Classical music's graying and shrinking audience - a new answer

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Peter:
No I don't think the price is anything to do with it - there are plenty of recitals at very cheap prices indeed. In my hometown there is a series of lunchtime concerts by very talented student musicians for free and you are hard put to spot anyone (other than the performers) under 25! This is in a city that boasts 3 universities!
And as has already been pointed out classical cds are often cheaper than pop, yet the classical departments in most stores are diminishing rapidly....

I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that these lunchtime events are chamber music concerts. With all respect to chamber music, a concert with an orchestra, or a part of a colorful opera, even if skimpily produced, would have more chance of bringing new people in. You'd want to make the more interesting or exciting impression when trying to attact new attention.

I think the CD dept. reference is putting the cart before the horse. An interest in live concerts would stimulate interest in CDs.

There is still the issue, which nobody has responded to, of the crowds at the museums for old master shows. The current El Greco show here is very well attended by all ages, and he died before Purcell was born.
Same result at a Velazquez show earlier in 2003, and a Vermeer show earlier than that. If young people are so stuck in the pop present, and so disdainful of the cultural past, why do they pack these shows?

A compromise on concert seating would let the well-off people continue to pay high prices, and subsidize a certain number of cheap but good seats at every concert, and those seats would be limited to people below age 25, or 30. With appropriate publicity.

I agree that education would help.


[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited January 16, 2004).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that these lunchtime events are chamber music concerts. With all respect to chamber music, a concert with an orchestra, or a part of a colorful opera, even if skimpily produced, would have more chance of bringing new people in. You'd want to make the more interesting or exciting impression when trying to attact new attention.

I think the CD dept. reference is putting the cart before the horse. An interest in live concerts would stimulate interest in CDs.

There is still the issue, which nobody has responded to, of the crowds at the museums for old master shows. The current El Greco show here is very well attended by all ages, and he died before Purcell was born.
Same result at a Velazquez show earlier in 2003, and a Vermeer show earlier than that. If young people are so stuck in the pop present, and so disdainful of the cultural past, why do they pack these shows?

A compromise on concert seating would let the well-off people continue to pay high prices, and subsidize a certain number of cheap but good seats at every concert, and those seats would be limited to people below age 25, or 30. With appropriate publicity.

I agree that education would help.


[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited January 16, 2004).]

Yes the lunchtime recitals are either solo or chamber, however symphony concerts are available for around £10 which is very reasonable. Even the most expensive seat for the Missa Solemnis at the Festival Hall in London this May with the London Philharmonic is only £35 (an event Bernard and I shall be attending!). It is only with Opera and particularly Glyndebourne and Covent Garden in the UK that the prices are astronomical. Even with opera you can get cheap seats at the Colloseum. My point is that money really isn't an issue - I think Steppenwolf did address the art museum comparison and I think it is simply that painting and sculpture do not have anything like the image problem affecting classical music - you are not seen as uncool or ancient if you like Vermeer, in fact art has become kind of trendy! There is a much more fundamental problem with music. Art doesn't have anything like the pop equivalent or the mass media hype that classical music is competing with. I guarantee that if Covent Garden were free, there would be no change in the situation - the issues go much deeper than finance.


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'Man know thyself'

[Tegan]

I don't think it's just music. The arts in general are decaying pretty rapidly, along with the education system. I know alot of people who say they like classical music, and if you ask them a simple question, like "who are your favorite composers", they stare at you as though they didn't know there was more than one. I'll be eighteen tomorrow, and I love classical music. It is the only kind of music I listen to, which makes people think I am narrow-minded. I'm not, I just have a personal preference for classical music. I never feel that classical music is limited, and I have to laugh when people say it all sounds the same. I think Pable Casals was right when he said "Perhaps it is music that will save the world". The world certainly needs to be saved by something.

[Beyond Within]

"i dont l1k3 classikal beecuz their r no . songs"

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
"i dont l1k3 classikal beecuz their r no . songs"

Funny thing is, the above attitude it's actually true.

I mean, let's face, even Rock'n'Roll it's too complex for most people, let alone Classical, it's a lost cause.

