tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post6265921136873705930..comments2024-03-28T12:59:05.739-07:00Comments on Iron Tongue of Midnight: Beethoven in America and Orchestral Rep in GeneralLisa Hirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-88585274272909571072019-07-23T12:51:49.315-07:002019-07-23T12:51:49.315-07:00It's odd to read all this dire news about clas...It's odd to read all this dire news about classical music audiences from the perspective of Los Angeles, since none of this seems to apply. From what I can tell, there is an audience here for pretty much anything, no matter how outre, as long as there is some kind of marketing push behind it (witness the huge and mostly young audience for Meredith Monk's <i>Atlas</i>). And the LA Phil does indeed give second performances of many of its commissioned works -- for example, both Andrew Norman's Sustain and John Adams' <i>Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes</i> are getting repeats, the latter both on tour in Korea and Japan and at the Hollywood Bowl.<br /><br />On the other hand, as Keith pointed out, the LA Phil is not entirely innocent of stupid programs that try to sweeten a novelty with something overly familiar. The biggest frustration for me next season is a sequence of five Dudamel-led programs that pair Ives and Dvorak, as follows:<br /><br />Ives Symphony #1 with Dvorak #7<br />Ives #2 with Dvorak #8<br />Ives #3 with Dvorak #9<br />Ives #4 with Dvorak #9<br />Ives string quartet #1 with Dvorak <i>American</i> quartet.<br /><br />Who is this for? Not me: the composer pairing might make some kind of sense under the heading of Americana, but the Dvorak pieces are all among the most overplayed of the classical repertoire, and under normal circumstances would keep me away. What am I going to do about this? Walk out at 5 intermissions?<br /><br />So in that spirit, here is a proposed nightmare program for the 2020-2021 season, which I'm afraid is not completely impossible:<br /><br />Adès: <i>Purgatorio e Paradiso</i> (world premiere)<br />Tchaikovsky piano concerto #1 with Lang Lang<br /><br />This of course would be marketed as "Lang Lang plays Tchaikovsky".Robert Gordonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16022752400057451144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-86624898956996559762019-07-23T10:19:32.678-07:002019-07-23T10:19:32.678-07:00Yeah, I'd go along with that edit. Might even ...Yeah, I'd go along with that edit. Might even push it farther -- as admirable as it is to commission/perform new music at all, it would be even more admirable if an orchestra would commit to giving new music more than a single performance. If you're going to the bother to perform it in the first place, you should give it a chance to be heard. Every commission should come with a guarantee of three performances within five years. (And if you're a large enough orchestra that you're performing each of your subscription concerts two or three times, that multi-performance weekend only counts as the first performance; you've got to program it again a year or two later.)Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05521647691445949380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-1281966535444908402019-07-22T19:37:54.062-07:002019-07-22T19:37:54.062-07:00Don't play any piece you've played in the ...Don't play any piece you've played in the last five years that is more than 35 years old. That would ensure SOME repeat performances of new music.<br /><br />That's too bad about LA's programming.Lisa Hirschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-54274997246289476372019-07-22T18:14:48.257-07:002019-07-22T18:14:48.257-07:00(Oops...meant to include this in that last post.)
