erinaco
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 posted on 7-6-1010 at 12:44 PM |
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A truly exceptional article (in the Guardian - not the Observer!). I learned a LOT about Andris from this. But why do we not have at least some of
this information communicated to us in the CBSO concert programmes?
There's been quite a bit of talk recently about the poor quality of concert programmes in general. Who wants to read a long and eye-wateringly boring
list of orchestras that a conductor has worked with, or that a performer has played with? The material in this Guardian article is a THOUSAND times
more interesting!
Wouldn't it be nice if the CBSO could break the mold and lead from the front (to mix a metaphor!) by producing programmes that actually entertain,
inform and amuse?
Consider that gauntlet thrown down!
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brucknerian
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| posted on 8-6-1010 at 08:14 AM |
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Good stuff, Erinaco! This site seems an ideal place from which to launch a Campaign for Real Programmes! In relation to the Nelsons article, I found
the simple revelation that he was a Catholic who believed in God far more helpful in trying to understand his music-making that the usual pointless
name-dropping programmes provide (presumably because that's what their editors are given by artists' agents).
My own beef about the kind of programmes you get these days (the CBSO is far from the worst 'offender') concerns the notes offered about the pieces
to be played. There is what I think of (probably unfairly) as a 'Classic FM' tendency to write rather generally about pieces, their composers and
their contexts, rather than describing what actually happens in them. The concept of a programme note being something you can refer to during a piece
to help you follow it, work out where you are in it, seems to be out of fashion. But to me it's important to 'be made aware of the structure of a
work; and, especially if I don't know it or its form is unconventional, I need help: little comments like 'the movement is in three sections',
'the second theme is played by a solo oboe', or whatever, are enormously helpful and keep me focused.
There's clearly a reaction against the very detailed and rather technical descriptions of pieces one used to get, say, thirty years ago, and that's
understandable. But notes that help you focus on the music while it's being played don't HAVE to go over people's heads. Harry Jones's notes for
CBSO programmes used to be models of their kind in this respect: accessible, but very informative, and crediting the listener with at least a certain
amount of intellectual interest. I'm afraid I have to admit to sometimes bringing old programmes from the Fremaux and early Rattle eras to concerts,
rather than buying new ones, because this gives me a much better chance of reading something that will enhance my listening experience.
As exam papers used to say, discuss...
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erinaco
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| posted on 8-6-1010 at 12:19 PM |
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Agreed.
I'm very much against the 'dumbing down' of descriptions of musical pieces, so here's an idea :-
If a programme note writer tells us that a movement is in, for example, Sonata Rondo form, then why not devote a page (or even half a page) to an
explanation of what Sonata Rondo form actually is? With other examples of where it has been used?
Educate the public!
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RichardBratby
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| posted on 9-6-1010 at 10:22 AM |
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There's so much to say on this subject - and such continual debate on this subject within the CBSO - that I hardly know where to start replying!
I'll try and return to in more detail onced I've got a bit more time, but for now, I'll just throw in a few observations:
- we have to assume that every one of our audiences contains people who may be hearing even the most hackneyed work for the first time,
- do audiences wish to be entertained / educated or both - and how do we find the balance? They're certainly not mutually exclusive, of course, but
a Friday Night Rodgers & Hammerstein audience at Sym Hall probably wants something different from the crowd who turn up to hear Stockhausen in
Centre Stage!
- commissioning original material for programmes costs money, of course - and the kind of people who are specialists in a particular varea of
repertoire (often academics) are not always the most lucid or accessible writers,
- glossaries are a great idea but feedback from the recent "Tuned In" concerts revealed that some audience members considered even such terms as
"woodwind" and "key signature" to be too technical. How far do we go?
- getting fresh biographical information out of artists/agents can be like getting blood out of a stone and very few of them provide the information
in anything other than the most dry, generic form. We do, where funds and time allow, sometimes conduct interviews with some artists, and these go in
the programmes.
(But have you ever seen a programme at the Rep or the Hippo? Actors rarely give more than 3 lines of bare biographical facts and a long list of
previous roles. We're actually streets ahead of them - at least classical musicians' biogs are written in continuous prose!).
Personally, Tovey is my Bible. But having myself written 800-odd programme notes over the last few years, for the CBSO and many other orchestras,
I'm painfully aware that different audiences, different pieces and different programmes have very different needs, and getting the balance right is
extremely difficult - probably impossible. But the CBSO keeps the content of concert programmes under continual revie, and you'll see a few new
touches in September.
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brucknerian
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| posted on 10-6-1010 at 08:14 AM |
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Yes, of course: you're never going to satisfy everyone with programmes or programme notes; and the basic reason for this is, as you say, that people
will come to the same concert with very many different expectations. It's no coincidence that the best programmes the CBSO produces are for Family
Concerts (the last one was great, really struck the right balance between fun, accessibility and 'activities'): for such concerts you more or less
know your target audience, which must make everything infinitely easier. (By the way, buying such a programme for 2 pounds leaves you feeling you've
got value for money, whereas buying a 'standard' one for 3 must surely leave quite a few readers feeling ripped off?).
I'm far from an expert on this, but I would guess one had to start from two main premises: (1) the fact that people have attended a (far from cheap)
concert and bought a (far from cheap) programme must surely mean that they are willing to learn SOMETHING?; and (2) some account has to be taken of
the needs both of the concert newcomer and of people like us who've been coming to concerts for years (I would guess these days that the latter would
be in the majority, by the way, but would be interested in any data or impressions you have about this).