Price cuts won't do anything, we need to better our education and cultural patrimony, PERIOD.

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
. With all respect to chamber music, a concert with an orchestra, or a part of a colorful opera, even if skimpily produced, would have more chance of bringing new people in.

At a recent arts festival in Edinburgh, which is attended a large proportion of young 20-something people, apparently one amature operatic group put on, for free, a performance of Gotterdamerung. They did a lot to promote it and to encourage people to come along, but hardly anyone did. I think the theater was pratically empty.

I know this is only an anecdotal example, on in isolation it doesn't prove anything, but if I looked hard enough I am sure I could find plenty of others.

The problem cuts far deeper than ticket costs.

I recently saw a poster, in London, advertising a new performance of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti, which was quite interesting, because it was 'sexed up' to look like some steamy sexy action thriller. In desperation the classical music industry is trying everything ... from marketing a group of nubile classical 'spice girls', playing sexy quartets with wet T-Shirts on a beach ('Bond' ... remember them?), to having 'top ten' classical music 'charts' - effectively putting classical music into a pop-music package, as if CM needs a pop-package in order to justify its existence! Oh dear! whatever next ... I suppose live sex scenes on stage in operas might be worth a shot ...

[This message has been edited by Steppenwolf (edited January 17, 2004).]

[Amalie]

My husband and I attended Gluck's Opera, 'Orfeo' a couple of years ago at the English National Opera- and in one of the scenes, the dance of the spirits, the cast, men and women, were completely stark naked. Though the dance was very graceful, and I think from artistic point of view a ladies naked form looks curvacious and graceful.
I remain very open minded, so long as it is done in an intelligent and artistic way.
The age group in the audience was very mixed , young and old. But I didn't see any one reaching for their opera glasses to get a closer look.

Michelangelo's sculpture of 'David' is very artistic and one of the greatest statues in the world.




[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 17, 2004).]

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Amalie:

I remain very open minded, so long as it is done in an intelligent and artistic way.

Michelangelo's sculpture of 'David' is very artistic and one of the greatest statues in the world.

I agree completely. I am all for (genuine) erotic art - it can be sublime - for instance in the classical music world, the wonderful, thrilling eroticism of a work such as Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, or Ravel's Bolero.

I only object when cheap gimmicks - be they sexual or otherwise - are used in order to 'market' or sell high art, put it in a package, in an attempt to make it 'relevant', and to appeal to a modern audience brainwashed by tawdry pop culture. Haydn's string quartets don't NEED a couple of sexy, semi-clad babes with wet T-shirts jumping around playing violins in the surf ... that's just silly, and it has nothing to do with what makes the music great ... to put such works into a package like that is to degrade them, by sending out the message that high art needs that sort of gimmicky stuff in order to be worthwhile.



[This message has been edited by Steppenwolf (edited January 17, 2004).]

[Amalie]

I agree with everything you have said on this thread Steppenwolf.

I would like to reiterate that- brain dead 'Pop' culture, Thrash Metal, Gorfest, Sepulchure, Pantera, Murder Dolls, A Thousand Dead, to name a few, totally degrades the human condition.
All have a warped sick obsession with sex and death. Yes, there is a culture of death out there!




[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 17, 2004).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Amalie:
I agree with everything you have said on this thread Steppenwolf.

I would like to reiterate that- brain dead 'Pop' culture, Thrash Metal, Gorfest, Sepulchure, Pantera, Murder Dolls, A Thousand Dead, to name a few, totally degrades the human condition.
All have a warped sick obsession with sex and death. Yes, there is a culture of death out there!

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 17, 2004).]

I can't get any classical fans to join my Handel site even when they get free music? So who is warped?

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Rod:
I can't get any classical fans to join my Handel site even when they get free music? So who is warped?

Rod, I presume you are English? And therefore I presume you have made a pilgrimage (perhaps many) to Handel's house museum near Soho in London.

At the beginning of the tour around his house, they sit you all down and make you watch a video, which tells a bit about Handel's life and music, etc. And in one clip - in the introduction - they play some of Handel's music to a film of some teenagers - probably drugged to the eyeballs on ecstasy - jumping up and down in what looks like a rave party.

