Arm-Chair Ears
I think I've been spending far too much of my humankind face-time lately exclusively with our amateur theatre group — it makes me over sensitive to the whining of self-important diva wannabes.
Let's consider the case of Mr. Dwight Vibbert (I won't even stoop to mocking his name), who writes, with some agitation, a letter expressing his concerns to the Boston Globe:
AT BSO [Boston Symphony Orchestra] rehearsals patrons hear a program soon to be performed as advertised in Symphony Hall. In the past we heard the pieces played without stop and start. But now maestro James Levine is stopping and making adjustments so that the music loses continuity, tempo, melody, rhythm, and the audience. If the last-minute rehearsal needs this much work at 10.30 a.m., can the BSO play at 8 p.m. that night?
You can tell from his WASPish prevarication that he's most upset by the injustice of it all (not to mention being slightly put upon by the usurpation of Maestro Ozawa's podium by James Levine); the give away is the way he tip-toes his way around so as not to weaken his stance of moral self-righteousness.
What he tries to avoid saying is that this is what's known as an open rehearsal — not a performance, but an actual rehearsal, to which the public is invited either for free, or at substantially reduced ticket prices. Mr. Vibbert might do well to keep in mind the nature of the performance he is watching, and the reason why the new music director might wish to point out a few different ways of doing things.
Mr. Vibbert, with an obvious ax to grind, goes on to suggest that the reason Mr. Levine has to keep stopping and instructing the orchestra is likely due to his choosing to program an over abundance of modern music. The nerve!
The audience is not happy with this rush to bring a large dose of contemporary music to Boston.
It is well to remember what the audience is looking for in musical expression: a sense of the eternal joy, a finding of self, and an affirmation of the conscious soul and inspired hope in the future. Beethoven and a few others provided all of this in abundance.
Presumably, by "the audience" Mr. Vibbert refers to the tut-tutting ones like himself who are attending the open rehearsal because they'd rather not suffer the expense of buying actual tickets. One might also note that, these days, "contemporary" is often referring to music from early in the last century. Tsk tsk.
His statement about the true meaning of music is amusing, I suppose, but I can't say that it really describes all the music that I think is valuable to the world. On the other hand, Mr. Vibbert seems willing to dispense with all other music except that of "Beethoven and a few others". It would certainly streamline the record-keeping at sheet-music and record stores.
There's enough material there for me to write a book, yet another one I've been thinking about, concerning this "only the best" culture that feels, well, that "only the best" will do, with the corollary notion that we might as well dispense with the second tier. What a bunch of bunk, not to mention tedious and boring to be stuck with "only the best". There is plenty of room and need for the second tier, the third tier, and so on. And this from someone (that would be me) who is not even an aesthetic relativist, but who believes that there is (objectively) great music, good music, less good music….
Well, it gives me an occasion to quote one of my favorites from Charles Ives (to whom I'm actually listening at this very moment, entirely by happenstance):
Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair.
[Postface to 114 Songs, quoting his own Essays before a Sonata.]