The Awfulness of Classical Music Considered

I wanted to say a few words about the recent Richard Dare article that has popped up…It’s gotten some criticism but I’m a big fan. I don’t agree with everything, however.  I don’t think we can justify people milling about the concert hall, or singing along, talking…that is, if we are to only present a typical classical concert environment. 

I think audiences should atleast occasionally have the chance to hear music in the environment it was conceived for—that is, chamber music is chamber music. A string quartet I admire on many levels, who I’ve had the pleasure of being coached by (the Chiara Quartet) has done tours of “Beethoven in Bars”. Why not? Let people take what they want out of it and leave the rest.  Chances are it’s the people who are relaxed, and caught by surprise, not expecting to experience this music this night, who will be the most intrigued.  Even “concert music” was performed in a social setting, and I’ve written about this tangentially in a past blog.

At the same time, though, a lot of contemporary music was conceived for a quiet concert hall, and should be performed as such. You won’t get much out of Wuorinen by listening to him casually.  This stuff needs to be the center of attention. 

I’ve said for a while now, and I will continue to say, anyone is welcome to clap anywhere and at any time during one of my solo performances. It might distract me—oh well, I’ll deal with it and it will add to the humanness of my playing. Perhaps a little discomfort on stage is what we need to relax and make enthralling music.  

More than anything, I want to be able to react to a performance that I’m watching how I like to react to a performance that I’m giving.  I used to be motionless when I played, and my playing was quite emotionless. I was self-consciousness embodied in sound.  As I started to come out of my shell, I just let myself move, shuffle my feet, sway, sing, react facially to what I was trying to convey…And not only was my playing transformed but my enjoyment of music, my insight and my critical listening skills all grew immensely.  

Thus I hope to experience music as a listener, the same way I experience it as a performer. I think non-classical musicians would feel the way I do about music if they were allowed to experience it how they tend to experience and enjoy their choice music. Perhaps Dare’s larger point is this: who is prescribing how classical music is ‘supposed’ to be experienced? It’s certainly not the classical composers, not performers from ages past. Why not relax arbitrary rules?…None of the critical comments I read address Dare’s points that the classical music environment is a wholly unwelcoming one. Why wouldn’t we want to change that, if at least to offer a continuum of concert experiences from the casual and social to the serious and formal. 

My favorite performing experience of my career was this past fall when I played at the Clazel Theater in Bowling Green as part of the New Music Festival in town…I played, walked off stage to the bar and ordered a drink, then I mingled, took in the rest of the performers.  People got a lot of my piece, I got a lot out of others, and I enjoyed myself socially…I’ve also performed this year in sock feet, I’ve kneeled on the stage to play toy piano, and I wore a plain blue t-shirt for my own solo recital. If you weren’t watching video, you’d never know.  But I prepared just as seriously for those performances as the ones when I wore a tux. I can assure you that each time I was enjoying myself on that stage more than if I was performing under “traditional” concert situations; surely that showed in the quality of my playing.