Being young myself, I often sucumb to peer pressure and go to nightclubs like that, and I can assure you the music that is played is nothing like Handel's! So why try to make a connection between the two, when there is none? What for? It seems bizare and ridiculous. Ditto my comments above about this silly idea the high culture needs to be 'packaged' in the trappings of tawdry pop culture, as if it needs those trappings in order to justify its existence. It is a lame and pathetic attempt to make high art into something which it is not, and its not going to make teenagers or young people respect it anymore, quite the opposite - since it sends out the message that pop culture really is superior, because it needs to be immitated. Handel will never be 'cool' in the same way that rave parties are cool - either accept something on its own terms, or don't bother with it at all.

[This message has been edited by Steppenwolf (edited January 17, 2004).]

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Amalie:

I would like to reiterate that- brain dead 'Pop' culture, Thrash Metal, Gorfest, Sepulchure, Pantera, Murder Dolls, A Thousand Dead, to name a few, totally degrades the human condition.

As an example of Amalie's point, for anybody seriously interested in the modern society, I would advise you to listen to some 'music' by a group such as 'Slip Knot'. I used to work with someone, a young man, who was a big fan of this group, and use to listen to some of their music on his computer at work, so I got a bit acquainted with it. He was, without exageration, slightly psychotic - quite a disturbed, depressive, highly volatile individual with a violent temper (he was eventually sacked due to several 'incidents') and he used to listen to this stuff all day, and I swear it made him worse. I am certain it contributed to scrambling his brain and making it even more psychotic.

On the album cover, the members of the group are dressed in bizare costumes that resemble Hannibal Lector or the psycho from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, and the 'music'! ... the 'singing' consists of screaming that sounds like a cross between loud vomiting and the screams of someone having his entrails slowly pulled out, and the lyrics consists of words such as "RAAAHRR!! DEATH! AAAHH! DEATH!! BLOOD!! ROOOAHAAHAHAH!" and the 'musical accompaniment' chaotic, screeching noise. This, to me, seemed insane, yet this sort of thing is surprisingly popular.

[This message has been edited by Steppenwolf (edited January 17, 2004).]

[Beyond Within]

a few things....

I have observed the "sex appeal" tactic used to market classical as well. There was a female violin player in a wet bikini playing Beethoven Violin Sonatas. All this does is alienate classical listeners. The audience they do have does not appreciate this sort of belittlement of their music. The music is so good it doesnt need a shallow distraction. I didnt buy that cd because of the cover.

As for slipknot. They are not 'metal', they are a genre called 'hardcore' which is characterized by screaming vocals and simple, percussive riffing. They are trash music, however I do not think they influence anyone. I believe they cater to people who already exhibit those behaviors. But if their music embodies the spirit of the psychotic, let the psychotic enjoy what is meant for him. There is nothing wrong in that.

I wish you guys wouldnt generalize metal like your doing. There are many masterful moments in the music, its not mainstream at all, not the good stuff. Listen to "Flesh and the power it holds" for one of the greatest percussive moments in all of music. Or try "Orion" by the once great band "Metallica". If you want virtuosity, listen to "Passion & Warfare" by steve Vai. None of this is haphazard trash. All three are completely different in sound. Generalizing a genre is bad in any sense, that includes things which arent classical.

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Rod:
I can't get any classical fans to join my Handel site even when they get free music? So who is warped?

Rod, I have just joined today! I look forward to some Handel discussion, and to listening to some of the free music.

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Steppenwolf:
Rod, I have just joined today! I look forward to some Handel discussion, and to listening to some of the free music.

I joined Rod's site at the begining and have tried posting frequently ,but it rarely generates any interesting discussion.Probably due to my own lack of sparkling repartee.I got lonely posting all by myself over there and gave up about a month ago.
The music is wonderful though and I have downloaded nearly everything that Rod has offered,I'm a bit off vocal music these days(Christmas always does this to me) but if Rod posts anymore instrumental music I will go back and enjoy it for he does have excellent taste in Handel.