The Elephant in the Room

My last entry focused on concert hall acoustics and their possible impact on attendance at symphony orchestra concerts. Today I want to address the ‘elephant in the room.’

A good friend who regularly listens to classical music and a trained amateur musician said: “I stopped going to the New York Philharmonic years ago.”  “Why?” I asked.  “Because I couldn’t stand the repertoire!” he replied. His ‘unsubscription’ occurred during the Pierre Boulez era as the Philharmonic’s music director.  While serving as assistant conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra I watched, incredulously, as more than a few people walked out of the hall to the opening strains of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps.  It was 1979 - 66 years after the premiere of Le Sacre - and some people still found this score impossible to sit through.

As a former member of the Louisville Orchestra, an ensemble with a history of championing contemporary music and, sadly, currently under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, I became quite comfortable playing new compositions.  I do vividly recall the tepid applause that often followed the premieres of many of these pieces. However, I personally found the process of playing and recording new music exciting and stimulating.  I feel fortunate to have conducted recordings of the music of 21^st and 20^th century composers Frank Ezra Levy and his father Ernst with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, another ensemble with an abiding commitment to new music.

I would never advocate that orchestras abandon new music. Nor do I think they should stop programming dissonant, old repertoire such as Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin.   I believe new art in all media must be encouraged and supported.  But think about this.  Popular composers and performers – ever since that moment when classical composers took the leap away from tonality – have never released continuously dissonant pop songs.  What sort of careers would Frank Sinatra or Beyoncé have had if they had recorded such material?

There are those who believe human beings are genetically programmed for tonality and, on some primal level, incapable of processing continuous dissonance.  If you wish to pursue this discussion, some of the latest thoughts from the scientific community on the subject may be found in Elena Mannes’s fascinating new book, The Power of Music (Walker & Company). 

One last anecdote.  I was in Carnegie Hall one evening eagerly awaiting a performance by the Vienna Philharmonic.  Seated next to me was a young couple in their late 20’s who announced to me that this was their very first symphony orchestra concert.  The program began with a work by Anton Webern.  After the muted applause, the young man next to me turned and whispered: “Is it always like this?  I think we’ll leave.”   I whispered back: “Since it’s your first concert, why not stay for Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 on the second half?  I think you’ll like it.”  They did and, despite the dissonant passages to be found in Mahler’s 1^st, were swept away by the incredible power of this music.

The ‘elephant in the room’ is not dissonance in music.  Dissonance has musically been with us for thousands of years!  In my opinion the ‘elephant in the room’ is the apparent inability of many people to tolerate continuous dissonance.  Even many seasoned concertgoers just can’t deal with it. Some individuals avoid symphony orchestra concerts when they have the slightest suspicion such a work may be played.  How many people like my friend have just stopped going?  If in more than a century audiences haven’t acclimated to continuously dissonant music, when do we expect the breakthrough moment will arrive?

Today, when many American professional symphony orchestras are fighting for their very survival and hoping to maintain - let alone increase - audiences, they must come to terms with ‘the elephant in the room.’  Performances of new tonal works will probably be welcome, and many orchestras have been programming such compositions.

Perhaps The Discovery Orchestra’s mission of ‘teaching the listening skills that help people emotionally connect with classical music’ will assist some individuals in understanding and identifying with a few of the highly dissonant masterpieces of the 20^th century.  We will persist. Visit us! http://bit.ly/bZ1Vsc   

Any other suggestions?

Can You Hear Me Now?

I grew up listening to the fabled sound of The Philadelphia Orchestra.  As musicians, we work diligently to achieve a certain sound on our instruments or with our voices.  Here’s the rub.  If one is performing on an acoustic instrument, the room in which we’re performing is part of our sound.

In the early 80’s I took a teenage piano student to a pair of orchestral concerts.  The first featured the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall performing the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition.  After the bombastic final movement, Jeremy turned and said: “How come my stereo can play louder than the New York Philharmonic?”

The second featured the American Symphony Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in a pre-renovated Carnegie Hall.   Our seats were in the ‘nosebleed’ balcony at Carnegie where Jeremy was ‘blown away’ by the sound of this incredible work…as one would have hoped he would have been by Pictures.

While there are many opinions regarding ideal acoustics in a concert space, the following are properties I look for as a performer and as an audience member: 

Enough decay time to permit the blending of sounds and ease of playing.  The acoustics of a cathedral may be so ambient that clarity is completely lost.  But if a space is utterly dead, all sounds are unblended and one has to struggle to shape every musical phrase.  It’s far better to play and listen in a space in which sound decays over time rather than stops dead in its tracks!

