How should one go about introducing a dyed in the wool rider of war horses to the world of unsung composers?
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Which war horses? Even those who love the core repertoire usually prefer some composers over others. Does the person love Bach and Mahler and Rachmaninoff equally?
I've found that the best approach is to put a piece of music which you love on in the background, Spohr or Lachner in your case I guess John, without mentioning that they won't know it. It's a great mistake to say "You won't know this but I think it's great" or to be evangelical about it. Wait until they say "What's this?" and then you can start the conversation, but gently. Be patient. People who think that all forgotten music is forgotten for a good reason are often hard nuts to crack. Better let them discover the joys of the unsung with just some diffident low key help from you.
Thanks Mark, that sounds to me as being a very sensible course of action.
....on the other hand there are some genuinely adventurous and open-minded folk out there (I know some!) who simply don't know much music beyond the standard repertoire and react very favourably to having their horizons extended.
I have tried the Moszkowski piano concerto in the background, leading to (fairly!) enthusiastic responses of " what was that"? So, perhaps your subtle approach works, Mark. Perhaps don't start with the Garafalo Syymphony:)(fun though it be)Steve
Following on from Amphissa and Marks useful contributions to this debate, I've now thought up some suggestions for riders of various warhorses:-
(1) for Mozart enthusiasts I'd go for Josef Netzer's 1st Symphony.
(2) for Beethoven enthusiasts, any of Ferdinand Ries's earlier symphonies or piano concertos.
(3)for Mendelssohn buffs, how about Sterndale Bennett's 4th piano concerto?
(4) for Brahmsians, there seem to be plenty of choice including Parry's 4th symphony, Rontgen's 3rd Symphony and Gernsheim's 1st symphony, to say nothing of the myriad chamber works by many of Brahms's followers.
(5) for Mahler buffs we'd need to include Hans Rott's Symphony in E upon which Mahler modelled his own 1st Symphony 10 years after.
Try as I may, I can fault none of those, John! Alan's point is well made. I was just assuming that the question implied the likelihood of resistance to something new.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 16 October 2010, 10:31
....on the other hand there are some genuinely adventurous and open-minded folk out there (I know some!) who simply don't know much music beyond the standard repertoire and react very favourably to having their horizons extended.
Even non-classical fanatics have reacted very well when I've played sonatas by Robert Fuchs in the background, I've noticed. (I recommend chamber and piano music when not around people who are determined classical music fans, though :)) And found new friends, possibly, for Magnard's (in Plasson's recordings yet ... !!) and Melartin's symphonies in other contexts- but anyway.
Eric
There is only a certain amount that one can do for those people who seem to fear to tread outside of the norm. I do think that playing them something and not telling them who the composer is could work in some cases, as some might "switch off" at the mention of a composer that is unknown to them.
Over the years, I appear almost to have reached the other end of the spectrum, where I will not listen/play something if the composer is well known. To play something that has probably not been played for 100 years is appealing to me, but probably not for professional pianists that need to sell CD's and put bums on concert hall sets.
There are some etudes by Goria sitting on my piano, so i'm off.
Thal
Quote from: thalbergmad on Sunday 17 October 2010, 00:10...and put bums on concert hall sets.
There's a double entendre here that shouldn't be missed. Unless you don't refer to indigents as "bums" in the UK. ;D
Quote from: eschiss1 on Saturday 16 October 2010, 22:49
And found new friends, possibly, for Magnard's (in Plasson's recordings yet ... !!)
At least all four are now recorded and easily available, thought quite why these high points of French symphonic literature (especially the latter two) are so rarely aired in public performance I have less than no idea. Magnard was one of the major figures in French music from the generation of Debussy and Ravel, along with Koechlin and Roussel (of whom the latter also composed four symphonies, the latter two of which are splendid, but at least they do get played!).
Quote from: ahinton on Sunday 17 October 2010, 07:15
Quote from: eschiss1 on Saturday 16 October 2010, 22:49
And found new friends, possibly, for Magnard's (in Plasson's recordings yet ... !!)
At least all four are now recorded and easily available, thought quite why these high points of French symphonic literature (especially the latter two) are so rarely aired in public performance I have less than no idea. Magnard was one of the major figures in French music from the generation of Debussy and Ravel, along with Koechlin and Roussel (of whom the latter also composed four symphonies, the latter two of which are splendid, but at least they do get played!).
and the 2nd of Koechlin's symphonies, anyway, should, even though it's arranged or largely arranged from various earlier works. It's striking and well worth one's time!
