Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

The e-mail just poured in, after I wrote my post about Andrew Litton. I've never gotten so much mail, even when I've raised questions I think are more important. But I'm not objecting. Conductors are big news, and, more to the point, they affect people directly -- listeners, orchestra managements, critics, and, not least, musicians. The Dallas Symphony staff member who wrote to me angrily, wrote back still more angrily to say he didn't want his message to me posted here. Of course I'll respect that. One critic wrote asking whether artistic … [Read more...]

  I'll take a break from everything I've stirred up about conductors, and how they're covered in the press, mainly because I don't have time today to write about this. But there's been new e-mail, raising worthy points, not all agreeing with me. I'll get to it tomorrow.   Meanwhile, though, here's something I scanned a while ago from Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity. I've quoted Hornby's writing about pop music here, including some challenges he throws (though not intentionally) at classical music.   But I'm also always … [Read more...]

I got many responses to my Andrew Litton post, including a hearty "thank you" from someone in touch with the Dallas music scene, and a lively dissent from a musician who's worked with Litton recently (not in Dallas), and likes him. Not to mention an angry message from a staff member at the Dallas Symphony, which I hope he'll let me print here, uncensored. The musician who wrote to me points out that the personal detail I touched on -- people close to Litton making demands on orchestras that Litton guest-conducted -- is years out of date. The … [Read more...]

In a story linked from ArtsJournal, we read that Andrew Litton is leaving the Dallas Symphony. Two things were immediately notable. First, Litton has nowhere to go. He holds relatively minor jobs in Norway and in Minneapolis, but he's not leaving Dallas because of them. Above all, he's not moving up from Dallas, as his career path would have led us to expect. From Dallas, he might have gone to Pittsburgh, let's say, if not to some larger American orchestra, or to an important post in Europe. instead, he's leaving -- or so he says -- so he … [Read more...]

It seems more and more obvious that we're going to get recordings digitally -- and that this will, on balance, be pretty wonderful. I, encouraged to think this by two recent experiences. First, I've been using Naxos Music Library, a soon-to-be-available service I've talked about here. (Available, anyway, to institutions.) If you use it, you'll be able to hear, on the web, any recording from the huge Naxos catalogue, in more than decent sound. Lately I've been working on projects that require me to hear huge amounts of music, mostly from the … [Read more...]

I went to the Met last night, to see Die Frau ohne Schatten. Striking production, and a touching one, too, by the late Herbert Wernicke; variable singing, but one really warm, deep performance, from Wolfgang Brendel, as Barak. (And OK, he's a friend, whom I met through my wife, who knew him when she lived in Munich. But sometimes there's an artistic reason, on top of personal ones, why someone is a friend. Wolfgang is a real mensch on stage, who feels everything in his heart, and renders it honestly, with no fuss. And he sings beautifully.) At … [Read more...]

in 1979, the San Francisco Opera staged a troubled production of Ponchielli's La Gioconda. It was troubled because the two leading singers -- Pavarotti and Renata Scotto -- didn't get along. Or, rather, Pavarotti pulled some of his familiar tricks (showing up late for rehearsals, not knowing his part), and Scotto didn't like that. She says as much in her autobiography (out of print, but available through Amazon); she doesn't mention Pavarotti's name, but everybody in the opera world knew who she meant. Everybody in the opera world, … [Read more...]

Very scary story linked from ArtsJournal today -- it says that in England, not enough kids are learning to play less popular orchestral instruments, like the trombone, bassoon, oboe, or french horn. Here's a quote: Gavin Henderson, principal of Trinity College of Music in London and chairman of Youth Music, the government advisory group behind [a plan to do something about the problem], said the future of traditional music was at stake. "Orchestras are facing difficulties due to the lack of young, high quality players," he said. While … [Read more...]

Here's a big difference between classical music, and pop music of the rock era -- rhythm. Not that classical music doesn't have rhythm, but rhythm functions very differently in it. In classical music, rhythm is analyzed as a structural element of music. To repeat the same rhythms, over and over, is considered very crude. Rhythmic patterns are supposed to change and develop. To understand the rhythm of a piece, it's enough to study a score. You can see what the patterns are, and how they change and develop. The identity of the music -- and a lot … [Read more...]

I've gotten a self-produced CD from one of America's more prominent composers, Augusta Read Thomas, composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony, etc., etc., etc. The CD is very professionally packaged (though badly designed), and offers just two works, lasting together no more than 20 minutes, in performances conducted by no less than Pierre Boulez. The project was conceived as a CD single, not a full-length CD, and the idea behind it (or so I'm told by the publicist for the project) is in part to plant a seed for major record … [Read more...]

Despite everything I said in my last post… Today I was listening to the Sibelius Fifth Symphony. I'm writing marketing blurbs for the Philadelphia Orchestra, blurbs that (as I've mentioned here before; I've done them also for the St. Louis and Pittsburgh symphonies) try to evoke the way the music at each concert really feels. Philadelphia, next year, has programmed the Sibelius Fifth along with other haunting music; I was listening to some of it, looking for the proper words to write. And the symphony, taking me by surprise, just swept me … [Read more...]

Recently three CDs found their way into my wife's and my home, all featuring a certain mid-level European conductor, someone who once had made some noise, and now, apparently, has settled into a career not undistinguised, but also none too notable. His publicist would like him to be better known. The repertoire on these CDs: Ein Heldenleben, The Shostakovich Seventh Symphony, and Mahler's Third. Since we're critics, my wife and I are requested to be curious about all this, and to listen to the CDs. But -- speaking, let me be clear, only for … [Read more...]

Yesterday I was talking to Eric Booth, a dynamic guy who works as a consultant, facilitator, and provoacateur in the arts. He's been talking to some orchestras, and working very closely with one of the big ones, and he's full of good ideas. One of them just knocked me out -- why, asks Eric, shouldn't the Chambers of Commerce in cities of all sizes fund local orchestras to compete with each other? Eric calls this "The Battle of the Biggest Bands," and imagines a kind of orchestral world series, with orchestras all over the country competing for … [Read more...]

A followup to my last post, from Nick Hornby's Songbook, the most thoughtful and engaging book on music that I've read in a long time (and which I've quoted here before): You could, if you were perverse, argue that you'll never hear England by listening to English pop music. The Beatles and the Stones were, in their formative years, American cover bands who sang with American accents; the Sex Pistols were the Stooges with bad teeth and a canny manager, and Bowie was an art-school version of Jackson Browne until he saw the New York Dolls. But … [Read more...]

1931: Maurice Chevalier stars in a movie called The Smiling Lieutenant. His costars are Miriam Hopkins, who plays his wife, and Claudette Colbert, a much more worldly woman, with whom he has a fling. Colbert knows that her affair can't last, so she teaches Hopkins how to hold her man, with advice on clothing, hair, and music. Hopkins plays the piano, old-fashioned pieces like "The Maiden's Prayer." Colbert teaches her to play some jazz, demonstrating in a lively song, which she both plays on the piano and sings. Hopkins tries to sing along, … [Read more...]