Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>John Deacon writes of a cancellation of a performance of Birtwhistle's
>Gawain for an audience of schoolchildren, quoting Charles Osborne:
>
>>Hundreds of children have had a narrow escape. If they had been forced
>>to sit through that dreadful piece, they would almost certainly have
>>been put off the art of opera for life.
>>
>>I must confess to agreeing with him totally.  How can one possibly start
>>children off in life at quite the wrong end of the spectrum?
>
>Probably under the "innocent ears" theory.  After all, Wagner was immensely
>popular with lay audiences before he gained favor with people who knew
>something about music.

Wrong analogy in this particular case: Harrison Birtwhistle is a
profoundly unpopular composer who has remained on the British concert
schedule because of a small group of supporters in the local critical &
performance industry.  Unlike Wagner, there's no groundswell of opinion
waiting for Der Meister's new utterance: but plenty of critical hype
instead.

His selection as an ideal subject for student performance has more to
do with funding quotas being tied to specific kinds of projects than
any intelligent assessment of musical needs: you have to run student
performances & Flash Harry is a critical darling deemed worthy of sponsored
performed; so: voila!....

All the best,

Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>