Monday, May 02, 2005
rigor may not have set in yet, but...
Is the orchestra dead? In clinical parlance, it's CTD, or "circling the drain." It's not dead in that there remains, and will remain for quite some time, an audience. But in general, orchestral concerts are contracting, not growing.
Why hasn't the orchestra grown significantly in the past decade? I'd attribute the following factors:
- Growth of digital music (doesn't replace live concerts, but makes a lot of sense economically and sonically)
- Lack of adventurous repertoire (sorry, but having one or two "token" contemporary pieces just doesn't cut it)
- Economics: unlike Europe, orchestras are not significantly funded by government, so they think they have to stick to mass-market draws like Beethoven to barely break even
There are probably others, but this is what immediately comes to my mind.
Now, there certainly continues to be important works for orchestra by modern composers. John Adams is perhaps the best known, but certainly others write for orchestras as well (I suspect more often this is from the uptown bunch, but I could be mistaken)
However, I'm just not seeing a whole lot of evolution, other than the occasional willingness to include some exotic percussion or perhaps a sampler or two.
Personally, I'm torn between whether or not I'd want to do anything for orchestra at this point. In terms of musical language, the only major feature of symphonic orchestral writing is the ability to scale. While some (Adams, Corigliano, Feldman in particular) have been able to get very quiet and compelling works out of such large forces, others seem to write for an orchestra the way they would for a smaller ensemble, just multiplying the amplitude as it were by including larger numbers of instrumentalists. I remember the premiere of the orchestral version of Tehillim in the 80's at Avery Fisher Hall. Unlike the version for smaller ensemble, which works very well, I felt there were a lot of problems with this version (and I believe I recently read that Steve Reich felt much the same way). It was hard for Mehta to coordinate the different forces, and the voices and strings sounded strange having to use amplification. The performance was terrible, yes, and there were technical glitches involving the speakers and microphones. But still, it just seemed to weighty compared with the recording I knew of Reich's ensemble playing it with far fewer forces.
So I think the orchestra is still viable, but perhaps we may need to issue a DNR (do not resuscitate) order? Some possible therapeutic options:
- Expand the repertoire: This repertoire largely exists, but if most orchestras continue to ignore music of our time (and no, Schoenberg and Stravinsky no longer count as "contemporary") the next generation of concertgoers will likely blow them off. When was the last time a major orchestra in the US played Orchestra by Feldman? Something by Adams other than the usual staples? Even Boulez doesn't get that much performance time.
- Increased Federal funding for the arts: I'm not holding my breath for this one, but wouldn't it be great if orchestras could worry only about playing the music and not whether or not audiences will flock to their concerts to increase their profit margins?
- Embrace digital music: I guarantee you, the first orchestra that consistently performs new music AND makes it available from the start in MP3 or AAC format will have a significant first mover advantage.
- Develop new forms of concert experiences. Like his music or conducting or not, Boulez was on to something with his Rug concerts in the 70's. Why do symphony concerts have to be these stodgy affairs? Why can't we all just wear something comfortable and come to listen to the music, not to see and be seen?
The orchestra needs to evolve or die. There is a lot of great music written in the past 20-30 years for orchestra, but so much of it just doesn't get heard in the US. That's a shame, since the sonic potentials of the modern orchestra have not been fully realized.
posted by David Toub
10:49 AM
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