OLD MODELS AND NEW..

The tried and true attempts to hold on, while in Brooklyn....

News this week from differing venues on the east coast strongly demonstrates some of the straights (I didn't say dire, although it might not be far afield to imply) facing art music (I prefer that term to classical, which implies a specific time period) in the contemporary world.  As I have written previously, the time is long past for American musical organizations to remake themselves in a mold that will work to establish ourselves as American institutions, making no apologies for American music and musicians.  And that goes far beyond presenting a smattering of Bernstein and Copland every other year or so.

The Mostly Mozart Festival has once again opened in New York City; understand that I revere Mozart like few other composers, but I have to wonder whether or not this model is losing its steam.  For the festival's opening concert, (Tuesday evening), broadcast on PBS "Live from Lincoln Center," the program wasn't mostly Mozart, it was all Mozart, the a program including the Figaro Overture, solo performances and the Linz Symphony.  In a free preview performance offered last Saturday night, the festival mixed things up a bit, offering Stravinsky's Symphony in C instead of the soloists.

A bold adventure?  Hardly so.  As Stravinsky--and especially his neo-classical works--is apparently a special focus of this year's festival, the nationwide broadcast should have reflected that.  As Anthony Tomassini wrote in the New York Times, "Surely this 71-year-old symphony should no longer be perceived as too risky for public television. But it takes inspired performances to make a Mozart program stand out. This one opened with a lively account of the “Figaro” Overture and ended with a perfectly fine, nicely played “Linz” Symphony. But neither performance was anything special."  Enough said.

Full house at Filene--can't be "classical"

Anne Midgette chronicled in a recent Washington Post article the changing audience tastes and programing during this, the 40th anniversary season at Wolf Trap, America's National Park for the Arts.  While sell outs of all-Tchaikovsky programs by the National Symphony were a virtual lock for consecutive performances, the venue is now faced with empty seats.  The only "classical" (I despise the term) artists guaranteed a lock for large audiences at the 7000-seat amphitheater known as the Filene Center. are Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell.  Similar situations are also being experienced at the famed Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony (where Renee Fleming and Lang Lang might be added to the list of big draws) and the Hollywood Bowl.  Thus, these arts presenters are faced with broadening their perspectives, offering more "popular" artists and varying entertainments.  Touring ballet and opera companies (Wolf Trap formerly featured the Martha Graham company as well as the Met) are no more.  Thus, these festivals must make the artistic decisions to continue to attract a wide audience in order to secure their futures.

New BP conductor, Alan Pierson

The most exciting news hails from the Brooklyn Philharmonic, now under the leadership of its new conductor, Alan Pierson.  This 154-year-old ensemble, one of the oldest in the New World, is completely reinventing the idea of orchestral programing and choices of venues, "taking it on the road deep into Brooklyn's famed neighborhoods to connect with the deep and vibrant musical traditions of the people who love it most."  The 2011-12 season, contained in its entirety in Greg Sandow's blog, is truly bold and daring and a possible view of the future of art music in our nation.  Pierson has actually designed an entire season based upon Brooklyn composers and performers as well as the diversity of Brooklyn's neighborhoods! 

As Sandow writes, "They're bringing music that's about Brooklyn, including things that Brooklynites already know.  Which means that they're doing very little standard repertoire. Some people will of course deplore that. But lt them deplore. Fact is that the Brooklyn Philharmonic has been a troubled institution, and hasn't made any kind of programming work, financially, for many, many years. So why not try something new?  And the emphasis now shifts to new music. Aren't we supposed to like that?

And can classical music survive anywhere, in the long run, if most performances are old music? I'm not at all sure of that."

 

Will this play in Peoria?  Or Fargo?  Or Dubuque, for that matter?  I certainly don't know.  What I do know is that we need to cast aside the old models that are drying up our orchestra's creativity, its players, and its aging audiences.  The orchestra and the composers who wrote for it (as well as opera, chamber music, etc.) was formerly the agent for cultural enlightenment:  people used to whistle Mozart's tunes on the streets, dance to Strauss's waltzes, rise up against totalitarian rule after performances of Verdi's Nabucco.  The question remains:  Is contemporary art music reflective of the world around us?

Compare what is transforming the Brooklyn Philharmonic to this season, recently published by an unnamed American orchestra, three programs of which are based upon the old "overture-concerto-symphony" model:

Glinka:  Russlan and Ludmilla Overture

Tchaikovsky:  Variations on a Rococo Theme

Rachmaninoff:  Symphony No. 2

Mozart:  Overture to Don Giovanni

Mozart:  Symphony No. 39

Brahms:  Violin Concerto

New work

Prokofiev:  Piano Concerto No. 2

Tchaikovsky:  Symphony No. 4

Now don't get me wrong; this orchestra should be commended for also programming works by composers such as Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Louis Gottschalk, and Peter Maxwell Davies (albeit in one of his more "populist" works), but still, each of these attempts at a "cutting edge" always will include something safe to allegedly draw patrons into the seats, including symphonies by Beethoven and Dvorak.

Which of these two models will ensure that the contemporary orchestra does not become a relic of its long and glorious past?  Surely I pose a rhetorical question...