Canadian columnist Rex Murphy of the National Post has a few things to say in his latest column: When 'progressives' who can't create stoop to denigrate.
There is a vicious element in our culture, which, unable to add matter of worth to the world, and lacking even the ambition to do so, vents its sorry envy and anger at high culture via the cant of progressive ideology and identity politics to denigrate and dismiss the finest works of the creative human mind.
It’s mud or the stars, folks. And they’re cheering for the mud.
Show them the Pietà and they will complain Christ is “foregrounded.” The Sistine Chapel and they would smear witless graffiti over it. They narrow all to personal politics. They squeeze the world into their cloistered ideological preconceptions. And should art not speak to their preoccupations, or mirror their tiny fascinations, why then it’s racist or colonialist or phobic or marginalizing. It is always something other than what it really is.
Politics is not everything. In fact, politics is hardly anything. You may force politics on everything, but no one in their real heart agrees. The left wants to shrink life to its own obsessions. It wants to constrict human experience and human response to set slogans and narrow obsessions. It cannot listen to great music because its ears only hear what it seeks. It doesn’t seek pure music. It wants grad studies politics.
He is responding to the critiques of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as an instrument “of wealthy white men … who turned it into a symbol of their superiority and importance.”
I would rather see the elegant and rejoicing music of the late 18th and early 19th century as celebrating the spectacular achievements of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution that were moments of light in what is often a dark and meagre human history.
Sadly, it should be clear that discussion between viewpoints will not happen on any cultural question on classical music. The appearance of commentator Patrick who I assume is at least acquainted with Alex Ross showed that the only two debating tactics are invective or evasion. Patrick chose evasion. Notice that he made no attempt to explain his own views or where he agreed or disagreed with anyone. Even me being provocative, stating that articles like the Beethoven article were going to lead to damaging or ending the careers of thousands of classical musicians, did not get Patrick to debate it. His response was "well you took that in a different direction than I expected. Fair enough." !!! and then went back to quoting a few lines from the article. But torching classical music is a sad way to close out a noteworthy reviewing/writing career on music.
ReplyDeleteI think 2021 is going to be the crunch year. 2020 is over as far as classical music is concerned. But the musicians including conductors and their affiliates themselves need to step up here. If 2021 is even close to what 2020 has been then classical music is finished in the US at least. Apparently professional and college sports are safe enough but performing classical music is unsafe at best and injustice at worst.
Nice to see that Rex Murphy loves Grigory Sokolov!
ReplyDeleteI think it's comical to see the would-be revolutionaries boxing themselves in in this way. Soon they'll have nothing left but agit-prop.
It seems so odd that the progressive views on things like classical music and systemic racism don't seem to have much in the way of serious defence as Maury points out. If we look closely we don't see much of an argument, just assertion. For the record, I am happy to hear the argument for whatever position you choose to take.
ReplyDeleteThe local chamber music society is launching their fall season on Oct. 18 with an outdoor piano recital. We might be able to do this here in Mexico right through the winter. I think that Canada and much of the US are going to have to find a way to restart giving public concerts or, as Maury says, classical music is in trouble. By the way, I think professional and college sports are equally in trouble. Not to mention hotels, restaurants...
Yes, Craig, I noticed that Rex Murphy slipped in some praise of Grigory Sokolov as well! He must be a Music Salon reader.
Maury wrote:
ReplyDelete"If 2021 is even close to what 2020 has been then classical music is finished in the US at least. Apparently professional and college sports are safe enough but performing classical music is unsafe at best and injustice at worst." I consider this informed prophecy by a sensitive observer/critic and, sadly, I think he's right.
Presently, downtown Seattle is well over 50% plywood on the buildings surrounding Benaroya Hall (Seattle Symphony's home base). Even into their early 80s(the 2010s), my parents were taking the bus to and from Benaroya to Queen Anne (an urban neighborhood just north of the city center) during evenings. How about now? Will the elderly, the middle aged, even the young, venture to downtown Seattle in the evenings? I don't think so. Thank you antifa/BLM for shearing away one of the grace notes of life - enjoyment of live wonderful music together with a thousand other people who love live music.