Some natural boosting of low frequencies.  If a concert hall does not slightly favor the bass end of the spectrum, performances sound ‘ungrounded’ with the high frequencies dominating.  Some people, without knowing why, would say that a hall that favors bass frequencies sounds “rich” to them - as opposed to the sound of a hall that does not, which they might describe as “thin” or “too bright.”

Loudness.  If 110 musicians are playing the final moments of Respighi’s Pines of Rome as loudly as they humanly can, audience members throughout the concert hall should physically feel vibrations in their bodies!   With the help of electronic amplification, people can and do experience this phenomenon at rock concerts or from the car next to them while stopped at traffic lights, or even from their own home ‘stereo’ to quote Jeremy.

Can we really expect people who have grown up with electronically enhanced music to come on more than one disappointing occasion to listen to a large symphony orchestra that – because of the room they are playing in – cannot physically excite them with the very SOUND of their playing?   

Financially, this is one the most difficult matters to address regarding shrinking audiences at symphony orchestra concerts.  Do we build another hall after spending one hundred million or more dollars to build the one we’re in?  Move to another location?  Go back to the old concert hall - if it hasn’t already been torn down?

Short of gutting and rebuilding our new concert halls, what can we do if we do not have the luxury of performing regularly in an optimal acoustical setting like that of the Vienna Musikverein or the Amsterdam Concertgebouw?  I think we must come to grips with at least one option, albeit abhorrent to purists. Sophisticated computerized electronic enhancement  is now available to ‘fix’ our performing art centers and give them the desired acoustical properties. It may be the only cost-effective way to address this issue.   

The Philadelphia Orchestra - Rest In Peace?

How are we to digest the news that one of the greatest orchestras in the United States and the world has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection?  How especially are those of us who grew up listening to this wonderful orchestra perform under Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski to react?  How might those of us who studied with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra respond?  In a few words…not well.

It is unlikely that The Philadelphia Orchestra will just go away.  I don’t for a minute think that any of the current stakeholders - orchestra members, staff, board, audience or contributors - will “go gentle into that good night.”   We must remember that the word ‘protection’ in a Chapter 11 filing means having the opportunity to reorganize and continue functioning while not being hounded by creditors.

However, The Philadelphia Orchestra that comes out on the other side of this process will be changed.  One group that will certainly be affected by that change is the membership of the orchestra.  Those of us who trained at American music schools and conservatories over the last fifty years and have played in professional symphony orchestras under agreements negotiated by the American Federation of Musicians have enjoyed a generally upward trend in compensation and benefits. This has all taken place within the inspiring but precarious economic framework (see: Is Classical Music Dying?) in which “philanthropically inclined individuals must annually contribute the 50%-80% gap between ticket revenue and the actual cost of producing the concerts.”

Do I think the musicians of the great orchestras of the world deserve to earn very respectable annual salaries with full health and retirement benefits?   You bet I do!  But whether our American society as a whole believes that is quite another matter.  Certainly in the case of Philadelphia, the question remains: Is there locally sufficient annually contributed income to support a full-time symphony orchestra with a 52-week season?

In the current economic malaise, we are told by our political leaders that ‘the state’ or ‘the municipality’ cannot even afford to continue to pay respectable salaries and benefits to policemen, firemen and teachers.  We should be mindful that even though all of these individuals provide invaluable, priceless services to us - policemen, firemen, artists, musicians and teachers do not work in the profit-making sector.  Yet, what monetary value are we to place on one who saves our life or immeasurably changes our life for the good?

Another question is whether there are enough regular concert audience members in Philadelphia to fill the seats over a 52-week season.  Allison Vulgamore, president and chief executive officer of The Philadelphia Orchestra, alluded to this when she cited the "tremendous decline" in audiences over the past five years.  We might blame this on current economic conditions, but the recession cannot be the only stressor in the equation.  In my next blog entries I will write about other factors that have contributed to the decline in symphony orchestra concert attendance in the United States – and what we may be able to do to begin reversing this trend!

 

The More We Perceive...The More We Receive

 My mentor Saul Feinberg once said those words in my presence. I nodded in assent, to which he added, “Feel free to use that.”   I have and I do.  Saul’s distillation of what happens when we give our undivided attention to anything has many ramifications.  I suppose a case might be made that to remain in a constant state of attentiveness could result in sensory overload!  However, the selective use of this behavior can definitely result in a life very rich in pleasurable, meaningful and even important observations.

This adoption of a perceptive state of mind should by no means be limited to sound.  I recall that on a visit to Africa, our tracker, who’d been sitting on a special seat on the front bumper, abruptly relocated himself to a seat safely next to our driver.  He then turned his head toward us and whispered, “Large cat nearby.”  His perceptive eyes, ears and probably sense of smell had obviously detected something we had not!