...(Oops...meant to include this in that last post.)<br /><br />"A ten-year break from the top 10, including Beethoven, would do interesting things to everyone's perspective on the repertory."<br /><br />Or if that seems too drastic, at least diversify the pieces you offer from the Top Ten. How about this as a policy: Don't program any piece you've played in the last five years.Keithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-46590807932317331102019-07-22T18:12:38.378-07:002019-07-22T18:12:38.378-07:00"The LAPO clearly has different tracks for pe..."The LAPO clearly has different tracks for people like me and people who are new to sypmphony orchestras, who will be more excited by Brahms and Mendelssohn than I am."<br /><br />Not as much as you'd think, I'm afraid. I'm another "give me something new" listener, and the new on the subscription series is always scattered far and wide; I subscribe to an 8-concert series, and always have to exchange three or four tickets to get the new music series that I wish they'd offered in the first place. <br /><br />If you're a fan of chamber music -- I'm mostly not -- you can do a bit better with the Green Umbrella series, but it takes some work to get to the new orchestral music.<br />Keithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07413428735864060575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-13502681936723886202019-07-22T10:48:55.425-07:002019-07-22T10:48:55.425-07:00I sang "Carmina" once, heard it live onc...I sang "Carmina" once, heard it live once (a friend was in the chorus) and that was enough for me. I do not own a recording.<br /><br />The top ten or twenty: whatever the LAO repertory report says. My "top 10" was primarily a rhetorical feint. Top 20 or 30 given a rest: yes.Lisa Hirschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-51470884405686358312019-07-22T10:33:04.413-07:002019-07-22T10:33:04.413-07:00"A ten-year break from the top 10..." I ..."A ten-year break from the top 10..." I love it. I can just imagine the battles over who's in the top ten, and who's out. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky -- and then who? Schubert, Schumann, Dvorak, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, Stravinsky? Mahler, Richard Strauss, Chopin, Rachmaninoff? Berlioz, Sibelius? What about Shostakovich? I'm so over him. Maybe the top twenty, just to be safe. They are all dead white men, to be sure. And a break from "Carmina Burana" -- nobody's saying that Orff's a Top Ten(or Twenty), but please.Tod Brodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11243236229508341665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-37268410234710084832019-07-22T10:00:44.037-07:002019-07-22T10:00:44.037-07:00Hi, Tod! The situation is certainly different with...Hi, Tod! The situation is certainly different with smaller orchestras. I think part of the programming problem with large orchestras is the failure to understand that the orchestral audience isn't homogenous; it's made up of multiple audiences. I'm very firmly in the new & unusual camp; I'd rather hear works by ten composers new to me than all the Tchaikowsky, Beethoven, and Mozart that's on big-orchestra schedules. The LAPO clearly has different tracks for people like me and people who are new to sypmphony orchestras, who will be more excited by Brahms and Mendelssohn than I am.<br /><br />Canon formation is an interesting subject. I do think that the amount of top-10 music we hear at typical orchestras has the effect of ossifying the repertory while reinforcing 19th century notions of composer greatness. These make it hard to diversify the rep. A ten-year break from the top 10, including Beethoven, would do interesting things to everyone's perspective on the repertory.Lisa Hirschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-70556813620154474192019-07-22T09:00:16.227-07:002019-07-22T09:00:16.227-07:00Interesting thoughts and subjects, Lisa.
From the...Interesting thoughts and subjects, Lisa.<br /><br />From the point of view of someone who both plays in orchestras and is also involved in programming for one of the regional orchestras, I think Beethoven is represented pretty correctly. He's a big-deal guy for all the right reasons (important historically, huge body of high-quality work, delivers both enjoyment/satisfaction and emotional/spiritual impact, truly unlike any other composer), so regular Beethoven on any orchestras's programs suits me just fine. But at the same time, I subscribe to your thoughts about wishing for greater overall diversity of programming (and deeply admiring the LA Phil for being the exemplar of this). For many regional orchestras (like the Marin Symphony, where I work), we need to bring in anything new or unusual very strategically, otherwise our audience will just stay home. Our upcoming season features contemporary music (including three women composers) on each of our four (yes, only four) classical programs , but we need to pick our spots carefully. Thankfully the major organizations, who perform week in and week out, have more flexibility -- it's sad to see most of them, including our vaunted SFS, use that flexibility in a very narrow fashion. I would love to see Salonen bring the kind of programming vitality he created in LA to the San Francisco Symphony -- here's hoping!Tod Brodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11243236229508341665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8957911.post-666277756441183582019-07-22T07:11:34.214-07:002019-07-22T07:11:34.214-07:00If you want a history of US symphony repertoire fo...If you want a history of US symphony repertoire for earlier years going beyond the NYP, there's a useful reference book called <i>Twenty-seven Major American Symphony Orchestras: A History and Analysis of their Repertoires, Seasons 1842-43 through 1969-70</i> by Kate Hevner Mueller (Indiana University Studies, 1973), which does only cover those 27 orchestras, but that's a lot, and it's one reason the League of American Orchestras begins with 1970.<br /><br />I've compiled some decade-by-decade statistics for symphonies (I mean the works, not the orchestras) from this. I think I posted some of this once, and should do so again. Yes, Beethoven has always been around.<br /><br />I'm confident that serious orchestras, even minor ones, rehearse conscientiously for their regular programs, because for casual pops concerts they sometimes don't, and it really shows.David Bratmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08090662884600828582noreply@blogger.com