A Case for Quality
The following essay is an expanded version I wrote for the Boston Symphony program book of a blog post I wrote last spring while on a European tour with the BSO. For a more darkly entertaining perspective on the world of classical music, please consider “Devil’s Trill: The Audio Book.” Here’s an audio sample. See the end of this essay for details!
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Andris Nelsons and the BSO at the Musikverein in Vienna, May 9, 2016 (Marco Borggreve)
A Case for Quality
by Gerald Elias
Prompted by his experience on the BSO’s eight-city European tour last spring, former Boston
Symphony violinist Gerald Elias reflects on the enduring strengths of symphony concerts.
Last April I had the opportunity to perform Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the BSO at
Symphony Hall and on its spring European tour. The ninety-minute symphony is a challenge both for the musicians and audience. Its relentless intensity and extended tonality keep it always outside the edge of our aural comfort zone, especially compared to the facile lyricism of a Tchaikovsky or Dvorák. When the Symphony Hall performance ended and the musicians stood up to take our bows, I looked out into the audience. There usually is enough light in the hall to see the faces of concertgoers applauding, at least near
the stage. Their expressions are a good gauge of how much they enjoyed the concert.
What I saw was more than gratifying. Not only was it clear the performance had been
deeply appreciated, I was pleasantly surprised to see a fairly evenly balanced demographic
division of people in their twenties and thirties, forties and fifties, and sixties
and seventies. And it wasn’t just a fluke. It turned out to be the case time and time
again—in Vienna, in Leipzig, in Dresden, in Luxembourg—as well as at Symphony
Hall. I suppose I was surprised because there has been a drumbeat of naysayers who
prophesy the doom of symphony orchestras, telling us in somber tones that only rich,
old folks go to concerts these days. I’m sorry, but that’s not how I’ve seen things. Is
there a greater preponderance of older people attending symphony concerts than rock
concerts? No doubt. But no one seems to worry about Justin Bieber’s future simply
because his audience is severely limited to teeny-boppers. And to the notion that symphonies have priced themselves out of the entertainment market: going to a symphony concert is no more expensive than the average ticket for a Red Sox game, and a lot less than a box seat. So if you can afford to sit in the bleachers and polish off a Fenway frank and a Samuel Adams, you can afford the Boston Symphony.
A prevailing narrative, promulgated, amazingly enough, by some symphony orchestras’
own administrations (though fortunately not the BSO’s), runs like this: (A) Symphony
orchestras are in dire trouble. (B) The traditional symphonic format—the repertoire,
the two-hour concert, the white-tie-and-tails, the formidable concert hall—is no longer
relevant to contemporary society. (C) For the concert experience to be meaningful, and
therefore in order for orchestras to survive, it has to connect with a more diverse local
community and compete more actively in the entertainment arena. The proposed solution: Orchestras need to jettison the “standard” repertoire and create new formats in
less formal, more personalized settings that will attract a more contemporary crowd.
In other words, symphony orchestras should cool it with the symphonies. Otherwise,
we might as well pack our bags and go home.
I admit I’m exaggerating the argument, but not by much. Nevertheless, I find this narrative not only to be frightening, considering that the source of it is often the organization itself, but also flawed. First, I don’t see that orchestras are on the verge of extinction. On the contrary. People who make this argument are myopically fixated on only the top tier of professional symphony orchestras, and even in this regard it’s somewhat of a fiction.
There is no doubt that, as is the case with most nonprofits, raising money is a nonstop
challenge. When economic times are tough, orchestras struggle. (Yes, there are some
orchestras that continue to struggle regardless of the economy, and some have tragically
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Andris Nelsons and the BSO performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, May 5, 2016 (Gert Mothes)
shut their doors, but in general when times get better, orchestras rebound.) In other
words, they’re like any other business. We don’t write off the retail industry when Sears
hits the skids. Why would we do that with orchestras? And don’t forget that during
the supposed “golden age” of American symphony orchestras in the 1930s and ’40s,
when radio stations like NBC supported their own magnificent in-house orchestras
and even movie theaters had their own live musicians, there were comparatively few
orchestras that provided anything close to a year-round concert schedule and full-time
employment for the musicians, let alone health care and retirement benefits.
