musoc.org

DECEMBER 2010

New York Philharmonic far from "hidebound" or "stodgy"

December 18th » Although I often enjoy the reviews and commentary of critics such as Anthony Tommasini, Alex Ross and Justin Davidson, I find the way they have been endlessly rehashing the ridiculous canard that the New York Philharmonic had been a "stodgy" and "hidebound" orchestra before the recent arrival of Alan Gilbert as music director not only grossly unfair but extremely annoying.

The sheer asininity of this claim boggles the mind. Yes, Gilbert's programming is admirable, but reports of how radically innovative it is have been wildly exaggerated. From the claims of these critics, one would believe that the New York Philharmonic had been doing nothing but endlessly repeating the same old handful of repertoire warhorses for the past 30 years or so and had not performed a single new or recent work by any of today's leading composers.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, whether under music directors or guest conductors, the Philharmonic had already been offering some of the most varied and interesting programming of any orchestra anywhere. And it had already played much more new music that most other orchestras, as well as reviving many interesting rarities from the past. Yes, the orchestra also played the beloved staples of the repertoire, but so do orchestras everywhere.

These critics have been misrepresenting this great orchestra to an appalling degree. In fact, they should have praised it for its consistently stimulating programming instead of making the ludicrous claim that it is "stodgy and hidebound". Here is a partial list of prominent contemporary composers, living or recently deceased, who have been heard at Philharmonic concerts in recent years before Gilbert:

• Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, John Adams, John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse, Kaija Saariaho, Hans Werner Henze, Thomas Ades, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pierre Boulez, Wolfgang Rihm, Lorin Maazel, Krzystof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, Michael Tippett, William Bolcom, Marc-André Dalbavie, Tristan Murail

There are many orchestras in America and elsewhere which would not dare to program this array of contemporary composers for fear of alienating audiences.

Also, I nominate [for the Hall of Shame] John Boyden, executive director of the New Queen's Hall Orchestra of London, an orchestra which purports to offer "authentic" performances of such composers as Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Elgar, Vaughan Willians, Holst and other late 19th and early 20th century composers using period! instruments - as if we really needed this.

Yet Boyden, on the orchestra's website and elsewhere, such as the classical music review website theclassicalsource.com, has been making preposterous claims about the desperate need for an orchestra which offers "authentic" performances of this repertoire, and making asinine claims about how "wrong" today's orchestras are for this repertoire. How does he know that these composers would not have been overjoyed by the way today's great orchestras play their music if they could come back and hear them?

And he repeats the old canard about all or most orchestras sounding alike today, which is absolutely untrue. It's impossible for orchestras to sound alike, as they consist of different musicians playing different makes of instruments in concert halls with different acoustics. There is absolutely no evidence that orchestras in the past sounded more distinctive. His orchestra has, believe it or not, recorded an "authentic" version of Holst's the Planets! Robert Berger (New Rochelle, New York)

NOVEMBER 2010

Rip-off? Of course! Aren't they all?!

November 18th » As I logged on to one of my email providers, I noticed a HUGE story on the home page: a hit single by a group called Lady Antebellum, the title of which is "Need You Now" (how do they summon up the originality to come up with such a title?), seems to have been plagiarized! Yes, its, um, "melody" is identical to a prior hit single by the Alan Parsons Project called "Eye in the Sky". But when I clicked on to the video that mashed up the two singles, I heard pretty much the same monotone that describes much of today's mass-marketed recorded product.

To be fair, the estimable Beethoven did the same thing in the opening measures of the second movement of his First Rasoumovsky Quartet (Opus 59, #1) but only for a few seconds. It seems that any time I find myself exposed to any current or recent "hit songs", there's an absence of any intervallic leaps; each syllable seems to hew to the note chosen at the opening, with some kind of rhythmic pulse.

I remember hearing that, after some water pipes burst in a Boston office building, some FM stations in the roof might be off-the-air. No such luck: when I sampled one of them (WBMX, 104.1 FM to be exact), every recording I heard followed this pattern.

