Re: GG:Death of Symphonies

[Charlie Siffermann <charlie@swlink.net>]

I am a new listener to classical music (6 years), and a rather young
listener, as I look across most concerts I attend (24 years old). 

I notice that most of my friends, who think they don't like classical
music, haven't been to an orchestral concert, and have dismal copies of
"classical music's greatest hits".  I often recommend recordings, or
loan out ones I have that I feel are better performances of the music
that they have.  These friends are often amazed at how much better, a
Beethoven Fifth Symphony can sound.  

As a teacher, I have found all most people need to accept things, is a
proper introduction.  My Fourth Grade, just one month into school, as
already turned from Top Forty or Country only, to students with quite a
desire to work with classical, jazz, fifties, or other out of mainstream
music on.  They unanimously voted to attend the Phoenix Symphony's
Student Programs, and find the classical sampler CD's in my treasure
chest, as a first choice.

Your recollection of GG comment that recordings would revitalize
classical music, I feel is accurate.  But, there are too many companies
who don't care about revitalizing recordings enough to issue or demand a
good product. (GG was very particular about what he allowed to be
released, so he could be assured that, if in only his opinion, it was a
quality product.) Many companies put profits first, and any CD they
record gets published, this helps push away listeners rather than
attract them.

I, too, lament to see the decline of the symphony.  The orchestra is
much more than people playing instruments. It is a way to look into the
lives of composers, conductors, and players, and share something special
with them.  

Glenn Gould said of his 1959 Salzburg recital, where he played, among
other things, the Goldberg Variations, "I brought off something
exceptionally fine, and it would have been nicer to have had an audience
of twenty thousand rather than just two thousand." 

I have been to concerts where I felt the same way.

All the Best,
Charles J. Siffermann


> Subject: 
>        Re: GG:Death of Symphonies
>    Date: 
>        Fri, 27 Sep 1996 14:39:19 -0500 (CDT)
>   From: 
>        Robert Kunath <kunath@hilltop.ic.edu>
>     To: 
>        Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>
>     CC: 
>        f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
> 
> 
>         I'm not sure that the CNN report entirely supports Gould's points.
> The crisis of the American symphony orchestras is not only because people
> find concerts to be an off-putting way to experience music (and in rock
> and other forms of popular music concerts attract large and devoted
> audiences, after all): the problem seems to me to be a more general crisis
> of classical music, which extends far beyond classical concerts to embrace
> radio broadcasting and classical recording too.  Recent reports have
> detailed the way the major recording companies are drastically scaling
> back their classical recording plans, and one of the orchestras on strike,
> the Philadelphia, is upset because their recording contract (with EMI) has
> been dropped.  The Cleveland Orchestra has had its recording contract
> (with London/Decca) cut by more than half, and there are rumors that the
> classical divisions of the major recording companies will be folded into
> the pop divisions.  The problem is that the money just isn't there (the
> average classical recording sells under 5,000 copies) and that means that
> the audience isn't there, not just for concerts, but for recordings too.
> At least as presently defined, classical music may be a dying art form,
> and my recollection of Gould is that he thought recordings would
> revitalize classical music.  Gould would have been happy to see concerts
> fade away, but I don't think he'd rejoice in the death of the symphony
> orchestra.
> 
> Robert Kunath
>