Going beyond fully professional orchestras, when you look how deeply embedded
the culture of symphonic music is in American society, including hundreds of semiprofessional, community, youth, college, festival, and school orchestras, a strong case can be made that symphony orchestras have never been healthier. The same week
that I played the Mahler with the Boston Symphony at Symphony Hall, I performed as a
soloist with the Long Island Youth Orchestra, which was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary!
The same week I played the Mahler at Tanglewood, I coached the string section
of the all-amateur Stockbridge Sinfonia for their well-attended annual concert. Going
beyond our own shores, the explosion of symphonic music in Asia and South America
over the past half-century has been nothing short of mind-boggling. Even if classical
music in the U.S. and Europe were suddenly to cease tomorrow, the future of orchestral
music would still shine brightly around the world.
And you know what music everyone’s playing? Mozart and Beethoven, Mahler and
Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy and Ravel. You know why? It’s
simple. They composed great music. Musicians love to play it and audiences love to
hear it. So far, no one has tired of gawking at the Mona Lisa or the statue of David. Why
should listening to Beethoven’s Fifth be any different? Should symphony orchestras
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Performing Mahler’s Ninth at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, May 12, 2016 (Sebastien Grebille)
program more music of contemporary, ethnically diverse composers? Absolutely! If it’s
worthy music, by all means. But it’s ass backwards if the motivation is out of fear that
otherwise symphony orchestras will die.
But what about the format? The presentation? What about those stuffy concert halls
where you have to sit quietly for two hours and not use your cell phones? Isn’t there
a better way to connect with the community? Outreach and education activities are
great, especially considering the dwindling funding of public school music education. The
more the better. But how can such activities “save the symphony” if at the same time
the raison d’être—playing symphonies—is devalued by the very organizations trying to
“save” it? What would the purpose be of such efforts? If a group of symphony musicians
playing Piazzolla tangos in a pub floats their boat, that’s great. That would be a lot of
fun. Go for it! Getting to know the musicians up close and personal is a wonderful way
for the public to connect. And maybe it would eventually attract some people to go to a real
symphony concert. (Personally, when I’m at a pub, I’d rather watch a ball game while I’m
drinking my Rolling Rock than listen to string quartets. But, hey, that’s just me.)
But here’s the problem. Outreach has its limits. It’s a challenge to play Tchaikovsky’s
Fifth Symphony in a bar. I’m not sure how you’d squeeze all those brass players in there.
Maybe behind the pool tables. At some point it comes back to concert halls. Symphony
orchestras have no choice but to play symphonies in concert halls. And you know
what? Some people think it’s very special to go to a concert hall. In fact, a lot of people
feel that way. It gives them a sense of being part of something unique and special.
Maybe that’s why they’ve kept coming for three hundred years. We are fortunate that
the Boston Symphony was founded upon that principle and has steadfastly maintained
it to this day.
In this day and age when we’re surrounded by external stimuli 24/7, when our world
view is reduced to a two-by-four-inch cell phone screen, when our computerized existence frames us into thinking and feeling and responding in nanoseconds, the appeal
of two hours in the comfort of an impressively expansive and comfortable concert
hall, listening to an engaging Rossini overture, a sublime Mozart piano concerto, and
a heartwarming Brahms symphony may actually be something that people are more
inclined to enjoy more now than ever before. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of
the death of the symphony orchestra have been greatly exaggerated.
Gerald Elias, formerly a BSO violinist and associate concertmaster of the Utah Symphony,
continues to perform with the BSO at Tanglewood and on tour. Currently music director of Vivaldi by Candlelight in Salt Lake City, he is also author of the award-winning Daniel Jacobus mystery series set in the dark corners of the classical music world.
For a darkly entertaining perspective on the world of classical music, please consider “Devil’s Trill: The Audio Book.” Here’s an audio sample.
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Devil’s Trill, a Mystery in Sonata-Allegro form—with music performed by the author–is now available for pre-order! You can buy it for yourself, give it as a gift, and even get it for FREE* through this link: http://tinyurl.com/jehpm8u
Devil’s Trill is the first-ever audiobook to integrate musical passages that provide clues to solving the mysteries. Author Gerald Elias, a renowned concert violinist, performs the music himself.
World renowned violinist, Cho Liang Lin, says: ‘Reading Devil’s Trill was a nonstop page-turning pleasure. Now that the words are imbued with the author’s beautiful violin playing, this audio version will surely mesmerize.’
Produced by Alison Larkin Presents
