Music and Democratic Elitism

I was going to put this in an upcoming Friday miscellanea, but realized it is worth more extended treatment. In an article about the demise of The New Republic, Sean Wilentz writes:

there is such a thing as democratic elitism, which inheres in standards of criticism and commentary, but which repudiates the idea that only a hereditary elite or educated clerisy could or should get it; and it presents itself accordingly. If bidding interested readers to sophistication and excellence is elitism, make the most of it. The greatest danger to our culture and politics lies in a different kind of elitism, one that promotes a monied elite that ... threatens both the variety and the quality of everything it touches and distributes.

This sentiment is so close to my own that I wanted to share it. I'm sure that Mr. Wilentz and myself do not share the same political values, but I find myself in complete agreement with him on literary and cultural values. Everything I do here at the Music Salon is about attracting readers to sophistication and excellence in music. The main forces opposing I see, in agreement with Mr. Wilentz, as being a "monied elite" characterized by their Philistinism regarding the arts, music in particular.

You might make an argument that it is wealthy patrons that support all varieties of fine arts, but the bulk of their support seems to go to shiny things they can buy like this:

In music the situation is rather the opposite. Instead of it being about unique and expensive objects, it is about a kind of lowest-common-denominator generic sameness. Instead of highly-crafted unique objects, it deals in almost costless digital copies. In a predictable irony, the marketing is all about the unique, soulful individuality of this generic music, communicated largely through the intricate videos:

Also very shiny...

Music as an institution is deeply rooted in our culture, though seemingly threatened by powerful economic forces. But the benefits of both a musical education and of the simple enjoyment of great music are longstanding and not likely to disappear soon. We have many fine orchestras, many fine musicians and composers and there are venues for these artists. But the surface of the musical world is so dominated by pop music in all its manifestations, that it is probably right to worry. In the 19th century there was a great expansion of the number of people in society that had some sort of musical education and understanding. Since the Second World War, with the triumph of pop music, there seems to be a shrinking of this proportion. Fewer and fewer people study piano and violin and know how to read music and perhaps (though this is not a certainty) audiences for classical music are older and older.

The recording business seems to be particularly threatened as nearly every classical music label is losing money and more and more, as large companies buy out smaller ones, it seems as if the new CEOs of the music divisions are more and more Philistine in their outlook. These Philistines sometimes present themselves as pragmatic saviors of classical music, but only on their terms of course. One figure that might stand for many is Max Hole, chairman and CEO of UMGI (International division of Universal Music Group). I previously wrote about his influence here. I don't want to single him out, as I suspect his attitudes are widely shared amongst record company executives. They are facing a difficult environment. But, just as Mr. Wilentz observes regarding the demise of The New Republic, this kind of elite "threatens both the variety and the quality of everything it touches and distributes."

Is someone like Max Hole, whose career was largely spent working with pop artists like Simply Red, likely to really sense the difference between an artist like Khatia Buniatishvili, who does all those things he thinks are important, like present a strong and passionate visual experience to the audience:

and the rather less visually-appealing, but a thousand times more profound musicality of Grigory Sokolov:

But I'm sure I have made these points before! I want to return to my opening, where Mr. Wilentz is arguing for standards in criticism and commentary. I am quite convinced that there are a great many people who, if they just had a bit of an introduction, a guide, to classical music, would derive huge enjoyment from it. What they need is informed commentary and criticism, which is one of the things I try to do here at the Music Salon, of course. But what I, and Mr. Wilentz, find deeply troubling, is that this kind of commentary seems to be fast disappearing from its traditional home in higher-quality magazines and journalism. I often comment sardonically on the quality of writing on music that we find in the mass media. Instead of helping, it is most likely harming the possibility of introducing people to better quality music.

High-brow Music

Last week I put up a post Definitions of "Classical" that attracted a lot of interesting commentary. Some of that commentary dealt with what was considered "elitism" and what that meant in musical terms. I would like to look at it from a different angle today: just what does contemporary elitism look like?