Think about how important our visual perception of tiny eye movements, eyebrow twitches and lip quivers are as they are projected toward us by our spouses, parents, children, siblings and close friends.  If we do not perceive these subtle signals…

Hearing is, of course, that miraculous sense by which sound waves enter the ear canal, set tiny hairs, bones and liquid in motion and, after being transmitted electronically over nerve tissue, are then “translated” by our brain into things like words and music.  Gives one goosebumps just to think about it!

Listening, however, is paying attention to those sounds being heard by our physical apparatus – an apparatus which percussionist Evelyn Glennie has beautifully shown us extends way beyond our ears!  This state of auditory mindfulness probably has a thousand of degrees of acuity that can be dialed up and down by human beings at will – all the way from ‘barely noticing anything’ to ‘observing every detail.’

We are all capable of applying that full range of mindfulness to musical sounds physically produced in real time outside us.   And, like composers, we can also apply this mindful-state to the details of music “heard” only virtually in our heads.  It really makes no difference whether we are dealing with virtual-imagined music or actual physical sound waves.  The listening all takes place “between our ears” in the brain and simultaneously “amplified” or felt throughout our central nervous and endocrine systems.  

One thing is certain. The more musical detail we perceive…the richer, the more powerful will be the aesthetic experience we receive from listening!

The Good News

In 1960, when I left St. Peter’s Choir School in Philadelphia and entered the local public school…Abraham Lincoln High School, populated by some 5,000 students grades eight through twelve - it was a shock on many levels.  After being with just thirty-nine other boys for several years the presence of girls, for sure, was among the interesting differences.   The sheer number of students was also a source of terror at times.  I’d never been in a building with so many other people!

But, the biggest surprise of all occurred one day during lunch.  I ventured out of the cafeteria down the corridor toward the music wing of the complex.  The school had a separate two-story structure for music classrooms, practice rooms and large rehearsal spaces.  The choirs, bands and orchestras  - yes, there were plural numbers of all of those in many schools during the heyday of Philadelphia public school music education - could make all the “noise” their hearts desired without disturbing any academic classrooms. 

What caught my attention, emanating from one of the classrooms, was the Finale of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 From the New World.  It was not the music that was so intriguing, but the fact that “not a peep” of student noise could be detected.  I was already well aware of the kind of negativity about classical music rampant among my peers in my hometown neighborhood.  Yet these eighth grade students were obviously sitting in total silence!  Had someone bound and gagged them?  Why were they not destroying the classroom or at least hurling paper airplanes at each other and talking?

I sat down on the floor outside the door.  Then appeared Dr. Saul Feinberg, who commented:  “Might you be more comfortable sitting in a chair?”  I took a seat in the back of the classroom as this powerful music that had so moved me before I had even entered Kindergarten poured out of the large wall-mounted speakers.  “This music teacher” I thought to myself “must be some kind of magician!” 

Because I was a member of one of the choirs, I was exempt from taking Dr. Feinberg’s “Perceptive Listening” course as he called it - as opposed to “Music Appreciation.”  During the 1960’s, the school curriculum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania still required that everyone in grades eight and nine have two weekly periods of “General Music.”  (This requirement has long since been excised.) What “General Music” may have consisted of in many schools I do not know, but Saul Feinberg had taken this bull by the horns and turned it into something very special indeed.  Over the many lunch periods I spent auditing Saul’s classes, I observed and absorbed a great deal, and later became one of Saul’s piano students. It is certainly safe to say that I learned everything I know about teaching music listening from him. 

Saul carefully documented his work with anonymous surveys of student opinion.  Over the course of two semesters he would take a group of typical Lincoln High School students with about 95% of them having negative attitudes toward classical music and facilitate a 180-degree positive attitudinal turn around in 70% or more of the class – year after year.  It was nothing short of miraculous!   

Saul Feinberg’s insightful problem-solving methodology informs The Discovery Orchestra’s approach to teaching the music listening skills that help people emotionally connect with classical music.  Saul demonstrated to us what can be done to encourage this kind of intense personal relationship with music though perceptive listening.   It is our passionate mission that through our weekly Discovery Chats on YouTube (http://bit.ly/gJoeJK), American Public Television broadcasts of Discover Beethoven’s 5th© (http://bit.ly/h9pWmQ) and future productions, The Discovery Orchestra® may emulate Saul's success and, as he did over his long career, make a real difference in the lives of many individuals.

Is Classical Music Dying?

