On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Steve Schwartz wrote:

>I keep coming back to the example of Charlie Rose's (a US chat-show
>host with pretentions) panel on Greatest Composer of the Twentieth
>Century.  Not one classical composer was nominated, and the panel
>members all had jobs in the arts.  We got Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan,
>Lennon-McCartney, Ellington, and so on, but no one mentioned Mahler,
>Stravinsky, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg, Bartok, Hindemith, etc.
>I suspect very strongly that no one knew enough of the work to mention
>it.  I love Armstrong, Dylan, Ellington, and the Beatles and believe
>that they accomplished a lot.  But why do I know more about that side
>of things than the populist knows about mine?  In the face of such
>ignorance (and I use that term neutrally, with no moral overtones),
>the danger of crossover is that people will tell themselves that they're
>listening to classical and pat themselves on the back.  Classical will
>die in a minute.

I am afraid that classical music is considered to be an exotic
and difficult enterprise which requires too much attention to be
considered fun.  There are many who find classical music very enjoyable-
I feel fortunate that I love this stuff.  And it is still true that lots
of young people love the stuff- but probably not enough to keep the
population of lovers from aging.  I do believe that many people who are
not interested in classical music could be if there were significant
outreach of some sort.  Unhappily the kind of pseudo authoritative
discussion on the egregious Charlie Rose program is anti- outreach.
Classical music is almost completely off the NPR map, except for Performance
Today.  All Things Considered and Morning Edition often have extended
stories on music and musicians, but almost never on classical.  I don't
begrudge the coverage given to what Steve refers to as populist music
but this imbalance is ridiculous.  I believe that the powers that be at
NPR have made a corporate decision to consider classical music to be as
arcane as quantum mechanics.  But of course this is just what those
wonderful consultants have been telling anyone who will listen.

Finally a word on elitism.  If you are good at something difficult,
or even interested in something difficult, you are in danger of being
labelled as a geek, a nerd, a wonk, etc.  More refined folks might call
you an elitist.  Freely translated, it means that you have some gray
matter you use more than occasionally, and you usually don't drag your
knuckles on the ground when you walk.  Live with it.

Bernard Chasan