As far as I know the first two Magnard symphonies are only in manuscript (photocopies of which have been scanned into imslp.org , but performers and performances still need parts...) - I'm not sure whether the estate, or a publisher, or something, controls who has access to existing manuscript parts etc. ... at least his 3rd and 4th symphonies exist in accessible study scores, etc. They aren't performed often, but maybe a little more often.
I regret that I will be missing his Bérénice next year in NYC but I am so glad it will be produced (I don't recall disliking Botstein performances I've heard here and there so I won't even put in a pro forma bit about any mixed feelings about Botstein as seems indeed to
be ... etc.)
And the 4th symphony reminds me - intending nothing at all negative by the comparison, rather the contrary really- of movies that have to be seen on the big screen and not on video; I've only heard it on tape and radio, but there are effects in it - and other things - that seem practically physical and that I am quite sure have their full effect in live concert (e.g. in the first movement, the chromatic wind and brass call when the music moves into 12/8 - page 9? of the score, it seems, downloaded from imslp.org again.) They're plenty impressive on recording, mind, I just keep imagining what it would be like to hear that live :) (and I wonder why I missed an opportunity to hear one of Magnard's symphonies a bit back in NYC - finances and work I expect, but still.)
(All the number of times I heard Mahler 5 on radio and on CD enabled me to learn the piece, more or less, after a first unsatisfactory live hearing, but a second live performance (by a school orchestra...) became the memory to really treasure. Not the best comparison, I suppose.)
Eric
Quote from: eschiss1 on Sunday 17 October 2010, 07:56
Quote from: ahinton on Sunday 17 October 2010, 07:15
Quote from: eschiss1 on Saturday 16 October 2010, 22:49
And found new friends, possibly, for Magnard's (in Plasson's recordings yet ... !!)
At least all four are now recorded and easily available, thought quite why these high points of French symphonic literature (especially the latter two) are so rarely aired in public performance I have less than no idea. Magnard was one of the major figures in French music from the generation of Debussy and Ravel, along with Koechlin and Roussel (of whom the latter also composed four symphonies, the latter two of which are splendid, but at least they do get played!).
and the 2nd of Koechlin's symphonies, anyway, should, even though it's arranged or largely arranged from various earlier works. It's striking and well worth one's time!
As far as I know the first two Magnard symphonies are only in manuscript (photocopies of which have been scanned into imslp.org , but performers and performances still need parts...) - I'm not sure whether the estate, or a publisher, or something, controls who has access to existing manuscript parts etc. ... at least his 3rd and 4th symphonies exist in accessible study scores, etc. They aren't performed often, but maybe a little more often.
All four are available on CD; see http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=210871&source=CLOFO#review.
Alan is absolutely right on - many folks simply don't know any better. If they listen to public radio here in the States, they might. But they surely won't learn it in the concert hall.
Friday night, after a fire alarm evacuated Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis (a short in the elevator) we got a Rossini Overture, Dvorak 8th and the Cello Concerto of William Walton. Now, on Saturday, how many of the 2000 listeners will remember ANYTHING about the concerto? Except that it wasn't particularly pleasant listening. I kept thinking,, why not one of Julius Klengel's concertos? Or Emil Hartmann? Or even Victor Herbert?
And it goes onand on, season after season. For 50 years I've tried to get them to do Dream of Gerontius - without succcess. And that doesn't even put them into "unsung" territory.
Quote from: jerfilm on Sunday 17 October 2010, 15:53
Alan is absolutely right on - many folks simply don't know any better. If they listen to public radio here in the States, they might. But they surely won't learn it in the concert hall.
Friday night, after a fire alarm evacuated Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis (a short in the elevator) we got a Rossini Overture, Dvorak 8th and the Cello Concerto of William Walton. Now, on Saturday, how many of the 2000 listeners will remember ANYTHING about the concerto? Except that it wasn't particularly pleasant listening. I kept thinking,, why not one of Julius Klengel's concertos? Or Emil Hartmann? Or even Victor Herbert?
And it goes onand on, season after season. For 50 years I've tried to get them to do Dream of Gerontius - without succcess. And that doesn't even put them into "unsung" territory.
huh? ... about the
Walton concerto??? ok...never mind, topic for another conversation.