So the main problem as far as I'm concerned would be how to communicate well about the music with two very different sets of people (I'm personally
less bothered about stuff on the artists, especially given that you can now ususally read what we get in the programmes online from agency websites!).
Obviously anything technical has to be kept to a minimum (I don't see how you could avoid 'woodwind', but you probably could avoid 'key
signature'!). Glossing, as Erinaco suggests, is certainly also a good idea -and indeed used to be done in CBSO programmes, in the early Symphony Hall
days, from memory. But I wonder whether some way needs to be found of clearly and explicitly addressing two very different audiences (without making
anyone feel either offended or patronized). Could a programme note begin with something 'for people hearing this music for the first time', for
example, and move on to something 'for people who already know this music'? Using two different typefaces maybe? I daresay it's already been
considered, and would simply need thinking through and refining, but maybe it's the KIND of thing that might help.
I'm sorry to go on, and no-one must feel obliged to respond to any of this, but... It occurred to me that, even though I've been going to concerts,
literally man and boy, for nearly 40 years, I've never been asked to complete a questionnaire about what I like and want in a programme. You'll
probably tell me it's been done, but surely it would be a good idea to do this fairly regularly, given swiftly changing concert demographics?
And, finally, I would like to take Richard up on what could be read as a cliched side-swipe about 'academics' (I am one myself, though of course not
a musicologist). Yes, 'the kind of people who are specialists in a particular area of repertoire (often academics) are not always the most lucid or
accessible writers'. But often they actually are! I think people outside academe often don't realize (understandably) how much pressure we are under
to write - and teach - accessibly (and indeed, like a programme writer, to address very different audiences simultaneously). And also, I always reckon
myself that, the more you know about a subject, the BETTER you can write for a general audience - because you're genuine; able to separate the wood
from the trees (as distinct from being only able to see some of the trees!)
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RichardBratby
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| posted on 10-6-1010 at 05:32 PM |
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brucknerian - No offence intended towards academics; some are absolutely excellent writers. And plenty of non-academics are abominable. But I do feel
that "general" writing about classical music - for the average, educated and interested reader - is becoming an endangered art. I've been
referring to my old Penguin guides to the Symphony and the Concerto for decades now. Can you imagine them being published today, though? This
morning, on the train, I was reading the contemporary equivalent - a short paperback Cambridge Music Guide on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. By chapter 2, I
was staring at a page of Schenkerian analysis. I couldn't help feeling that classical music writing - outside of the press - is retreating into a
ghetto.
A couple of problems that we've faced in commissioning programme notes:
- articulate, well-informed professional writers, asked to tackle standard repertoire, who write from a position that everyone already knows the
basics of a work under discussion, so omit key details and interesting anecdotes in favour of a re-assessment. "The (probably apocryphal) anecdote
about Joseph II and Mozart is too well-known to need repeating" wrote one. But it won't be, to everyine -n and a good writer should in any case be
able to make it fresh again.
- even worse: the serious music writer who offers a "considered" contextual overview of the work in question and ends up sounding dismissive. Yes,
in the scheme of things "Capriccio Espagnol" may indeed be "a purely superficial and fundamentally insignificant work". But after we've decided
it's worth rehearsing and performing, and have persuaded our audience to part with money to hear us play it, that's not terribly helpful. Tovey's
dictum - that the writer is Counsel for the Defence - should be law to every programme note writer.
- experienced music writers object to being asked to write more accessibly, or simply don't see the need. We have to deal with the reality that
many of today's audiences, sadly, did not grow up with a wide and comprehensive musical education - and that getting back to fundamentals does not
have to mean "dumbing down".
It's perfectly true - we have commissioned surveys in recent years into programme content; it's just bad luck that you missed them. But that's the
nice thing about interactive forums like this. No need to wait for us to ask; if you have suggestions, fire away - we're definitely listening. And
it's always good to talk (well, post online) about these things.
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brucknerian
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| posted on 11-6-1010 at 08:29 AM |
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Yes, agree with all of this. I suppose I have some sympathy for the writer of the first of your programme note 'sins' (after all, a lot of people
have seen 'Amadeus'!), but the second and third are simply unforgivable, born of people writing to serve themselves, not other people (and certainly
not the composer - I like Tovey's dictum). I remember a long time ago investing a fair amount of pocket money in an LP of Mendelssohn's Scottish
Symphony, only to be told by the sleeve note writer how dreadful the piece was! Not least for a teenager, such things are not just pointless, but
terribly disconcerting: you sit there really enjoying the piece (and I still love the 'Scottish' to bits in spite of it all), but feeling that there
must be something wrong with you for doing so!
I think your key point is that 'getting back to fundamentals does not have to mean "dumbing down"' (this is really my initial point in a better
formulation). The trouble with what I began by calling the 'Classic FM' tendency is that it seems to assume people don't want to learn or be
stretched; and the trouble with some (!) more academic writers is that they can confuse an absence of general knowledge about music with, well, a lack
of intelligence ('dumbness!'). But both are wrong, aren't they? You have to assume that all programme note readers are intelligent and want to
learn something (that's true of most people, after all!), but come with hugely diverse (and sometimes barely existent) levels of relevant knowledge.
And work from there (possibly, as I suggested, explicitly addressing different parts of the audience?). There you are, you see, simples! Well, to
meerkats perhaps...
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