I think I have found the perfect vehicle to use to get us started. The White House is welcoming French President François Hollande to a gala state dinner today. This gives us the perfect opportunity to look at the nature of elitism as it is practiced now. France, of course is the exemplar of an elite culture as, historically, French cuisine, art, literature and music have all been celebrated as models of high art and culture. So what will this homage to the French President display? Lots of quite obvious elements and one element that is, to me, glaringly discordant. Here is the link to a news story on the event. Read the whole thing and see which element you find that does not fit with the others.

Let's run down the list:

• Garden-party tent on South Lawn, despite it being winter (a display of technological mastery)
• Greeting in Blue Room furnished with early 19th century furniture made in Paris ("Paris was the center of high-style culture," White House curator Bill Allman told reporters.)
• the interior of the tent will be a homage to a famous painting by Monet: "transformed into a spring-like scene inspired by Claude Monet's Water Lilies paintings, with quince branches in full bloom, irises, blue agapanthus and lilies."
• the menu will feature things like caviar, quail eggs, dry-aged ribeye and "Hawaiian chocolate-malted ganache, fudge made from Vermont maple syrup, and puffs of cotton candy dusted with orange zest" for dessert.
• the after-dinner music will be performed by "soul singer Mary J. Blige."

So, can you spot the discordant element? Apparently most cannot because all this was put together by people who specialize in events for the elite. Yes, of course this is an elite event as every element signals. Not just the fact that it is a state dinner, but every individual element is a marker of an elite occasion. The hosts and guests are among the most powerful people in the world and everything is crafted to harmonize with that.

The discordant element, for me, is of course the music. Here is Mary J. Blige:

That is the very first item that comes up in YouTube, so I didn't select it especially. It is generic to an extreme. Typical soul diva singing just like a hundred others, slo-mo sequences with black and white to indicate, what, seriousness? Not the thousandth time you do it. Generic accompaniment with synthesized hand-claps on the backbeat. Aerial shot of the Chrysler building in New York. This is generic commercial music with a generic commercial video just like every other one.

But every single other element in this state occasion is individual, specially-chosen and an outstanding exemplar of design, art or cuisine. The music is generic and ordinary.

So, as I am coming to see it, the fundamental problem for those of us who love "classical" or "concert" music is that there has been a basic failure of aesthetic taste on the part of our social elite. What used to take place was that high-brow critics informed us as to what high-brow taste was. "Thou shalt enjoy the symphonies of Beethoven and his ilk" and we listened and did so and it was good. But then the critics of the critics came along and told us that Beethoven was merely a symbol of the hegemony of Dead White Males and we should not "privilege" his music (or any classical music). All music is equally valid, so if we want to enjoy pop music, then So Be It.  What seems to have happened is that while this message was probably directed at the middle-brows, the high-brows were also listening, so they, that is, the elite, stopped thinking like an elite when it came to music.

The odd thing is that the elite still seem to think like an elite when it comes to visual art. Damien Hirst can pickle a shark and stick it in a tank and sell it for millions of pounds, but classical music is perceived as having no prestige value apart from how many copies it sells. Notice in the above example of the state dinner how Claude Monet is privileged by being honored in the decor and the arts of design are also mentioned in a privileging manner. But the music is ordinary commercial pop. In a different world the French President François Hollande might have been honored with an after-dinner concert of music by his namesake François Couperin, one of the jewels of French music:

But no, we have Mary J. Blige instead.

Comments, thoughts, digressions?

UPDATE: This might be overkill, but it makes the point more strongly if we keep everything the same, but change a different element to be discordant. Imagine the state dinner with everything the same, except with classical music after dinner. But imagine the dinner itself consisting of the culinary equivalent to Mary J. Blige: MacDonald's hamburgers, french fries and coke. Or what if instead of the 19th century French furniture in the Blue Room, there were white plastic garden chairs? Use your own imagination to redecorate the tent in the most generic manner.

UPPERDATE: The seeming difference is that the guests at this high-tone affair get to see the musical artist in live performance instead of video like the rest of us. But as this live performance will necessarily lack all the technological wizardry that goes into the video and soundtrack, one wonders if it will indeed be all that special...