From: Steven Catanzaro (stevencatanzaro@sprintmail.com)
Date: Tue Nov 12 2002 - 18:09:45 CET
My feeling is that if classical music is "dead" the fault lies not with lazy
audiences but with the "system" that produces the so-called classical music.
For instance, the Salon writer makes a point that when President JF Kennedy
went to the symphony, he had to have an advisor to tell him when to applaud
so he wouldn't look foolish.
But, what's really foolish is the "artistic" community proscribing when and
how people should respond to the music! You'd probably feel more liberty of
self-expression at high mass at St. Peter's Basilica than at your average
symphonic concert, and this wasn't the way it was in Beethoven's day.
When Beethoven premiered his 7th symphony, and got finished conducting the
second movement, the crowd applauded wildly.
What did Beethoven do? Scowl at the crowd like many modern day classical
artists are known to have done? Heck no. He turned around, bowed graciously,
and repeated the second movement over again from the beginning! The crowd
went wild!
What would've been foreign to Beethoven is the sacrosanct pall that the "art
community" has cast over the so-called classics.
MEMO to classical musicians. If you want people to start coming back to your
concerts... a) compose some new music that people actually like, and b) when
they start to respond with applause, don't glare at them like they're rubes
and idiots...
That'd be a start...
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