A segment of the blogoshere is filled with discussion these days about what’s happening to classical music, often emphasizing the precarious financial condition in which professional classical music organizations currently find themselves.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 2008 Survey reports that attendance at concerts has declined.  This should not surprise us.  Our society has not been training classical music appreciators in any great numbers in the classroom or elsewhere.  The percentage of the US population that might be characterized as “hardcore” classical music devotees is also aging, according to the NEA.  And the recession makes it difficult for those inclined to buy tickets to afford them – this without even touching on the increased competition for our leisure time created by devices such as programmable televisions and PC’s.

We read of the Honolulu Symphony’s Chapter 7 demise, Louisville Orchestra’s Chapter 11 filing and the recent cancellation of the remainder of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s 2010-11 season.  But it must be also noted that other orchestras are somehow riding out this difficult time.  It really depends on where you live.

 

We must be mindful of the economic premise on which all professional classical music performance in the USA is based. It boils down to this…are there enough philanthropically inclined individuals in your town desirous and able to annually contribute the 50%-80% gap between ticket revenue and the actual cost of producing the concerts?  This is a frightening business model even under the best economic conditions.  But in the scenario described above, as a friend recently noted, we have what is perhaps “The Perfect Storm” in which some classical music entities are going down - hopefully not forever.  The larger question is: Can we sustain this model of financing professional classical music concerts into the indefinite future?  The jury is still out.

But as for the music itself and the manner in which it is presented, there is also endless talk about what’s wrong with classical music.  “It’s too old!  It’s too Eurocentric!  It’s not visual enough!  It needs giant screen projections like popular music concerts. Symphony orchestra members should dress down in jeans!”  For two decades, all manner of window-dressing ideas have been suggested and implemented to alter the presentation of professional classical music concerts.  To date, none of these measures appears to have slowed the steady decline in attendance or attracted many newcomers.

I find the argument about the age of a piece of music to be one of most specious.  If you saw a necklace and really liked it, wanted it, and price was not a consideration - would it really matter if it had been crafted in 2011, 1954, 1736 or the year 300 BCE?  It is totally irrelevant when a work of art is created if it speaks to us - and that has much more to do with our "aesthetic conditioning" than the work of art itself.

Is classical music dying?  I’d like to think that were there just one human being left on the planet who was moved by this music, the flame would still flicker.  Thankfully, there are yet many appreciators.  But we must not kid ourselves - most of the US population remains largely uninvolved with this music because they simply don’t know how affected by it they could be!  Are there effective pathways to reach and encourage more individuals to become avid, daily classical music listeners?  And not because we might save symphony orchestras at this time - which sadly may be beyond our grasp  – but for the life-changing effect it will have on the individuals themselves!   This is the quest of The Discovery Orchestra.

What is Maullaria?

The term “Maullaria” was coined by a young student of mine in the early 1980s who had a T-Shirt made which stated: “I have Maullaria.”   Amused, years later I decided to use it to describe the state induced in me by music listening.

And what is that state? In attempting to describe it, I can only scratch the surface of what is one the most riveting states I can attain by any means…one that I purposely induce every day because it feels so good!

As I mentioned in my first blog entry, The Opening Chord, I was nine when I became aware that other people could apparently be in this state – or not – as the case may be.  But on one very special day when I was four I was home with my great aunt Edna.  In the mail had arrived a 33 1/3 RPM LP vinyl recording of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World.  My mother, Helen Jordan Maull, an accomplished pianist and accompanist, had ordered it.

Aunt Edna got out the Gimbel Brothers department store chain (I’m showing my age) brand monophonic, portable record player.  I remember this device well because the tone arm was not grounded properly, and it would give you a slight electro-shock when you touched it a certain way.  Aunt Edna put on the record.

Seated on the living room floor, I felt like I was being electrocuted by the music.  This, my first - at least first self-aware - time listening to a symphony orchestra was overwhelming!  The timbres of the instruments, the sound of all the violins playing so high, the dynamic effects…I was weeping, experiencing goose bumps in my neck.  It seemed that the music was playing me as though I were an instrument.   I felt as though my heart and head would burst, yet, at the same time I wanted this moment to never end.  And when it did, I felt a new completeness - wholeness - I'd never felt before...all of this caused by giving my undivided attention to some abstract musical sounds with no words! 

Has this happened to you while listening to music?  If you’re reading this blog, my guess is that it probably has.  You already have “Maullaria” or more precisely, “YourName-aria” because it describes your own personal, intense emotional response evoked by music listening.  And if you’re like me, having once been in this state – having been so powerfully moved – you have probably gone back to this wellspring often to repeat this intensely satisfying experience.  In my life there are two periods: Before Dvorak (BD) and After Dvorak (AD).  I don’t remember much from the BD period, but AD things have never been the same.