26APRIL/MAY 2004
gone to London to meet with ourBritish counterparts from their distin-guished music schools. One afternoon,the British contingent proudly pro-claimed that a referendum had beenpassed in England requiring allgraduating students––not just musicstudents––to have a basic and rudi-mentary knowledge of music. I askedthem what repertoire was used tomeasure music proficiency in theseexams. The stare was vacant. I said, “If you’re going to give an examination onmusic, you must use musical examples. What musical examples might thosebe?” The reply was, examples from thegreat repertoire. I asked, which greatrepertoire? They said, aside from themajor British composers, the icons of Western European art music: Bach,Brahms, Beethoven, Wagner, Schubert. At that time I was living in Los Angeles, a city that was 54 percentLatino, many of them first-generationimmigrants for whom “common prac-tice” music, as we know it, was simply a foreign object. Moreover, this was astate where the membership of theCalifornia Arts Council embracedmore than just common practicemusic as art, as it does now.Nontraditional art forms, in a highly charged and politicized environment,held equal sway. The analogy may beconsidered irrelevant were it not forone very important thing: the culturesthemselves are changing, partly by virtue of their changes in demograph-ics. Some of the new generation willbuy into Western European art music.Many won’t. What will they buy into,even if they have listened to Bach andMozart or read Shakespeare andFaulkner?
Culture: Popular
We now have
popular culture
accept-ed as an academic field. Yet, some of our finest contemporary composers aresteeped in pop music, for it forms thebasis of much of what they write. Thetitles of Michael Dougherty’s
Desi
(yes,Desi Arnaz) or John Adams’s
Lollapalooza
certainly do not allude to“sonata” or “chaconne,” although bothcomposers may utilize those forms intheir music. Popular culture, then, fur-nishes our composers with their ownkind of folk basis, much likeHungarian folk music did for Bartók,or folk songs for Haydn.
Culture: New Sounds, NewInstruments
The synthesizer can replicate acousticsounds so successfully that the publicdoesn’t know the difference! Film com-posers write entire scores using nothingbut computer-generated sounds. Andthere are prominent Hollywood filmcomposers who are affectionately known as “hummers” because they can’t read music and rely on talentedtranscribers and orchestrators to do the“real” work! Yet, perhaps the mostpowerful manifestation of computer-generated music as a sonic tool, is theinvention of new sounds. Is this latterdevelopment so different than the evo-lutionary changes brought about by theemergence of the modern symphony orchestra? Was there a precursor to thepiano? Was the flute always metal? Didthe horn always have valves? And now,modern-day orchestra percussionistsmust learn a battery of instrumentsunheard of even thirty years ago, for with every new composer comes a new sound he or she wants banged outthere in the back row.
Culture: Audience Fragmentation
Markets have become fragmented. Audiences have become fragmented.Some kinds of concerts have virtually disappeared from the concert-goinglandscape. It used to be that art songrecitals were fairly regular on perform-ing arts series. They nearly are extinct.It’s the same for chamber music, or sosome say.Others claim these audiences alwayshave been small.
Culture: Saturation of the Market
Bernard Holland, the acerbic criticof the
New York Times
, has said, “Afterfifty recordings of the Brahms 4th,Nos. 51 and 52 become irrelevant.” Ittakes no more than a cursory glance atthe inventory of available classicalmusic recordings to realize the marketfor common practice may be reachinga point of critical mass. To compoundthe market saturation issue, it is nowa-days so astonishingly easy to create aCD replete with glamour packagingthat receiving such an item, as I doseveral times a week, perhaps does nothave that special, unique allure thatproducing a phonograph recording of old did. Recording technology hasenabled us to make a commercial qual-ity CD from our homes, which I sup-pose makes us think that if anyone cando it, then it must not be so specialanymore. Furthermore, you can repro-duce it for eighty cents a copy andsend it to all of your friends, who can,if they like it, make copies on theircomputer.So, is it all going to hell in a handbasket?No. But I do believe we’re going tohave to face a few facts.First, I have faith in one basic pre-cept, which is that great music willsurvive because of its riches anddepth. However, we must not assumethe way we’ve been doing things is the way they should be done forever.Current and future generations areconceiving, perceiving and experienc-ing the arts differently than we have.Secondly, our charge as teachers issimple: figure out new ways to capti-vate, to engage, to refresh and to makethe experience of making music spe-cial. And this heightening of engage-ment also must be inculcated in ourstudents as performers and potentialteachers themselves. And therein liesmy central thesis: engagement. Thearresting power of superbly prepared,inspirational, imaginativemusic––music whose every phrasebegs us to listen to the nextone––must be brought to life andmust engage with listeners in a dra-matic way. Music is drama, and dramarelies on context, sometimes contem-porized, but relevant to the times.Finally, I would implore us also tothink about what actions we mustcontinually take to ensure the survivalof our art form. Allow me to makesome suggestions.
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