After reading Sandow’s “Rebirth” writings, a classical musician cannot avoid facing an issue that is as real as the “dire data” prove. The increasing disinterest of young audiences in performances of classical music is in the facts, so each one of us is charged with the responsibility of taking those numbers into serious consideration and, first of all, being fully aware of the current state of our art. Each of us is challenged to the confrontation with a disease and to the search of remedies. That classical music is “dying” seems undeniable if one looks at Sandow’s data and considerations (http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/sandow); but we must state as strongly as possible that we cannot afford its death, culturally and as human beings.
A lot of basic, preliminary “philosophical” questions can be legitimately raised, because to search remedies one should start by understanding the causes of the disease. It is a complicated matter to answer most of those questions: some of them deal with conceptual, historical and social issues that may date back to the evolution of post-industrial Western culture and to the problem of the “death of art” at the start of the 20th century. One common factor seems to tie together those questions: the increasing distance between the producers and the consumers of art (and music); the inexorable detachment of the artist from the society and vice versa along the past century.
More practical questions derive from these premises in the effort to look for solutions: what is that attracts audiences to pop music and “distracts” them from classical performances? What is “wrong” with classical music today in the comparison with its popular counterpart? And what can classical musicians learn from the success of other kinds of music in order to improve their art? How do social factors like homologation play into this? Because it is a fact that young people tend to do what the majority of their social category does, therefore be attracted to what is most commonly appreciated, successful, and “trendy” among those of their same age, in their need for group integration and social confirmation.
On the other hand - as unpopular as this may sound - beyond an unquestionable necessity of modernization, change and “rebirth”, which is already in act today, how much should classical music continue to “bend” to the ”needs of the market” without disavowing its very roots, its nature and its tradition? How much and how soon a process of re-education, of social and cultural re-shaping (or, even more, of re-awakening) should start in parallel, so that society too takes its steps to get closer to and understand better an incredibly valuable heritage?
Setting aside the big “philosophical” issues for the moment, my reflection on the future of classical music keeps bringing back the crucial point of the “distance”, more specifically what I would call the “post-Wagnerian distance”, as one of the main problems that troubles our art today and demands a solution.
To make the audience feel closer and involved seems to be one of the essential directions of the current effort to improve the state of classical performances. In that light, I would like to share some thoughts in the form of very concise points: they don’t aspire to any originality, most of them are surely at the center of today’s debate and of Sandow’s arguments - and for some I have found that ideas that I had are already enacted by musical institutions and organizations.
Here they are:
- involvement of the audience in the performance: sit members of the audience among the players, collective improvisation, encourage spontaneous participation and reaction.
- involvement of the audience in the process leading to the performance: as a general thought about the culture of classical music and music making, put more emphasis on the process of making music more than the final product. The rehearsal is not just a stage: it is a meaningful event in itself.
- involvement of the audience in the programming: this has been already put in practice: see in Alex Ross’s blog the post from Nov 3 and the reference to Spring for Music at Carnegie Hall, “annual celebration for inventive orchestral programming” - http://springformusic.com.
- getting to personally know the performers, to exchange opinions, to ask direct and personal questions.
- post-performance questionnaire in order for the audience to express their thoughts, their preferences, and formulate their suggestions.
- transform the whole concert experience in a story: from beginning to end, from the setup on stage to the transitions between musical numbers, give new meanings to the rituals and the protocol.
- use of multimedia: video, lighting, choreography, combination with dance, theater, poetry reciting, puppeteers, live painting to the music and so forth.
- systematically take classical music out of its “temple” - the concert hall - to informal venues, like a restaurant or a club.
- cross boundaries between genres and between art and popular music, contaminate, juxtapose classical with pop and rock and folk and so forth, make the audience feel that music is just music beyond the formal distinctions.
- give classical music a new face and a new look, a new nomenclature; use new words, new forms of advertising, with a progressive approach: as it is done in other fields, don’t look for what is common and socially appreciated today but for what is drastically new and will be successful tomorrow. In other words, don’t be just modern, be innovative.
- use crossed and varied cultural references; mix different disciplines and professional expertise contributions. For example in a Baroque music program, half could be music and half could use the contribution of a historian, an expert of art, a sociologist, and be about the way people lived, ate, worked, how they were dressed and what objects they commonly used in a specific age and place (what was a usual day like for Bach and a member of his family?). More specific to music, include a brief contribution of an expert of original instruments, to talk about how they were build and how they were played. The goal is to transform the concert experience in a journey through a time and a space far from us.
- don’t forget to incorporate when appropriate elements of the “traditional way”, with the atmosphere created by silence, lights down etc. , as a part of all this - only not exclusive, sacred and strict throughout the performance, but as one of the different possible aspects of the musical event.
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