I asked a friend during the Seattle rioting and looting this summer, "What, finally, do you think the left really wants for America?"
"They want to hurt people," he said.
Before all this, Seattle was well known as an important center of classical music performance. But I think you are right. I read today that Amazon let one of its leases of office space lapse and they are moving to, is it Bellevue?
ReplyDeleteYou know, during the Great Plague in London, I don't think anyone thought that this would be the perfect time to riot every night and burn down the city. Friends of mine moved back to California over Christmas--and now they are thinking of moving back.
Amazon's been planning to move to Bellevue since self-identified socialist Kshama Sawant made a point of saying "We're coming for you" to Bezos and insisting on an "Amazon tax". Amazon likely wants to be out of the jurisdiction of Seattle in corporate management terms by the time any kind of city-imposed payroll tax becomes viable. S o, yeah, Bellevue.
ReplyDeleteOh Dex little did I know I would grow up to become a prophet of doom.
ReplyDelete... much less a prophet of doom with a following!
ReplyDeleteWell, here we are. I have a pretty good imagination but I don't see how Seattle downtown or the Seattle Symphony bounces back as long as the mayor and city council applaud large gatherings of young people who burn, loot, destroy and roam and murder at will; as long as the Seattle Times, TV and local NPR cover the rioters with kitschy oozing sympathy; as long as -- weirdly -- Jeff Bezos cherishes the rioters in his daily political tract, The Washington Post, while those same rioters force him to relocate his business ...
¡No comprendo!
Unfortunately the problem is bigger than crime and violence ridden cities. It is even bigger than mayors and governors who forbid indoor concerts. The issue is the mindset that the SARS 2 virus (a better name than COVID) has inflicted on the population.
ReplyDeleteThere is no escaping the age skew of classical concerts. I was only "middling age" at these concerts a few years ago where I could actually feel less old for a few hours. The older folks are not going to flock back to packed concert houses with bronchitis afflicted patrons next to them. However these concerts are already running a deficit so limiting attendance to a third or a half is going to punch a bigger hole in their budget.
As I mentioned earlier there has to be a quick revamping of outdoor concert areas and shells and the concert season readjusted for warmer weather concerts. But no one in the classical community is pushing for that. Pop music can survive and bounce back from a few years off and their audience is young and unaffected by the virus. However, classical music was already on life support in the Americas before this happened. Now it gets hit with the virus coupled with cultural cancellation. Its musicians require many years of training compared to 6 months to a year for a pop musician.
Maury, you are a prophet of doom who is hard to ignore! There is a lot of truth in your analysis. I think Europe is working hard to get back on track. We have been reading about indoor concerts presented with varying levels of social distancing for a couple of months now. They seem to be slowly and incrementally getting the problems solved. So I am fairly confident that if I go to Salzburg next August, there will be a festival worth attending.
ReplyDeleteBut North America? It's not just classical music, of course. We read that 60% of the restaurants in New York are simply gone. A very large percentage of hotels in places like Chicago, also gone--in receivership, not to return. Now, of course there will be a recovery. Company earnings are doing fine, remote working is doing fine, but office leases in some big cities are becoming a glut. One area that is going to see a sea change is academia. I seriously doubt if many students are going to pay $60,000 a year to go to class on Zoom. Honestly, anyone can get a free education in almost any subject from calligraphy to quantum mechanics and calculus by just going to YouTube.
There is a real benefit to being able to attend a live opera or symphony concert so I would hope that these things will come back somehow. But the benefits of squeezing into a large lecture hall to hear something you could more easily absorb from a YouTube video are a little more tenuous.
With music, history and theory can be done remotely but instrument practice requires at least some face to face time. Maybe this would be an interesting article whether videoconferencing can substitute for the old master class or personal music instructor. But ensemble practice playing is extremely difficult given poor network simultaneity.
ReplyDeleteYes Europe is showing the difference that will makes. I am pessimistic about NA retaining classical music given the seeming indifference of the public and the institutions in forcing a resumption.