Greg Stepanich

Another debate about classical's future

There's something very interesting going on at ArtsJournal, one of my favorite sites; there, the critic and composer Greg Sandow is writing a book on his blog about the future of classical music.

He's not optimistic, judging not only from what he says, but also what he says in reply to his correspondents. Here's what he says in part of the second episode of the book:

Essentially, I think the game is over, by which I don’t mean that classical music will completely disappear — that nobody will compose classical pieces any more; that no one will go to music school to study the bassoon; that opera companies won’t be staging Rigoletto for the four thousandth time (no, wait, maybe they really will cut back on that); or that I won’t be able to go online and instantly download a recording of the first Brahms piano sonata, as I did the week I’m writing this, because I just couldn’t wait to hear it . . . But what will disappear, I think, is the classical music world as we know it today, with its loyal audience gathering in silence to hear musicians in formal dress play Brahms, while printed program notes offer scholarly disquisitions on his work.

Sandow's a fine, engaging writer, and it's always a pleasure to read him, even if I don't always agree with what he says. And drafting a book in progress like this online is a great idea — which I might very well steal.

If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at the site and check it out. He's buttressed his conclusion with data about funding and the aging of the audience, and it's interesting and worth reviewing.

Looked at one way, Sandow's point about the disappearance of the classical world as we know it today is easy to accept. There's no rule that a way of concertgoing that developed in the Victorian era, when going out on the town meant you dressed up, and in which quiet, respectful attention to events was expected, needs to be a viable model here in the first decade of the 21st century.

It's much more likely that this way of concertgoing will eventually fade away when there's no one to remember why we did it in the first place. (Just as an aside, I've seen several Handel Messiah performances in which at least half the audience had no knowledge of the tradition of standing during the Hallelujah chorus, and when that basic knowledge disappears, the custom is sure to follow.)

Certainly some informal concerts I've been to have been every bit as successful as the symphonic ones, and when interested people can gather for an hour or two to hear some good music in a good setting — be it a great rock club, an outdoor summer chamber music festival, or an intense night of the blues in the house of a friend — that's all that needs to happen for music to do what it does best.

The larger point here seems to be that something huge will change with the vanishing of the concert style as we know it today, but I don't think that's true. I've seen too much classical music activity these days to believe that the music itself will lose the relevance it has. Quite the contrary, I think: What we are seeing now is the breakdown of the old fussy stigma that went with the older way of concertgoing, and that has freed people to love the music, to seek it out, to download it, to make careers of it.

Those careers won't be what they were back then, or quite what they are now. They're going to be more eclectic — the classical players of the coming years are all going to be well-versed in all kinds of music, and the reason is not that someone told them they needed to do that to make money. It will be that way because today's younger musicians have so much choice of the music they listen to, and they are unafraid to like whatever they want.

It's technology that is saving classical music for a much healthier future. And I think the older way of concertgoing will never entirely disappear. Again, the reason is partly technological. The enormous access we have to all kinds of culture is happening at a time that will actually freeze some things that would have passed on and saving them as tradition. Some people will pursue older things such as ballroom dancing or ancient artisanal crafts and the like because so much information is available about these pursuits that it makes lovers of unfashionable things brave — brave about loving them.

And so there will be some concerts we will attend in the old way because our ancestors did, and because it's fun every once in a while to wear something fancy and read some program notes. But we'll have more classical music in our daily lives than they did, and that will secure the future of the music, because at bottom, it's music, and on that it will surely thrive, not fail.

Anyone out there have an opinion on the future of classical music? I'd like to hear what you have to say. Post a comment and let's discuss it.