Which raises the question: why aren't ALL pop, or rock, or country performers or groups suing each other for plagiarism, since most of their output sounds almost identical? Laurence Glavin (Methuen MA, USA)

OCTOBER 2010

Injusto y arbitrario

October 25th » Me parece totalmente injusto y arbitrario que se haya ubicado a la violinista Meyers en esta injuriosa categoría [Class.Traitor del Mes, octubre] por haberse comprado un Stradivario. En primer lugar, ella es una violinista profesional exitosa, y es perfectamente natural que aspire a tocar con el mejor instrumento posible. Es tan incongruente como criticar a un famoso diseñador de joyas por gastar una gran suma en un diamante perfecto; en segundo término, ella hizo el gasto de su propio dinero, ganado con mucho esfuerzo.

Por supuesto, tiene absoluto derecho a utilizarlo en lo que le dé la gana; y el hecho de que grupos o sociedades artísticas pasen por momentos de apremios económicos es totalmente irrelevante. El patrocinio y ayuda a tales grupos corresponde al Estado o a empresas o filántropos particulares, y no es exigible a un artista que debe trabajar mucho para ganarse el sustento. Carlos Majlis (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Re: The PETA of classical music

October 11th » Mr Berger could perhaps himself lighten up just a little, attacking you with guns blazing, as he does -- and making a clearly contentious and invidious comparison between you and something he is clearly presenting as an "extreme" organisation (PETA) [below, Oct.8th].

Nothing necessarily wrong with being 'extreme' -- people who opposed the slave-trade were no doubt thus perceived by those who disagreed with them, in their own time (and "wildly unrealistic" as well).

All that musoc.org is trying to do, so far as I can see, is to set down (and speak up for) appropriate standards, and to warn us against art music's slide into the excesses of the pop-world -- the emphasis on glamour, the elevation of the performer, the excited hyping-up of mediocrity, the obsession with sales and charts and lists, and so on. Classic FM at its worst should be warning enough, but more power to musoc.org's elbow in such an admirable purpose, say I! Gordon Thompson (Croydon, England)

The PETA of classical music

October 8th » While I admire your goals, I feel that your organization has, with all due respect, become insufferably pompous and arrogant in its pronunciations, and excessively snobbish. You have become the PETA of classical music, making all manner of ridiculous statements and holding wildly unrealistic goals.

Just as the animal rights organization has utterly unrealistic goals and expectations, so does Musoc have totally unrealistic goals about what classical or 'art' music should be. Instead of condemning any classical musician who seems to you to be too commercial, why not point out more positive aspects of the art music world, such as the unprecendented diversity of repertoire being performed and recorded today, the unprecendented high standards in orchestral playing, the unprecendented popularity of opera in America, and other things?

No one condemned Enrico Caruso for singing and recording 'Over There' and Neapolitan songs, or Fritz Kreisler for playing Viennese fluff as well as the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms. Publicity, even of the somewhat sensationalist kind, is necessary for art music today, whether you like it or not.

And I don't like the way you disparage certain music critics and others for expressing their honest opinions, even if they may be wrong. I'm not terribly fond of Vivaldi myself, and there is far more substance in the music of Bach, Handel and Rameau.

I wish you would lighten up. Otherwise it will become virtually impossible for any one to take your organization seriously. Robert Berger (New Rochelle, New York)

JULY 2010

Sandow Unsurpassed

July 27th » Thank you for your revealing critique ["Beyond Sandow's Ken"] of the manifesto (the responses to #1, #3 and #7 were especially accurate), although I am surprised one of Sandow's own writings was not featured first; some of which have yet to be surpassed as the stupidest musical criticism I have ever read. Nonetheless, he is ultimately one of several who fail to realize that incompetently composed music will not magically become pleasant or exciting to listen to regardless of whether or not it "reflects the times", or how "socially relevant" it is, or how many have been manipulated into "identifying with" it; ultimately one of several who fails to realize that the difference in content between art/pop music is overwhelmingly self-evident regardless of whether the social distinction is still commonly held or not.

