Rick Mabry in summing up recent discussions on visual accompaniments to
classical msic:

>I probably contradict myself - I hope cognitive dissonance is okay here.
>If so, finally, Bernard's motion, Don's visions of Scheherazade, my own
>thoughts and those of a writer on another list (prokofiev.org) come
>together, sort of, in the following.  At Royal Festival Hall, in June
>of 2004, Gergiev was to lead the Rotterdam Phil in the entire ballet
>music from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.  A prkfv-listmember wrote to
>suggest that to attend such a thing would be nonsensical: "As good as
>the music is, I see no point in sitting through all of it without the
>dancers."

Funny this should appear- I have always loved the Romeo and Juliet music,
but when I saw it danced recently the music somehow made more sense-
seemed more coherent rather than a series of beautiful sections.  So,
veteran cm listener that I am, the visual had its claims on me as did
the story.

All this started from Alastair's suggestion that cm should find a way
to present itself to the young in a more visual way to meet the demands
of the age.  For me, dance seemed a possible way to go, but Rick is quite
right in saying that we all base our ideas for attracting the young based
on our own experiences and inclinations.  But- talk about cognitive
dissonance!!  - for me, it was classical radio in NYC that did it- my
mother always had WQXR or WNYC on, and finally at the age of 14 or 15,
I got it.  Then there was a LP player in a suitcase- remember those? And
after that, I began going to the Philharmonic and later the Metropolitan
Opera on occasion.  But that was More than fifty years ago.  Classical
radio has shrunk, but not completely disappeared and classical music has
been marginalized.  It is to all of our self interest that this trend
be resisted.  Besides, we need to save civilization.

Bernard Chasan