Posted on 07/28/2010 5:24:08 AM PDT by sitetest
FYI
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I find this hard to believe, especially the part about more people listening to classical music than ever before. Most people know rarely, if ever, listen to it.
But classical music is branded as "high brow" and our society wants to avoid "high brow" and embrace things that "keep it real" and have "street cred".
Both facts could be true. The population of the world is way higher than it was in 1800, for instance.
Classical music doesn’t have the supremacy it had in e.g. the 18th and 19th centuries. But there could still be more people listening to it.
I don’t seek it out, but listen when it’s presented to me. I enjoy it, as long as it’s not opera, which I can’t, and won’t, tolerate. Highly-trained, unnatural voices bellowing to be heard above an orchestra raises my hackles!
The last classical music station in my area closed up shop over 20 years ago. The only place you’ll find it on the radio is on a single PBS station, and that’s only part-time.
Classical will always have its admirers, but in a popular sense, it’s long been dead.
The article mentions that - at any one moment in our modern world - 10,000 people are listening to some version of the Eroica Symphony.
The ‘classical centuries’ didn’t have listening figures anything like that. Maybe 500 people a day tops. Today we have instant replay, recordings, the internet - and loads more listeners. It’s a mere added extra that the quality these days is also vastly improved.
Thank you for posting this! I have always loved Berlioz, especially his orchestrations!
Although I agree with the article (mostly in areas of virtuosity and sight-reading), I have found that in most cases, Classical Training is still sadly lacking in the Exploration of Music THEORY.
I find myself being hired to do remedial tutoring of Classically trained musicians in Chord Theory, Composition, Voice leading, and Counterpoint, using the Jazz Model that I picked up just hanging Out With Berklee Students in the Jazz Dives in Cambridge and Boston.
Some of these Folks hold degrees in music, and don’t even understand the Circle of Fifths.
But hey, I make a living.
My wife is first violin with the local symphony orchestra, and I sing baritone with the associated symphony chorus and several other groups. We have seen increasingly large crowds at our concerts over the last 5 to 10 years, and we have a backlog of people waiting to audition both instrumentally and vocally.
That’s wonderful!
Highly trained yes, unnatural no. At my first voice lesson, I was 18, my instructor asked me to show her what I knew, and I blew her out of the water with “Nessun Dorma” after only listening to a recording of it a dozen times or so and never looking at the score. I’m not a tenor anymore (that was 45 yrs ago) but it is the upper extent of my range.
After describing what goes on at this particular orchestra's performances and how the musicians distract themselves when the music is second-rate:
One man only in this orchestra does not allow himself any such diversion. Wholly intent upon his task, all energy, indefatigable, his eye glued to his notes and his arm in perpetual motion, he would feel dishonored if he were to miss an eighth note or incur censure for his tone quality. By the end of each act he is flushed, perspiring, exhausted; he can hardly breathe, yet he does not dare take advantage of the respite offered by the cessation of musical hostilities to go for a glass of beer at the nearest bar. The fear of missing the first measures of the next act keeps him rooted at his post. Touched by so much zeal, the manager of the opera house once sent him six bottles of wine, "by way of encouragement." But the artist, "conscious of his responsibilities," was so far from grateful for the gift that he returned it with the proud words: 'I have no need of encouragement.' The reader will have guessed that I am speaking of the man who plays the bass drum.
I love his Requiem. Hearing the “Dies irae” (Judgement Day), with four antiphonal brass ensembles placed at the corners of the concert stage, will make the little hairs on the back of your head stand up!
The delivery system for music has changed, and for the better. The fidelity from radio was always sub-par and you were at the mercy of what the DJ wanted to play. Now you can download and archive tons of music and reproduce it digitally at will. There are many good sites on the web for streaming music.
interestingly, youtube also has a decent collection....
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