If anything can be said about the future of art music, it is that it will, composition and criticism alike, reside with those who let their ears be the judge of quality - all of whom may have individual ideals of how music should sound but will collectively be repulsed by anything incorporating blues scales. Not surprisingly, many so called "classical music critics" of today will play no part, which may explain their insecurity, manifested in the form of the need to reassure each other of how wonderfully open minded they are, and the need to accuse everyone else of harming the artistic field that they themselves are harming.

Although I would like to see more new music being featured, the blame lies not so much on the audiences for fearing anything unfamiliar and certainly not the performers for not "taking risks", but on composers for not writing anything worth listening to and most of all the conservatories for encouraging composers to write unlistenable material in the first place (which skeptical readers may be able to prove for themselves by attending free conservatory concerts of student compositions). Dymitry Wos (USA)

JUNE 2010

Marginal genres different from pop

June 9th » By and large I agree with your aims and claims, especially as classical music (sorry, but I don't like your term 'Art Music') has been all but relegated to the sidleines in a very dumbed down UK-US generated anti-culture across the Western world, where vacuous, underachieving, talent-free celebrities are fawned over.

Where I disagree is in your lumping together a disparate number of genres under the 'pop' banner and dismissing them all as trite rubbish. I totally agree that all pop and rock music heard on daytime music radio and on MTV etc is vapid, mind-numbing toot, requiring little ability to either write or perform. However, there are many marginal genres that get next to no airplay on any radio station or on TV except in the wee small hours, i.e. jazz, folk, bluegrass, flamenco and a wide range of 'world' musics. All these genres generally require a high level of instrumental skill and have produced their share of great virtuosos and innovators, e.g. Django Reinhardt, Paco de Lucia, John Coltrane etc.

In particular it seems inappropriate to dismiss folk music styles*, seeing as many of the great Romantic composers were much influenced by folk traditions. No folk, no Má Vlast.

Also, why the anonymity here? Surely your organisation would have a lot more credibility if you identified yourselves. Alex Muscatelli

* See "From Classical to Art"

APRIL 2010

Overhyped caterwaulers

April 16th » From time to time, pop "icons" deliver very underwhelming performances before their fans in live appearances. They either exhibit the effects of drug or alcohol use, forget the words or, even worse, make it apparent that they were lip-synching (sometimes with autotune to help them along). When this happens, I have no sympathy for the "fans" who overpay for these exhibitions; even if they choose not to attend performances by genuinely talented and educated classical musicians or singers, they could at least support local performers who may not have the benefit of the hype-machinery of the recording and entertainment industry. For the most part, the heavily-publicized "star" appearing in a supersized venue is probably no better than the "artist" appearing at a local club or arena. The internet is abuzz with the woeful performance of one Whitney Houston, a major personality in the entertainment industry's pantheon. Ooops..she has notoriously failed to take care of herself for a long enough time that she apparently has no "chops" left. "Fans" nonetheless bought tickets to hear her baleful caterwauling. Well, I for one don't think they should ask for their money back; what did they expect? Laurence Glavin (Methuen MA, USA)

Lang Langs good for business

April 1st » Regarding your rather dyspeptic piece on Lang Lang's recent move from DG to Sony Classical, I think you are overreacting and making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill. The popularity of musicians such as Lang Lang is not necessarily a bad thing for classical music. In fact, the relative popluarity of recordings by such highly touted superstar classical musicians can be a blessing in disguise for classical record labels. Why? Because the sales from such highly publicized musicians can provide them with the funds to record interesting out of the way music which might otherwise not have been committed to CD. For example, the deservedly acclaimed "Degenerate Music " project of Decca Classics was paid for largely by revenues from populist recordings such as the "Three Tenors" etc.

Nor is the present day a "musically barren" age by any means. Despite the serious economic problems faced by so many orchestras and opera companies today, there are more of these performing arts organizations now than ever before in the history of Art Music, and they perform a wider variety of reperoire than ever before. Standards of performance are higher than ever before, and there are more world-class orchestras than have ever existed previously, as well as more composers. Robert Berger (NY, USA)