Len Fehskens wrote:

>I do not go to the BSO to hear music I have never heard before or do not
>yet like in an attempt to come to terms with it.  I can do that far more
>productively with CDs.  I go to the BSO to hear music I know and love in
>live performance,

I go to orchestral concerts for these reasons, in approximately this
order of priority:

1.  To hear music that is unfamiliar to me and that I think that I will
probably enjoy or find stimulating, and which I think is more likely to
"get through" to me in live performance than from a recording.  Those
decisions are based on my knowledge of other pieces by the same composer,
or general musical knowledge from all kinds of sources, including several
mailing lists.

2.  To hear performers (orchestra or soloist(s) or conductor) that interest
me.

3.  To hear music that people I respect do like and I don't, in the hope of
"coming to terms with it".

4.  To hear familiar music that I know I like performed live and (with
luck) well.

I avoid certain concerts for a variety of reasons:

1. A programme which is too familiar and offers little challenge.

2. Performers who do not much interest me, perhaps because I have heard
them too often rather than because there's anything wrong with them.

3. The presence of a "warhorse" piece that I just can't face sitting
through again . . .

4. I've heard the main piece live several times recently and prefer to
spend my concert ticket cash on less familiar music.

Way back in the early '70s I stood in the arena of the Royal Albert Hall
throughout almost every Prom concert of two whole series when they were
run by William Glock.  He was totally committed to variety in programming -
he threw out all-Beethoven nights and anything similar, and his programmes
contained extraordinary mixes of "difficult" new music, early music,
classical, romantic, accessible C20, and some rather stranger things as
well.  They were the best concert series I have *ever* attended - full of
discovery and they've shaped much of my listening life for the decades
after.  Had I only attended concerts where I knew in advance that I wasn't
going to be offended or challenged by anything I heard, then (a) I would
have gone to very few, and (b) life would have been a hell of a lot less
interesting.

If Stirling Newberry or anyone else wants to know how to run successful
concert seasons, they should look at what Simon Rattle achieved in
Birmingham, and ask themselves why the Berlin players very wisely chose him
rather than gradual stagnation under Barenboim.  Rattle has done the job
brilliantly well, and he has built a new audience for new *and* old music.
I am told by all sorts of people that Ozawa ruined a fine orchestra, and
that his time in Boston has been an artistic disaster.  Stirling's recipe
would surpass that by combining an artistic disaster with a commercial one.

Ian Crisp
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