Deryk Barker on the Ninth being played every three years by a local
symphony:

>Well that's your right Kar, but isn't there a danger of snobbishness
>here?  Isn't the Ninth (I'm assuming we're referring to Beethoven) a great
>masterpiece? Isn't it reasonable that it should be part of the standard
>repertoire? Isn't it reasonable that your orchestra's audience not be
>denied the opportunity of hearing it in the flesh?

I guess what Karl and I are talking about is where one draws the line.  I
mean, if it's a great masterpiece (and I certainly consider it that), why
not have it on every single concert? Aren't there other masterpieces that
deserve a hearing? Does one play only masterpieces certified by consensus
over the years?

I know what Deryk's response will be, and I certainly don't accuse him of
such an absurd viewpoint.  I simply want to suggest that tough decisions
have to be made, and I doubt very strongly that programming committees
are making them.

I talk to professional musicians, some of whom help program repertoire.
I don't generalize here, but it shocks me to find out how little music some
of them know - not just 20th-century music, but music from the "warhorse"
periods as well.  They know very little Max Bruch, for example, other than
the Scottish Fantasy, the Kol Nidre, and the g-minor violin concerto, and
they seem to have little curiosity about anything else.  They know the last
three or four Tchaikovsky symphonies, but not the first two.  They've never
heard of the Brahms Triumphlied.  It's no longer a mystery to me why we
get the same pieces year after year, and it has very little to do with the
concern for keeping Monuments of Western Culture alive.  I don't mind the
concert hall as a museum.  I mind that it's an extremely tiny museum.

Steve Schwartz