Like many of you I've been watching some of the streaming concerts from Europe and North America and I've started to wonder what the classical music world will look like after this pandemic crisis is over. And when will it be over? These are questions that are difficult if not impossible to answer at present, but we can do a little speculating.
I have read in a few places that perhaps 30% of professional musicians have simply left the business as there was no work for them. If the current crisis lasts another year or a good part of the year as it seems it might, then wouldn't it be likely that another 30% or more might leave the business?
We might also ask ourselves which musicians in particular are least likely to survive the crisis? It seems obvious that it would be the ones that are most vulnerable: the part-time musicians, the players in the smaller regional orchestras, the musicians that were already struggling to start or sustain a solo career, and most of all, the local musicians.
I ran across an interesting essay recently about some of the ways that technology has transformed society and it might offer some clues about what the music performance world is facing. The article is Everything is Broken:
For seven decades, the country’s intellectual and cultural life was produced and protected by a set of institutions—universities, newspapers, magazines, record companies, professional associations, cultural venues, publishing houses, Hollywood studios, think tanks, etc. Collectively, these institutions reflected a diversity of experiences and then stamped them all as “American”—conjuring coherence out of the chaos of a big and unwieldy country. This wasn’t a set of factories pumping out identical widgets, but rather a broad and messy jazz band of disparate elements that together produced something legible, clear, and at times even beautiful when each did their part.
But, beginning in the 1970s, the economic ground underneath this landscape began to come apart.
This is something like what is happening now with the music world: the pandemic has shut down most of the cultural institutions that support performing musicians. The article takes a while to get going and you need to read the whole thing to get the details of the argument, but here is the crux of it:
The internet tycoons used the ideology of flatness to hoover up the value from local businesses, national retailers, the whole newspaper industry, etc.—and no one seemed to care. This heist—by which a small group of people, using the wiring of flatness, could transfer to themselves enormous assets without any political, legal or social pushback—enabled progressive activists and their oligarchic funders to pull off a heist of their own, using the same wiring. They seized on the fact that the entire world was already adapting to a life of practical flatness in order to push their ideology of political flatness—what they call social justice, but which has historically meant the transfer of enormous amounts of power and wealth to a select few.
I think we see the "hoovering up" illustrated clearly in the music world: well-established pop musicians are selling rights to their back catalogues for hundreds of millions of dollars. At the same time, the vast majority of orchestral musicians are simply out of work. In some places in Europe they are being supported and finding some work in streaming concerts, but the musicians of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, for example, are simply out of work and receiving no payments.
At the end of the day, I think we will find that the "renaissance" or rebirth of classical music-making will mean that the most-established musicians will find employment again, but the majority will not. Much local music-making will have simply disappeared and the music world will contract to a few major centers, most of them in Europe. Every concert will be an "all-star" performance and local musicians will simply not exist.
The consequences of this are likely to be very unfortunate and long-lasting.
I want to hear what my readers think. Please let me know in the comments.
For an envoi, one of those streamed concerts from Europe from a couple of days ago:
One thing I was told by a guitar teacher is that applications to teach in schools round here have increased dramatically thanks to former performers looking for work in schools. Very depressing. My only small source of optimism is that with all the online concerts, 'introduction to' videos, masterclasses now online, there might have been established a foundation on which to reintroduce classical music to public life, instead of it disappearing from view...
ReplyDeleteI very much hope you are correct! It may well be so.
ReplyDeleteThe problem for musicians looking for an alternative career is that so many other people are also out of work in most places.
Well, we get back to the distinction between Europe and the US. As was touched upon here the orchestra members of the Met are on unemployment, the Kennedy Ctr symphony is on half pay and neglected and many others are either unemployed (as musicians) or on rations. The UK is somewhat like the US but not quite while the EU and Russia have a cultural investment that the public is inclined to support for now. However the trendline even in the EU over the next 20 years is clearly down according to some observers in Germany and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteEven if the pandemic ends tomorrow I don't think in the US or even the Americas that the status quo ante is feasible. I mentioned some months ago that I contacted via their websites some out of work symphony musicians to offer support and commiseration. I got zero response back or saw any changes in their websites. So if the people most affected along with the institutions such as conservatories don't fight for their careers what hope is there?
As for Asia, the interest in classical music has been somewhat sustained by the perception that it was culturally esteemed in the West. If that perception fades will these countries spend large sums of money to support the classical music enterprise by themselves?
I'm sorry to be pessimistic but the lack of fight is telling. If this is the case, composers and musicians will have to go into some variant of popular music to survive for a time. Jazz has even less popularity than classical so that is not an option.
Articles like the above remind me of Hindemith's bleak appraisal of what he considered the foundational flaw in American music education in general, the idea that it was to train people to get jobs in music rather than have music be part of all-around cultural life. His polemic was that U.S. music education was nothing more than music teachers who make more music teachers whereas he regarded European music educational norms as leaving room for the people he considered the lifeblood of actually musical cultures, amateurs. Professionals were, so to speak, the top of the cultural-musical pyramid, not its foundation. A musical family, regardless of professions, was the start of a musical culture.
