Len Fehskens replies to me:

>Steve Schwartz writes:
>
>>I don't believe that 20th-century music from "all" American musical
>>organizations has ever amounted to more than a third of the programming,
>
>Then I don't see that you've got cause for complaint, there being at least
>three centuries worth of music available to perform...

No, actually most programming comes from a period of about 150 years.
I know of no symphonic organization presenting the music of Frescobaldi,
for example, or few playing, since the rise of HIP, most baroque music.

Second, I'd love to know - and I haven't seen any national figures on
this - how much of what is played are the same set of repertoire.  In
other words, we'll hear Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (nothing wrong with
that) but not, say, Cowell's Symphony No.4 or Babbitt's All Set.  Even
with late 18th- and 19th-century music this seems to me true.  I've heard
the Beethoven 9th live three times in the past ten years from the same
organization.  Now the Ninth is a great piece.  But I've never heard live
Beethoven's music for The Creatures of Prometheus, King Stephen, or The
Ruins of Athens.  They may not be up to the Ninth, but I hesitate to say
they aren't worthy.

It, quite frankly, stinks.  Outside of about a dozen works, every single
thing the BSO plays this year is in my collection.  This fosters artistic
stagnation, both in the organization and in its audience.  Don't tell me
that classical music is entertainment only, because so is a tractor pull.
Listeners' musical experience has been severely shortened.  The problem is
so few people can play an instrument or read a score, passive listening is
the only way they can encounter classical music at all.  So now we have
generalizations offered about the nature of music or the nature of some
music based on extremely limited experience.  Eventually, there will come
a point when my local symphony orchestra plays the Ninth, and I won't think
it worth my time to go.  There may even come a point when "old hands" may
conclude the same.  In that case, what service has the organization done
Beethoven or classical music in general?

Steve Schwartz