The death of an artform?

A little premature?

Originally published May 5, 2011

It seems almost ironic that, as I was driving home from an appointment today, the commentator on Iowa public radio asked the question, "Is classical music dead?" especially in light of a number of my own ruminations and comments. As this was a compelling discussion topic in 1969, it actually was taken up by Samuel Lipman, founder and publisher of The New Criterion, in his 1987 article, "Is the Symphony Orchestra dead?"  In it he wondered,

. . . is the symphony orchestra dead? The answer to this question must be no. The symphony orchestra is very much alive . . . [but] the fact that [it] is alive and is performing a vital cultural function does not mean that its present condition is either healthy or happy. The problems with orchestral life, and with musical life as a whole, are great. As I have tried to make clear, they stem from internal difficulties in the musical creativity of our time, and from the way the resultant artistic vacuum has been filled by extraneous economic and social forces. The scale of universal public success on which symphony orchestras are expected to operate is too large; the quasicommercial success they must achieve in order to be perceived as legitimate is unrealistic . . ..

Lipman goes on to address the music director, the state of contemporary composition, and the management style of the late 1980s (much of which sounds scarily familiar):

. . . it is time for musicians to take their futures in their own hands, by demanding that conductors be chosen for their musical skills rather than for their European celebrity status. They must also take seriously the problem of contemporary composition; this can only be done by performers demanding new music that they, as musicians, can love. There is nothing wrong with musical life that serious conductors in charge of great orchestras, playing new compositions of permanent value, cannot cure. In any case, there is little likelihood that our salvation will come from administrators whose skills lie entirely in the merchandising of that which has already become famous somewhere else.

The web magazine of the American Music Center, NewMusicBox, addressed this same issue in 1999 with members of Bang on a Can, the group (originally of composers) dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music.  Michael Gordon insisted that, "It's not dead.  It's a museum."  Gordon's colleague, David Lang:

I want to jump in here, because I really disagree. I mean, I agree with everything that both of you said, about the audience - I feel that it goes back to what I said earlier. It's really important to have the audience you want. To create the environment so you get the audience that you need in order to create the opportunity for people to listen to everything openly and to listen to everything constructively. But I don't think that the orchestra is, by definition, dead, or, by definition, a museum. I think it is a museum now, but I do not believe that that's the way it has to be.

As recently as 2006, Allan Kozinn of the New York Times insisted that the numbers did not bear out the impression that there was any demise in classical music.  Kozinn tells us that audiences have always been gray (two-income families with children nary have the time to venture out to concerts) and only the biggest names could be expected to sell out concerts.  But in New York, at least, that which we call "classical" music, was still running on all pistons as recently as five years ago.  So wherein is the problem?  The answer seems almost fiendishly simple:  It's the economy, stupid.

But many more questions remain.  Stay tuned...