ReplyDeleteNow Hindemith might have been wrong, and certainly I've read a few U.S. music writers and historians over the last twenty years who think Hindemith was wrong because they didn't like his idea or (perhaps as often) his music, but Sousa had similar views and I don't read as many complaints about Sousa, possibly because marches are marginal and because Sousa, at least, also warned that the recorded music industry would stratify professionals and amateurs in ways he thought would be harmful to musical culture.
It has begun to seem, hobbyist that I am, that the market for the arts has been glutted for a generation and that William Deresiewicz has been on to something pointing out how the decline in the arts as vocation has been moving in a bad direction for subsistence living in the last forty years.
I think Hindemith did have a point. But music institutions do vary. At their worst, there are some music schools that exist mainly to create jobs for cronies with the students a secondary priority. A higher quality institution is busily turning out more music teachers. But the best schools do actually cultivate genuine creators and at the same time are trying to educate amateurs and aficionados.
ReplyDeleteyeah, and I cut Hindemith slack because he was specific that the vices he saw in United States education were unique to "us" and that he hadn't seen this problem in music education anywhere else he'd lived and taught. he wrote that it wasn't just that music teachers made music teachers, it's that Americans also taught kids that if they practiced enough they could be another Heifitz without any regard for what the job market could bear.
ReplyDeletePer some of Taruskin's work, I think another element to consider is whether the education for amateurs and afficionados took a severe hit when music education got progressively scuttled for K-12 in U.S. education programs.
Yes, and it's getting worse. They are trying to cancel Homer and Beethoven and I can see this leading to the deletion of fine art generally.
ReplyDeleteThe aspect of musical culture is certainly relevant to what is happening now. My perception is that the current elites are below Joe and Jane Public culturally, not above them. That is different than at any time in Europe. But Hindemith while mostly correct at the time has been overtaken by the technology. Now people can make music in their home studio, den or bedroom depending on their finances. The issue is the level at which they are making music. So the idea of salon music (h/t The Music Salon) assumed that many average educated people could play sheet music of decent complexity. Now it is just computer noodling and sampling with canned typical musical gestures except for successful pop artists who can do relatively complicated things that way. It does save the logistics of trying to assemble a quartet on Saturday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteThe problem really is that music is devolving to an individual activity rather than one with social and thus career possibilities and requirements. But outside of us is anyone really concerned?
That's a very good point, Maury. And since my violinist moved away I find even my activities are largely solitary. But the hope is that when the pandemic wanes sufficiently we can return to something like normal concert life. I think in Europe that is likely, but in the Americas it is more doubtful.
ReplyDeleteI base my concept on the music salon on what was going on in Paris, c. 1830 when Chopin was the musical guest!
Maury, I think for guitarists we can, to many degrees, deal with the reality that music has become more of an individual activity than a social one. I still like writing chamber music for guitar that involves winds, strings and brass but in the covid-19 age sticking with solo stuff is more practical.
ReplyDeleteOne of my pet interests has been contrapuntal music for solo guitar so I know there are half a dozen cycles of preludes and fugues that have been written for solo guitar in the last thirty years--two have been published and two have commercially available recordings of the complete cycle but as yet there's no full overlap in those categories until Selyutina records the second half of Koshkin's cycle.
At the risk of seeming like a PNW hippie type, given how long the postlude from Gulf War II has been and associated policies I tend to think we can think of this era as a kind of Thirty Years War and that musicians are in situations analogous to Heinrich Schutz, without access to the kinds of arts scenes that would exist in more peaceable times.
If music has been devolving into an individual activity then, as a guitarist, that means I will keep on experimenting with fugal writing and large-scale sonata forms because so few contemporary guitarists seem to be doing much with sonata forms (excepting Gilardino's spectacular five solo guitar sonatas, of course!) One of the advantages of having Hepokoski & Darcy's Elements of Sonata Theory out there is that it's possible to use Elements and the concept of rotation to talk about, for instance, how the Dusan Bogdanovic Sonatas 1 & 2 adhere to sonata form on the basis of rotation rather than tonal organization ... something I hope to blog about either this year or next depending on how things go.
Yes guitar is a good instrument for solo work and more portable than a piano or harp. I find it hard to believe a renaissance of classical music is around the corner but it is possible that the guitar will regain some prominence it lost 30 years ago. Its looser connection to classical music in the public eye is a net benefit as well. And as Bryan and others have shown, guitar pairs well with the violin another portable instrument. Glad to see you are forging ahead despite everything.
ReplyDeleteFrom recent statements by public authorities, I don't expect concert halls to reopen in most European countries at all this year. Plus, scientific advisers to some Western governments have been talking about 2024 as the year that "normality" is resumed. I expect this to land a serious blow to public support for classical music. The institutions may continue in the short-term, but the urgency of funding them through taxpayer money is waning, and a whole generation whose youth is marked by streamed media is unlikely to want to support them with private patronage.
ReplyDeleteSomething that hasn't been talked about much is whether the pandemic is hastening the decline of physical media sales. International post has been slowed down by the border closures, and what few record shops remained in Western Europe have closed. There are several upcoming releases by European labels that were initially expected to be CD releases, and now have changed to digital-only.
