This is a first for me: a co-blogging exercise with the lovely and talented Amanda Ameer over at Life’s a Pitch<\/em>. Read her post here<\/a>. Also, check in with her blog; it’s a very interesting set of musings about the role of PR in classical music. <\/p>\n
My roommate is currently in the throes of Baseball Fever “\u201d all her social plans are jettisoned in favor of finding a New York City bar sympathetic to her belov\u00e8d Red Sox. She, like me, grew up in the <\/a>Northeast, and they are her Home Team. It’s a nice feeling to root for your Home Team, all sorts of bubbly good-feelings come out of such an emotion. Having a home team enhances civic pride and sells a lot of hot dogs. So why, beloveds, why, is the New York Philharmonic so not my home team? I’ve been blogging about them for a while, because it is a really curious phenomenon to me. I’m kind of obsessed with it. Let us for a minute focus our attention on the programming of their opening night gala. Behold:<\/p>\n
“This concert is now past” is not, as it happens, an editorial comment by a sassy webmistress, but is instead merely an indication of the fact that this concert happened In the Past, that being, September, 2008. Just a few short weeks ago! Also let’s not discuss how there are too many fonts. I’ve been thinking a lot about this concert. Roman Carnival Overture<\/em>. Ibert Flute Concerto. Tchaik 4. Tchaik 4, Ibert Flute Concerto. Roman Carnival Overture<\/em>. Now, none of these are “bad” pieces of music, by any means. In fact, I have a soft spot for the pizzicato movement of Tchaik 4. I love that English Horn in Roman Carnival<\/em>! The Ibert is actually a fun piece of music! It’s more that the combination of these things is straight up stupid; it’s like eating three courses composed entirely of the Make Your Own Sundae Bar at the Sizzler\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 or something. I cannot imagine a more horrifying way to spend an hour and forty-five minutes, even though the quality of the performances would undoubtedly be extremely high. In collaboration with Amanda Ameer, at Life’s a Pitch<\/a> dot blogspot dot org bar and grille, I want to explore this concert as a sort starting point for a longer conversation about orchestral programming.<\/p>\n
The other night, Nadia<\/a> and I played a game, which was “Fix This Concert.” Actually, first we played a game called “Make This Concert Worse,” which was actually too hard for us as we were into our cups and we were doing it in a noisy bar. The only thing we could think would be to swap out Roman Carnival<\/em> for Bol\u00e9ro<\/em> (and again, nobody’s shitting on Bol\u00e9ro here. Or, for that matter, make your own sund\u00c3\u00a6. But the point is the programming). The other idea we had would be to replace the Ibert with a “lesser ridiculous concerto,” but we couldn’t actually think of any. Everything we named “\u201c no matter how obscure “\u201c was more interesting. Szymanowski Violin Concerto? Kind of genius! Anyway, “Fix This Concert” was fun. Here’s one option:<\/p>\n
Now, with this program, we’ve solved a bunch of issues.
<\/a>Jacob Druckman (1928-1996) was a New Yorker. His son is in the orchestra, a percussionist. His music is fantastic, brilliant, and exciting. Summer Lightning<\/em> is eight minutes long. Done. New Yorker, Native Son, American<\/strong>, second half of the 20th century. Victory. Also, also! The New York Philharmonic has recorded Summer Lightning, WITH Maa’azel! You can buy it on iTunes<\/a>! They could have sold it at the Merch Table! It’s a good-ass recording, to boot. So I don’t get it. <\/p>\n
Now, let’s get raw here:<\/p>\n
Now we’re talking! Two American composers, one living, one dead. The Rouse concerto is amazing because it starts out sounding like Sarah Palin could have played it at her Talent Sh\u00c5\u008d, and then moves through this crazy chorale about the James Bulger abduction and murder<\/a>. The composer writes about it here<\/a>, eloquently. Who knows, maybe he’d be free and could turn up at the Gala! Take a little bow! I’m assuming that for whatever reason, people \u00d0\u00af freaked out about not having a major canonical work on the program, so, I understand why you have to have Tchaik 4 on the second half. But let’s pretend for a minute that we choose works entirely from the canon, and see what we can do:<\/p>\n
Basically the point that I’m making here is that it’s not that hard to program a concert that isn’t insane. The other thing is that this is a Gala concert, and as such, it wants to demonstrate not only the virtuosity of the players (which, in the case of the Philharmonic, is uncontested; it’s one of the best orchestras in the world) but also the virtuosity of them as an organization, which should include even the merest shadow of their artistic commitments. Let’s check in with the L.A. Philharmonic, shall we, to see how they<\/a> started off the year:<\/p>\n
The New York Philharmonic is just shooting itself in the foot with this; you can’t be a major orchestra and program like a youth orchestra. You have to include living (or at least 2nd half of the 20th century) composers! It’s just not going to work out for your asses, it doesn’t matter who’s telling you otherwise; whoever it is is wrong<\/strong>. I’m going to leave it to Amander<\/a> to expound on why this is a bad idea, not just for her<\/em> industr\u00c3\u00bd (PR) but for everybody concerned. Suffice it to say, Tony T was not amused<\/a>:<\/p>\n
See, so the issue isn’t that this particular performance was boring; it’s the entire system. Can you even imagine? Flight of the fucking<\/small> Bumblebee? James Galway, girl, calm it down<\/a>. It’s like these arguments saying that, you know, the current \u00c5\u201cconomical situation is messed up, and we shouldn’t point fingers, but there have been eight years of the Bush Administration’s deregulations at the heart of why, you know, Capitalism just exploded. (Also did everybody see this<\/a>?)<\/p>\n
Finally, I’m going to end with something slightly more upplyftyng:<\/p>\n