Tom Conner relays some interesting comments about the coming Philadelphia
Orchestra season by the former and present program annotators of the
orchestra.

Without discussing these passages in detail, I think that the main issues
they raise (together with Tom's own remarks) are:  what should and must an
organization such as the Phila.  Orch.  do to "survive until tomorrow so
give them what they want," as he says.  And, is the up-coming Philly season
a step in the right direction, or a tragic mistake?

First of all, every thing and everyone is transient.  If Mr. Jacobsen,
the former annotator, has a good pipeline into the orchestra's management
and is right in fearing that subscriptions will fall below 50% of the house
(somehow, I think that, come opening night, things will be looking brighter
than that), then perhaps the sun is at last setting on a great century-old
musical institution.  And perhaps it will set on many other great old names
in the classical world in the coming years.  If so, so be it.  But we can't
go down without a fight, and I think that the Phila.  Orch.  management and
players are at last determined to do just that.

But this seems to worry traditionalists such as Jacobsen almost as much
as the possibility that the orchestra might go broke, if not more.  For
example, he complains:

>Certainly the way this upcoming season is being advertised on the local
>radio is, "Come here the nice sounding, entertaining music."

How would he have them advertise? "Come hear a couple of hours of boring,
unpleasant music that will set your teeth on edge!  It's like pounding your
head against the wall--it will feel so good when it stops"?

Perhaps he is upset that they feel the need to advertise at all.  The
good old days when everyone in Philadelphia society who was anyone was
born with a silver spoon and an Academy of Music seat in their mouths, and
they could serve as the backbone of the orchestra's patronage, are gone
for good, friend Jacobsen.  The orchestra will have to project a pleasant,
non-threatening--and yes, entertaining!--image to the public (as much as
this causes some of our gorges to rise) and somehow get itself noticed in
the ubiquitous electronic media uproar, if it is to have any hope of
attracting a new audience.

A local "alternative" newspaper recently ran a squib lamenting that
the poor orchestra had fallen so low that it was actually reduced to
telemarketing to fill seats.  Well, Lordy, doesn't every arts organization
get on the horn these days to drum up an audience? How long ago was it when
Alex Bell invented that gadget? Personally, I would much rather have an
arts organization disturb my supper than a long-distance company or
stock-broker.

I agree with Mr.  Connor that a prestigious musical group should do
everything it can to educate the musical public, but I think that, while
the Phila.  Orch.  has historically done quite a bit in that noble cause,
and is gradually stepping up its efforts (and probably will work even
harder at it once its new music director comes, whoever that will be),
it cannot bear that burden alone.

Every one concerned about the future of classical music must do their
part to help replace the generation of music lovers which is inevitably
dying off with new recruits.  We should all try to identify the young
(and not-so-young) people around us who might be interested in learning
more about CM and help them along.  The way to do that, though, is not to
project the attitude that I am afraid too many of us habitually do:  we are
the elite, the elect, who know what the "right stuff" is, and we are too
good to associate with an orchestra which is supposedly only interested in
selling out in order "to survive until tomorrow." And we want nothing to do
with the low-brows who like programs "stuffed," as Mr.  Jacobsen puts it,

>with such pieces - many of them audience favorites by now - as Bela
>Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra [and] Debussy's La Mer."

What miserable stuff!  What an outrage--playing "audience favorites"
when you could be spending your time better by playing "audience dislikes"!
And the "Gurrelieder"!  Why play that reactionary old thing, which we hear
practically every day, when you could barrage the audience with a good dose
of some "real" Schoenberg, and give them a true education?

What will certainly condemn classical music to extinction is this
constant mutual back-biting among the CM cognoscenti, this dividing up
into cliques who shun each other because "that bunch doesn't understand
and appreciate the *real* music, as we do," and, when newcomers show up
with a bit of curiosity about CM and stick their heads in the door,
slamming it in their faces with haughty contempt for the uninitiated who
are ignorant of the sacred traditions (or, in some cliques, ignorant of the
sacred avant-garde), instead of finding some way of welcoming them in, and
letting them feel that they will have a good time among friends.  (No, no!
Music is not for having a good time, or anything so morally corrupting as
pleasure.  It must always be "educating.") It seems to me that the Phila.
Orch., along with others, is beginning to feel its way toward doing just
that, and deserves our support and encouragement.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]