To the Editor:
Re “Stop Mutilating Classical Music to Sell It to Kids,” by Evan Shinners (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 23):
Mr. Shinners’s essay makes an important point: The classical music business is in trouble, and the efforts he and others have made to engage children are laudable. But the issue is far greater and needs bigger solutions.
We are now into the third generation of Americans whose exposure to classical music has been minimal. In-school music exposure is usually an afterthought; the number of radio stations that play classical music has steadily decreased; and the press that music receives is limited at best.
Once upon a time, classical musicians, especially opera stars, were regular guests on TV’s late-night shows. Those stars are gone now, and so is the vital exposure.
What is needed is a well-funded campaign to expose audiences of all ages to the benefits of classical music, with the intent of making it accessible, fun and entertaining. Because what the industry has failed to acknowledge and deal with is that classical music is competing not against just other forms of music but against all forms of entertainment.
This soulful, beautiful music deserves to be part of that universe.
Anthony Rudel Rockport, Mass. The writer has worked in the classical music industry and radio for nearly 50 years and is the author of several books, including “Classical Music Top 40” and “Hello, Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio.”
To the Editor:
I was lucky enough to grow up in a Colorado town that hosted a summer symphony orchestra. My parents took my sister and me to their concerts every summer, including the annual outdoor Fourth of July performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” which knocked pictures off our walls with its cannon fire. One year, we heard Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite,” and for the first time I was carried away by the music.
My exposure to live classical music continued for years. I saw a range of performances, from Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” to Verdi’s “Aida,” complete with elephants, in the Verona Arena. I caught performances where I could, usually on the cheap.
I don’t know if I would love it as I do now without those performances, and without challenging myself to listen to music I didn’t think I would like but discovered I did (hello, Mr. Schoenberg). The opportunity to hear the music live, with affordable tickets, made my love for it possible.
Brad Kennedy Bethesda, Md.
To the Editor:
Evan Shinners’s essay articulates why, for many of us, movie music concerts, mash-ups and the like don’t feel like “real” classical music.
However, I am puzzled by his objection to abridged works and shorter concerts. His Bach Store concerts, where “people come and stay for as long as they like,” seem to acknowledge that people can appreciate great music in smaller chunks. By design, such a format invites people to listen for just a few minutes at a time.
Objecting to the idea that attention is scarce does not make attention abundant. Must we listen to every last recitative to enjoy the great arias and overtures? Personally, I think that careful abridgments and alterations are fine ways to adapt music for younger audiences.
Phillip Falk Brookline, Mass.
To the Editor:
My love of classical music started when I was walking by the Cambridge Adult Education Center 55 years ago. I will celebrate my 81st birthday in February.
Those many years back, the center left its voluminous course catalog out front. I thumbed through it and came upon a listing for Introduction to Classical Music. Though I was a rabid rhythm and blues aficionado, I thought: “Why not? Maybe I’ll meet some girls.”
I didn’t meet any girls, but I did fall in love with classical music. The instructor regaled us with some of the standards: Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Ravel’s “Bolero.” I went to Tower Records and bought recordings of all of Beethoven’s symphonies and spent the weekend playing them over and over. My goodness, what greatness!
What followed is a 55-year love affair with classical music — branching out to discover greats like Brahms, Bruch, Mahler, Chopin, Copland, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Elgar as well as lesser known composers like Gerald Finzi and Morten Lauridsen.
That love affair is still going on today.
Robert K. Tuman San Luis Obispo, Calif.
To the Editor:
At age 7, I attended productions of “Carmen” and “La Bohème” at the New York City Opera, where my older brother was a member of the children’s chorus. I so detested sitting through the third act of “Carmen” that I requested an audition for the children’s chorus myself; being backstage with the kids seemed more fun than being stuck in the audience. By the time my voice changed I had performed as a spirit in “The Magic Flute” and as Miles in “The Turn of the Screw.”
Now I have young children of my own. I know firsthand the challenges of asking squirmy kids to sit through three hours of singing in foreign languages. So I was delighted to hear about the Met’s abridged production of Mozart’s “Magic Flute.” I immediately secured tickets for a matinee.
We showed up early for face painting. And with so many kids in the packed audience, I could whisper answers to my 5-year-old’s endless stream of questions about the plot. Weeks later, my kids are still humming the Queen of the Night’s arias and joking about Papageno.
When they’re older, I look forward to taking them to unabridged productions. But I am grateful that their first opera encounter was such a positive one. There’s room for different productions for different audiences, and the music can mature as its audience does.
Zachary Wissner-Gross Roslyn Heights, N.Y. The writer performed for five seasons as a boy soprano with the New York City Opera.
To the Editor:
Evan Shinners suggests that the classical music industry could easily win new converts if it would only give up its attempts at popularization and let the supposed greatness of untrammeled masterworks speak for itself. The superiority of classical music over all other offerings is taken for granted. Mozart is “something better” than a rock star. Not just rock, but jazz and rap come in for subtle digs. Meanwhile, Bach’s music is “transcendent.”
But is it? If it were, there would be no crisis. If Bach’s music simply transcended the gulf between 18th-century Thuringia and 21st-century New York, then presumably New Yorkers would already be listening to it in droves.
The truth is that it’s not just Bach who has trouble getting a hearing these days. Ours is a moment in which music from many different times and places is available instantaneously, and yet musicians of every stripe are struggling.
Re-erecting old hierarchies won’t solve that, but maybe pluralistic, noncommercial ways of valuing music and new solidarities between musicians will.
Brian Barone Boston
To the Editor:
The real problem is that most children do not study, play or sing classical music in school from a young age. Classical music cannot be fully appreciated, understood or loved without a decent musical education.
In the elementary school I attended in the 1960s, children sang in choir, chose instruments to try for a year or so and, later, in middle school and high school, could play in the school orchestra or marching band.
The ancient Greeks believed music study to be as necessary to the development of students as language, writing and math. Imagine not bothering to teach children math or science?
We, the last classically trained music generation, understand full well why it is dying. Gimmicks don’t work; early education does. In schools, for all.
Judy Greene New York
The post Solutions for the Crisis in Classical Music appeared first on New York Times.
