Steve Schwartz on the trends in classical music in the USA:

>The very large trends are a decline in amateur music-making, the rise
>of a consumer-oriented, passive listenership dependent on recorded music,

Is there any reason for thinking that there is less amateur music
making now than in, say, 1900? I have read that most people who knew
Beethoven's symphonies in the nineteenth century knew them through piano
transcriptions, but what percentage of the population was involved?
Today there is a fair number of amateur chamber music players and very
accomplished community choruses, but I have no idea of percentages.

>an increasing irrelevance of classical music in general to the culture at
>large, and ancillary to some of this, the weakening (perhaps to oblivion)
>of major recording labels, who no longer seem to know exactly what their
>business is or who their audience is.

I started my academic career in the early sixties.  A few years later- say
1967, relevance became the buzz-word- education HAD to be relevant.  But
it turned out, that when you asked students what they considered relevant,
there was a whole range of responses.  I am not sure that anything has
changed, and I really have little idea of Steve's definition of relevance.
For those on this list, classical music has a personal relevance which is
all each of us can vouch for.

What is true is that classical music, poetry, serious fiction, are all
minority tastes today.  The causes are complex and have been discussed at
various times on this list.

I do believe that the community of those who value c.m.  should be
concerned, if only because small audiences can only cause the entire
classical enterprise to contract.  This will make it harder for people to
approach classical music, and we have a nasty positive feedback going on.
I am not sure what can be done other than the youth concerts which various
organizations already present, and better education in schools which may
consider arts education not as important as producing "a competitive work
force".  In all frankness I do not detect a high level of interest in this
issue on this thread, and I certainly don't have any magical solutions to
put forward.  The poetry community is at least trying.  But let me put
forward a real dumb idea.Noting the success of the Harry Potter books in
getting kids to read, can something be done along those lines in music?
Perhaps opera based on Harry Potter, perhaps simple enough to let students
actually perform it?

I should add that I have not actually read the Potter books myself, but
have heard from my (adult) daughter, who is a great reader and and an
editor as well, that they are well written and indeed worth an adult's
attention.

The recorder music industry does seem to be a mess, but it is still
possible to range over the entire repertory of c.m.  via recorded music.
Some may consider recorded music to be no better than an approximation to
the Real Thing, but it will have to do until the narrow concert repertory,
eloquently note on many occasions by Steve, gets larger.  And when do you
think that is going to happen?

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University