That's a serious point to consider, Anonymous. Though I disagree with a whole lot of the dualisms in his recent book, Ted Gioia has raised a question about the extent to which ownership of music has devolved in the last ten years with the rise of streaming services and to a lesser extent downloads. I'm willing to get digital download albums because in some cases there are obscure releases of music by Ferdinand Rebay that only exist as digital download albums. The price is lower and production costs probably have something to do with that, I guess, but there might be a positive trade-off to that process in the long-term provided that the infrastructural aspects of the releases can be sustained.
ReplyDeleteI noticed Brilliant Classics halted its entire release schedule in the first half of 2020, for instance. It made me feel fortunate I gambled on getting those Sorabji recordings while they were still available!
I've begun to have a more sympathetic view of Beidermeier era guitar music thanks to the pandemic. If the pandemic is gutting concert life as we know it maybe hausmusik is due for a friendlier re-appraisal?
Regarding the Anon concern about physical media, the data have indicated for years that the decline of music media sales doesn't need help from the pandemic. DVDs are in the same boat. CD sales were about at the level of vinyl sales in the US at the start of the pandemic. Not sure what the situation is in Europe where Anon seems to be located. Digital downloads are disappearing too which is a bit counterintuitive and may concern The Hatchet. It is hard to judge whether the pandemic is helping or hurting in the short run. More people are at home after all and have access to any home audio systems they might have. Vinyl sales are actually still slowly increasing.
ReplyDeleteLicensing expenses might explain the overall dive. The costs associated with getting the permissions to put out albums to begin with could effect recording. One of my guitarist friends said he was considering putting out an album and discovered that the music he really wanted to record had licensing costs he wasn't able to take on. That could, possibly, explain how there's tons of indie-rock and indie pop where people DIY their stuff but there's not much of a comparable "scene" in contemporary classical music beyond those who can record their own works. Solo guitarists can put out albums of contemporary works because they can play solo works. Atanas Ourkouzounov has been able to put out great albums of solo music and chamber music for flute and guitar whereas a string quartet, unless a member is writing the music, isn't in the same position with putting out a new album of string music the ensemble wasn't involved in writing. A speculation as to what may be contributing to a demise in album output across the board. The start-up costs and production costs aren't going down as people are losing work is my guess, so even digital download albums will be impacted by that.
ReplyDeleteWenatchee, I think you have put your finger on one of the big issues in recording repertoire: if it is copyright, the cost of the permissions is prohibitive. This is why, by the way, I decided not to try and issue my set of songs, Songs from the Poets, as an album even though I spent money to have a professional recording made. When I contacted Oxford University Press for permission to use three poems of Robert Graves which I had set, they said, sure, no problem, but we require 50% of the earnings from album sales. Since over half of the poems I chose were under copyright, I quickly gave up the idea of releasing the song cycle. My estate can figure out what to do with them after I am gone!
ReplyDeleteSo what this means is, if you are a string quartet, you are going to be recording only music in the public domain unless you can get grants or donations to cover the costs of permissions for contemporary works. Or call up the Kronos Quartet and ask how they did it!
A very interesting thread indeed. I noticed earlier (in an article about James MacMillan and the promotion of music education in Scotland schools) this sentence: "A report from Deezer, the music platform, showed that 18-25 year olds accounted for 34 per cent of classical streamers worldwide in the past year." I wonder if or how that can be true.
ReplyDeleteFirst, G-d I hope that is true and second, I hope they were not all listening to Vivaldi.
ReplyDeleteSorry to come late.. It will. But first this old dying world has to clean up. We can't pour a new wine into an old dirty chipped glass. We are now in this cleaning process, and considering the huge amount of current garbage, some more years will be needed before any hope of a normal situation (at least 2024, if we are clever enough). The last decades behaviors prepared what we are having now, a dislocated world with no unity and meaning, which is going by itself to his own wall. It will be hard times for composers/interpreters, but everyone is invited to hold on and continue to write, perform, and make propositions for this new world, whatever the outside context. As I said before, a civilization without art is dead. The present restrictions are only the beginning. It will be more. The ways of survival? First, what do you consider as 'survival'? Your bills? Your soul as a musician? For any good composer there are other fields to consider. If you are not played outside, or lose your musicians, record it all by yourself and publish it on internet. I am using professional orchestral sample libraries that are working quite well to render all my solo / symphonic / concertant works. I don't have any negative feeling doing this, as Music is the priority, and has to be accomplished whatever the external medium and context. I would prefer to be played by the Berlin SO, but if not, I will handle it by myself. I diversify my work, writing specialized film music (in my case planetarium movies in Japan), and further licensing it. I don't believe in any pop music recycling, as the field is seriously rotten. As spiritual ethics are important to me, I won’t compromise with any field asking me to write under my level, sensitivity, goal. And as for the bills there are ways to live in simplicity, choosing an appropriate country, reducing all unneeded toys and expenses, and focusing on essential things, as Music for me.
ReplyDeleteEric, a great deal of wisdom there. Your path might offer a model for others.
ReplyDelete