Neat And Spot-On

Surely only God himself, in his infinite, all-knowing wisdom, knows how I could have missed seeing this first-rate piece by Andrew Clark, chief music critic for The Financial Times, who, with scalpel in hand and at the ready, goes right to the heart of an egregious trend rampant today within the ranks of the classical music concert marketing crowd (and even, I'm deeply chagrined to have to acknowledge, to some extent within the classical music critical fraternity) made up of well-meaning, well-intentioned suits with a seeming terminal inability to distinguish the difference between merely putting butts in seats and what's really required for the long-term good of classical music and the classical music concert.

Speaking to the [classical music concert] audience is on the increase, especially in the UK and US. Concert-goers love it because it breaks the “glass wall” between stage and audience. It makes them feel part of the performance process; concerts are less stuffy.

[...]

It’s not just audiences who enjoy the speaking element. Concert promoters and orchestra managers are falling over themselves to encourage it. They advance the careers of conductors they think are good at it — despite the fact that the best platform-speakers are rarely the best interpreters of the music. The idea is that if the concert experience is more user-friendly, attendances will rise.

[...]

This sort of thinking is insidious. It signifies a fear that classical music may not be sufficiently communicative or “entertaining”. No one will admit to this fear. You don’t have to explain jazz to anybody, but the implication is that you do with classical music — for reasons that are phoney.

[...]

The problem for classical music in the 21st century is that it is competing with the high decibel count, the simplistic beat and the narcotic effect of rock and pop, beside which it seems “boring”. No wonder it is considered a minority interest. Demystifying the concert experience is part of a desperate attempt to give it more street-cred and develop enough support to sustain it.

The trouble with speaking to the audience is that it limits the imaginative scope of the music. Listening to someone discussing a piece of music before you have a chance to hear it pre-programmes your responses. The music has no chance to communicate freely. You are left with a number of objective ideas about what to think and feel, circumscribing the subjective impressions that music seeks to create in the listener through the medium of sound.

Music begins where words end: the whole purpose is to express things that are not possible in words. The traditional concert format — uniform dress, subdued lighting, no speaking — evolved with this in mind: it’s not some silly old-fashioned ritual. It was designed to throw a cloak of impersonality over the concert process, to create a directness of communication between music and listener, to detach you from everyday discourse. That has always been part of the sanctity of a classical concert. When performers start speaking they break the spell; they prick the illusion of a transcendent force.

[...]

But most promoters today would be embarrassed by [and I, ACD, would add, contemptuous of] talk of “sanctity”. The whole drift of cultural provision is away from the idea of a pure aesthetic experience. The consumer is king: heaven forbid that anyone should be required to make an effort. That explains the drive to make concerts more informal, to persuade the audience it’s all jolly.

Yes indeed. All quite right. And a neater, more succinct, more spot-on vivisection of this pernicious trend is difficult to imagine. Mr. Clark, however, was somewhat remiss in not noting the existence of this loathsome little horror. When measured against it, a conductor speaking to the audience from the podium before turning to the orchestra to begin the piece to hand, or a composer explaining his new work to the audience moments before it's heard, seems merely a benign if clumsy indulgence.

RTWT here.