Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

…now happily accepts comments. If you'd like to post one, just click on the "comments" link at the end of the entry you want to comment on. You can post anonymously, if you like, simply by leaving the "name" and "email address" fields blank. To read comments, first look to see if there are any; if the number in parentheses is zero, then there aren't any comments. (And yes, I know that many of us know all this already, but trust me -- there are people reading this who don't know it.) If there are comments, click on the "conments" link to read … [Read more...]

Last Wednesday I taught the last class, for this year, in my spring semester Juilliard course, “Classical Music in an Age of Pop.” I had a marketing specialist as a guest, and he asked the students some useful questions. How did they decide which concerts to go to? Because they’re professionals, they actually look at listings, ads, and websites, to find out when there’s music that might interest them. They might be looking for a piece they like, or a piece they’ve never heard live, or something with an important part for their own … [Read more...]

Episode seven of my in-progress book on the future of classical music is now online. After some introductory stuff, it goes in a new direction (well, not so new to those of you who read the first, now discarded version of the book). Everything up to now has been the introduction to the book. Now I've embarked on the first main section, which will give chapter and verse, in considerable detail, of how classical music is in trouble. But I start with a look at the distant past — at the days when Bach and Mozart were composing, but classical … [Read more...]