Look Ivan, it's very simple. We don't submit ourselves to the artistic experience in the way we do, oh I don't know, an enema or a barium meal. We do those things because we know there will be a medical benefit. But art we go looking for because we enjoy it. The brain is a pleasure-seeking organ after all.
Now pleasure can be quite broadly defined, and even some Mozart is rather harrowing (Idomineo springs to mind); but broadly speaking, we like our art to be enjoyable. God knows there's plenty other stuff in life that isn't.
The public, taken as a whole, doesn't enjoy modern music very much. That's why they don't go to see it much. Have you ever actually been to the Huddersfield Festival and looked at the audience (such as it is)? The audience for modern music is a minority within the audience for classical music, which is a minority in itself. It is two men and a dog, without the dog. In diplomatic parlance, those are facts on the ground.
What about the word "modern"? In so far as the word implies "recent" or "contemporary", Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra are over a hundred years old. And most people still don't like it. So whatever else you can say, it's not modern any more, at least not in that sense. The Rite of Spring on the other hand, that last death-roar of Russian barbarism, got into the repertoire quite quickly because people liked it. Well done, Igor!
What about the word "modern"? In so far as the word implies "recent" or "contemporary", Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra are over a hundred years old. And most people still don't like it. So whatever else you can say, it's not modern any more, at least not in that sense. The Rite of Spring on the other hand, that last death-roar of Russian barbarism, got into the repertoire quite quickly because people liked it. Well done, Igor!
You would have thought the idea that if we just kept getting modernist music spoon fed to us long enough we'd suddenly start liking it had lost all traction. But no. Enthusiasts for modern music are a bit like experimental chefs. We don't like their combination of snails, engine oil and PVA glue? That's our fault. It's staying on the menu until we discover that we do like it. In fact, since we're paying for it, the argument goes, we might as well learn to enjoy it.
Well no. Tastes vary, and it's fatuous to suggest that no-one likes Boulez - some people do. Good luck to them. But don't tell me I'm a Luddite because I don't. And please don't patronise me by telling me that if only I listened to it more I would. I have listened to it, and I still don't like it. And please don't insult me by suggesting that because I don't like modernism much that's somehow my fault. Or that your tastes are somehow better than mine or - and here's the crucial point - more worthy of public subsidy.
Well no. Tastes vary, and it's fatuous to suggest that no-one likes Boulez - some people do. Good luck to them. But don't tell me I'm a Luddite because I don't. And please don't patronise me by telling me that if only I listened to it more I would. I have listened to it, and I still don't like it. And please don't insult me by suggesting that because I don't like modernism much that's somehow my fault. Or that your tastes are somehow better than mine or - and here's the crucial point - more worthy of public subsidy.
No doubt The Rest is Noise fest will be a well-attended success. There are plenty of people in London who like modernist music. The festival will have been paid for by a mixture of corporate sponsorship and tax-payers' money. Alex Ross's book is engaging and well-written, even if it falls into the usual musicologists' trap of mistaking the influential (Varese gets several pages) with the essential (Carl Nielsen, writer of two of the century's greatest symphonies, gets two sentences).
But don't be fooled. Classical music is losing its audience because the oldies don't like squeaky-gate stuff and the young prefer pop. Enjoy your job while you've still got it, Ivan. In a world of indefinite austerity, budgets are going to be squeezed and institutions closed. In case you doubt me, here is Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, writing in the same edition of the Torygraph - "The Arts Council is a body set up to ignore the public's wishes and provide an income to organisations that they would not receive through the free choices made by consumers." That gives a flavour of the times we live in.
In the face of such attitudes, I doubt classical music commands the affection and respect needed to put bums on seats and mount a tigrish defence of state subsidy.
Why not? There are many reasons, but one of them, unforgivably, is that its practitioners forgot that we the audience were meant to enjoy it.
In the face of such attitudes, I doubt classical music commands the affection and respect needed to put bums on seats and mount a tigrish defence of state subsidy.
Why not? There are many reasons, but one of them, unforgivably, is that its practitioners forgot that we the audience were meant to enjoy it.
