notes about them for Joan's Naxos CD, I was struck by how physical they sounded … [Read more...]

I'm on vacation, back in the same lovely hideaway in England that I went to last summer. But no hedgehogs yet! Faithful readers (and I'm grateful to you) might remember that last year we had hedgehogs around our house -- wonderful silly animals, so much loved in England that vets will treat sick ones free. And the three babies near us did get sick, and were saved by the local vet. Here's one of them: Follow the link above to read more. This year, no hedgehogs yet. We put out hedgehog food -- "Spike" brand (I couldn't make that up), … [Read more...]

Robert Everett-Green, a music and culture critic of the Toronto Globe and Mail, takes on -- to quote the teaser at the top of his piece -- "the increasingly strident turf wars between fans of pop and of classical music, the growing flap over this fall's sweeping changes to CBC Radio 2, and the undeniable politics behind the battle over what constitutes culture." This is a three-part series -- the first part (which is where the link above goes) came out July 26; the next parts will be on successive Saturdays, August 2 and August 9 -- and … [Read more...]

I've said that classical music reviews normally don't do what a lot of pop reviews do -- engage the music (and, even more, the critic) with the world outside the music. But in the past, this wasn't always true. Here are two examples, from the 19th century, of comments on classical music that absolutely engage the lives of the people who commented. In one way, these are a special case, because they're about Wagner, whose music really did throw the world into an uproar. You had to be for him or against him, and your position had a lot to do with … [Read more...]

For the fifth straight week, the number one pop song in the U.S. is Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl." Which was also voted the best summer song of 2008 by public radio listeners in New York, giving it double cachet, upscale and mass market. And what's the song about? A straight girl who kisses another girl, tastes her cherry chapstick, she's amazed, and she's turned upside down... but she loves it. And this, I want to suggest, poses a problem for classical music. Out in the world, gender boundaries are melting. "You're my experimental game/Just … [Read more...]

Comments have trailed off...is everybody sick of this? Here are two New York Times reviews to contrast. First, Steve Smith on a concert of music written by women. A very well-written, evocative review (which someone commenting on a previous post was good enough to praise): During a panel presented recently at the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver, the American Music Center and the American Composers Forum reported preliminary findings from "Taking Note," a survey of American composers. The study was undertaken to help … [Read more...]

Behind all the discussion we've been having about pop and classical reviews lie some big differences -- differences in how people think about pop and classical music.It'll be good, I think, to clarify these, at least as I see them, before I go on to compare more reviews. (See also this post, and this one.)For classical music people, a piece of music is, so to speak, an object, something that lies behind every performance, and has an existence of its own. Typically we'd identify this as the score of the piece -- the written notation specifying … [Read more...]

My friend Amanda Ameer has outdone herself on her new ArtsJournal blog, Life's a Pitch, which I praised here not long ago. A couple of days ago, she had a post about the Metropolitan Opera, about what they've done to reinvent themselves and to attract attention -- and about how even the smallest organizations can steal the Met's ideas. It's just brilliant: Splurge [meaning the extravagant thing the Met does]: Movie stars at opening night. Steal [meaning how anyone can steal it]: Community leaders at opening night. Restaurant owners, bar … [Read more...]

Another step forward for classical music and the environment. I've complained before that classical music organizations seem clueless about anything green (or at least never talk about such things). So -- just as I praised the New York Philharmonic for taking an environmental step or two -- I'm happy to note that the Glyndebourne Festival is doing something big. By 2010, they'll have built a wind turbine, to supply much of their energy, and reduce (or so they say) their carbon emissions by 70 percent. Good for them. It's really important for … [Read more...]