tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-388014615339890178.post7853991405876384657..comments2023-05-27T07:47:26.610-05:00Comments on Bass Blog: Week 18Michael Hovnanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07822257921093170726noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-388014615339890178.post-78392402773904459692008-01-18T18:06:00.000-06:002008-01-18T18:06:00.000-06:00I should let Mike have his own damn blog, I suppos...I should let Mike have his own damn blog, I suppose, but I cannot resist addressing some of the issues he raised in response to my comments. Mike is quite right that our orchestra is rather hostile to new music—up to a point. Almost all the new pieces we play as an orchestra are heartily despised. But if you look at the chamber programs that our colleagues play, you see a respectable number of works by living composers. I would guess that new music takes up a larger proportion of the chamber and solo music our colleagues play than shows up on the orchestra’s programs. But it is rarely by the same composers as show up on subscription programs. As a full disclosure, I should mention that I compose a fair amount of music and have found that my colleagues in the orchestra are more than willing to play my stuff, Mr. Hovnanian included.<BR/>So I think that to some extent the problem is that the musicians don’t hate new music in principal but rather they hate the new music that we have programmed in the orchestra in particular. (Of course we have a number of troglodytes that wish our repertoire stopped with Shostokovich, but I think this a distinct minority.) And I would argue that this problem might be addressed with some orchestra input into the new music we play. Our past music director of blessed memory loved Carter, Boulez, and their acolytes. I would be hard put to find five musicians in the orchestra who share this enthusiasm. Unquestionably, it cleared out our hall like a stink bomb, and this did not further endear it to us on the stage. We much prefer playing music that fosters large enthusiastic audiences.<BR/>I suspect that more musician input might actually help our problems with new music. For one thing, if some actual musicians had a say in the new music we play, we would be guaranteed that at least a few of us on stage were invested in the music we are playing; this would constitute a significant improvement over the status quo. Also composers would be given to understand that they need to write music that gives the performers pleasure if they wished to have a work played by our orchestra (which herein must remain nameless).<BR/>One of the real problems in classical music is that there is a huge schism between performer and composer, a really weird state of affairs if you think about it. Composers mostly don’t play an instrument at anything resembling a professional level, and very few performers compose. It was not always so. In the days gone by, the great composers—Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok, Rachmaninoff—tended to be great performers, and the great virtuosos—Paganini, Bottesini, etc--composed. This schism has resulted in a lot of music coming our way written by composers with very little hands-on experience, who use our instruments ineptly. This stuff would never get by a committee of musicians, and that is all to the good if you ask me.nocynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07998727400312237867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-388014615339890178.post-65283069315611088472008-01-18T16:29:00.000-06:002008-01-18T16:29:00.000-06:00Not just 'P,' but 'AP.' If you could've had Chicag...Not just 'P,' but 'AP.' If you could've had Chicago Opera Theater's Alexander Platt and Astor Piazzolla, it would have been four in a row.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11367901003659994894noreply@blogger.com