Baton down the hatches
I’ll branch off on my own today and throw out two brief thoughts regarding one of the many elephants in the room – contemporary music. My guess is that a number of our orchestra’s mission statements address Music of our Time (a nice term for contemporary music that sounds less scary). The attempts to complete this mission have been scattered and erratically successful at best. While there is no cure-all for this, there are a couple of things conductors could do to help.
1. Give some thought to the programming of new(er) music. Much of the new music I see on orchestral programs seems to have been decided upon via lottery or tarot cards. Give the audience a reason to listen, regardless of the complexity of the music. Connections between different composers of different generations or music of similar geography can go a long way towards providing a framework for the program. Even if the unifying element is a thin one, that small connection is better than nothing, where random sprinkles of new music appear throughout the season. Art museums (at least the good ones) don’t hang paintings by young artists randomly. Music shouldn’t be like that either.
1(a). However, if you as a conductor are not comfortable conducting the knotty complexities of, for example, Milton Babbitt, (or you just don’t like it), by all means don’t program it! Play to your strengths. This seems to happen surprisingly often, which leads to –
2. Apologizing to the audience for playing new music! No No No! Again, there aren’t any signs in your local art museum – “Sorry that you have to look at this sculpture.” The deal was done when the orchestra brochure was printed and the tickets were sold. If the audience doesn’t like it (to which they certainly have a right), hopefully they will let you know. Besides, it’s usually something moderate in duration, like Short Ride in a Fast Machine, not a comprehensive survey of the works of Ralph Shapey, with an encore of Charlemagne Palestine performing his minimalist work Schlongo!!! daLUVdrone for solo pipe organ…
Leave a Comment: