"James Tobin" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> These matters are especially a concern where orchestral music is
> concerned because there the aesthetic and the financing considerations
> come in the same package.  Some time ago I wrote about a talkback in
> Milwaukee following the premiere of a new symphony by Wuorinen, which
> the MSO had helped commission.  Someone there indicated that if the
> symphony made a habit of playing this kind of music he was out of there;
> and of course he was not just speaking for himself in that.  Orchestras
> find it hard to resist that kind of response.  Not at all sure that
> telling the audience to think more will work, but that does not mean,
> as a bitter symphony official said privately on another occasion, that
> the only recourse is to play just Tchaikovsky and Beethoven.

I sympathise with an orchestra that wants to play Wuorinen for people
who won't listen, but the question remains: how often have Robert Simpson,
Michael Tippett, Harold Shapero, Walter Piston etc etc been played in
Milwaukee or anywhere else?  Nothing difficult about these composers and
they have musical personalities of their own, unlike Lloyd Webber or
what's-his-name who writes the Star Wars music.  Too many orchestras
have pandered for too long to an audience that is not dying off.  There
is a lot of music between Tchaikovsky and Wuorinen which has been played
hardly at all, with the result that nowadays it's difficult to reach the
young people who would in fact be willing to listen to the 'difficult'
stuff, because they regard the concert hall as a museum.

Donald

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