Last weekend, I had an unexpected hugely gratifying experience. I was asked to provide questions (with examples of music) to a 'ludicrously difficult' pub quiz a friend was organising. The aim was to seek out the corners of people's knowledge (Mark, maybe an idea to try here too?). Not only was there a lot more knowledge available than I had thought (there were actually THREE people who knew of Hendrik Waelput's Flute Concerto), but quite a few people (out of the fifty-or-so attendants) came up to me afterwards asking for details on the various bits I'd played (most of the fragments in the quiz were very short, but I played longer excerpts when giving the answers) and where they might buy or download the music. Especially Rangström's Divertimento Elegiaco seemed to draw a lot of fans. It just shows that the device you use to reach people is everything; getting them to be receptive, that's the trick.
As a manager and promoter of concerts here in the UK for more than 30 years, this is a problem that has had me pulling my metaphorical hair out time and time again. Most casual audience members (even regular ones) are lazy and ultra-conservative. Those that might lap-up a new novel or play, eagerly attend a new exhibition of visual art or queue-up for hours to see a rarely-screened or new film are the very same people who run a mile rather than listen to some 'new' music. I don't necessarily mean new 'contemporary' music, but ANY music they haven't heard before (and perish the thought they should actually entertain listening to the music of a COMPOSER they haven't heard of!).
The dreaded words "I know what I like and like what I know" have me reaching for the disemboweling knife. People have to hold me back. No, really! I have asked these people "Were you born knowing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons or the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto? No, of course you weren't!". I wonder what leads these people to think that most composers only wrote a handful of works. Or that these composers had no lesser-known (bit not necessarily less good) contemporaries? I tell these people that they had to hear The Four Seasons for the first time at one point in their life. Before that, they didn't know it; they didn't know ANY music once upon a time. So, why are they reluctant to hear 'new' pieces after a certain amount of time?
I once ran a chamber orchestra in London which specialised in 'audacious' programmes ('audacious' being the word given to our concerts by the then managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra, who wrote to us expressly to congratulate us on our new season). On one occasion I placed Haydn's 70th Symphony (in itself a rather daring choice!) alongside an equally colourful work by another Hungarian-born composer - Melodien by Ligeti. After the concert, many people admitted enjoying the Ligeti. They would never have dreamed of hearing it if it had not been foisted upon them in the middle of an otherwise relatively 'harmless' programme. But they LIKED it (not all of them, admittedly).
With another orchestra I inserted works by composers like Enescu, Gerald Finzi and Heino Eller into programmes. People loved these works (and the orchestra were particularly grateful for having some decent new music to play!), but would never have listened to them unless someone like me 'fooled' them into doing so. I have even programmed 'unsung' works by very well known composers (eg the lovely little Tantum ergo K197 by Mozart and the Concerti a due cori by Handel).
The majority of orchestras in the UK (and particuarly in London) are boring, unadventurous and 'safe' to the point that I hardly ever bother going anymore. There are exceptions, of course, but these are comparatively rare. They are worried about getting 'bums on seats' but, in programming the same tired old warhorses time after time, they are perpetuating a most unsatisfactory situation; they are encouraging the 'lazy listeners', as I call them.
I think the stealthy 'drip feed' approach needs to be adopted by ALL performers. this way, people will get to recognise the names of the composers they never knew before and appreciate that, instead of a few dozen great works to hear, there are THOUSANDS.
I've seen the concert schedules of orchestras in the UK (as listed in places like the Musical Times and BBC Music Magazine at least), though, and compared them to those I know in the US- give me those in the UK (especially in the London area) any day. Relatively speaking.
Eric
I guess what amuses me is that at least here in Minnesota, the orchestra is perfectly willing to program new "music" by contemporary (and often unheard of) composers full of percussion clanking, squeaking violins and sliding trombones but refuse to program "new" (to the audience at least) works by unsung 19th century composers - music that I suspect is more likely to be enjoyed and remembered by a higher percentage of the audience.
But then it's probably just as well - I would most surely drop dead of a heart attack if I were to pick up next season's program listings and discover a Raff symphony or a Ries piano concerto.....
I would undoubtedly fall into DM's catagory of "conservative" music lovers -I don't care for "music" that makes absolutely no sense to me. But I am willing to listen to and purchase every new CD of works by Romantic era composers.
I guess the overall ethic of going to concerts has something to do with it. A painting you can ignore, a film you can walk out of; but in the case of a concert you're locked in a hall with a thousand or more people all scrutinising each other to see whether everyone is serious enough. The Concertgebouw here in Amsterdam, for instance, has a series that never strays beyond the confines of the iron repertory because they know the audience is there for social just as much as musical reasons. It also explains why the CD-buying public is so different from the concert-going one.