Gareth Davies - Words & Music
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Inside out

21/5/2015

18 Comments

 
Picture
Despite the clouds we needn't have worried
I was at Abbey Road studios last night. I didn’t play a note. It wasn’t one of those tedious sessions where you sit for hours waiting to play a note which they never get around to, I was there to talk. People who know me, know that the only time I stop talking is when my flute is on my face, but on this occasion, I was there to talk about the history of Abbey Road Studios and the LSO’s part in it. Such is the aura of the place, a place that isn’t usually open to the general public, that I really didn’t need to say anything at all. When you have a group of people who love music inside those walls, and they are surrounded by photos of the legends who have recorded there, in the corner is the old mixing desk from Sargeant Pepper and a piano used in A Day in the Life, and the Hammond organ from Dark Side of the Moon - well, most people just sit with a grin on their face and soak it up. A man who walks in as a CEO, once through the door is transported back to being the teenager in his bedroom dreaming of stardom once again.  Any words or light shows or virtual reality are unnecessary. The zebra crossing, the studio, the history and the instruments speak for themselves and oh how I wish the walls of studio 2 could talk! As producer/engineer Jonathan Allan, who records us regularly in studio 1 said last night, “We record anything here...as long as it’s good.” With a long list of names that span time and genre, Elgar, Menuhin, Bartok, Prokofiev, Glen Miller, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellars, Star Wars, Harry Potter...the list is endless and proves his point.

If music speaks for itself and needs little embellishment, then why is it that the classical music ‘business’ seems intent on continually reinventing itself?
When I say reinventing, I use the term loosely. There seems very little invention and much more repackaging. I remember when I was a student in the 90’s, the fashion was to ditch the concert attire and for men to wear… ground breaking (drum roll please) brightly coloured waistcoats. I don’t think a waistcoat has ever knowingly encouraged anyone to go anywhere. Similarly, standing up instead of sitting down made a brief game changing appearance. That’s the players not the audience unless you count the proms. Don’t get me started on fancy lighting. Why on earth anyone thinks that  the holy grail of audiences for classical music - young people - who have been brought up on YouTube, video games, 3D films, iPhones and on demand content, are going to be impressed by subtly changing mood lighting during a symphony which never asked for it in the first place, is beyond me. As I watched the BBC news this week where Katie Derham talked about the new Proms season, the montage they used was exclusively clips of the headline grabbing acts involving DJs, jazz, urban and the like. Let me make this clear, I think it’s a good thing that the Proms embraces other forms of music, but as a percentage of the goodies on offer, it’s tiny. It’s frustrating then that these are the only bits a viewer that morning would have seen on TV. It was of course swiftly followed by the accusations of elitism. I don’t even know what that means anymore. It’s not the prices that’s for sure, it’s cheaper to go to the proms than it is to - insert expensive popular culture event of your choice. It’s not the repertoire or choice of acts, they’ve already shown the diversity, and the big name proms sold out within hours but still that (in my opinion) unfair elitism tag remains. Is it the concert experience? We have experimented with changes, different venues as have others, venturing into railway arches, jazz clubs and other more edgy venues. But  although this attracts a different audience, it often appears even more select than regular concert audiences. I can’t help thinking that this can sometimes seem just as elitist, just as uncomfortable for some people as an experience. So what do we do? We can’t play in hundreds of different venues to please everyone. If you want to welcome everyone, be inclusive (which we should), do we have to water the art down so much it becomes a classical lite with relaxing/uplifting/inspiring hashtags attached? I don’t have the answer, but last week in Trafalgar Square I saw a glimpse of something exciting.  

Picture
Phil Cobb and John Alley rehearsing in Studio 2 at Abbey Road last night
We had our 4th annual BMW sponsored outdoor concert in Trafalgar Square. Outdoor concerts are usually referred to by musicians as muddy field dates for obvious reasons. In the summer months, despite the unreliabity of the British weather, country houses and parks around the country open their fields, erect a stage and invite orchestras to perform to the huddled, normally slightly damp masses. The majority of these concerts have a variation on the same repertoire, 1812 overture, Nutcracker excerpts, that bit from the Apprentice, the Archers, the Hovis ad and other favourite classical pieces. All these concerts finish with Land of Hope and Glory. It’s the law. They are great fun and very popular and I’ve done more than my fair share of them come rain or shine. The thing is, if you have 5000 people who are willing to sit on a rug, in the rain and eat a picnic until the freezer packs have begun to refreeze, why do we always provide them with the same overused pieces? Yes, play some of them, but why not do something else as well, something they might not know, something really good. It’s not too much to ask is it?
The thing I love about the LSO Trafalgar Square concert is that it is exactly the opposite of this approach. It helps that there is no mud and through the generous sponsorship, it is a free event for the public. Over 10,000 people came to watch and were hanging off trees and sitting across the road on the steps of St Martins. Let me just say that again. There were 10,000 people watching the LSO, outside in central London, for free. During our concert last year, there was an EDL march that went past on its way to Downing Street. It was estimated that there were about 1500 people on the march and our audience drowned them out by cheering. It was a great moment, but the headlines the next day were of the 1500 marchers whereas the 10,000 strong audience was relegated to a short piece somewhere after page 14- where elitism gets reported presumably. Is it the music that needs changing, the way it’s produced or the narrative? A bit of everything probably.

Picture
The spectacular view from my seat in Trafalgar Square last weekend
What did we play you ask? 1812? No. A couple of years ago it was The Rite of Spring, this year we played Shostakovitch 1 and the violin concerto with Nicola Benedetti. Shos 1? Which advert is that in then? Theme tune? No, not as far as I know anyway. To top it all, it was conducted by our principal conductor Valery Gergiev and it was the LSO, the same players who had been performing in the Barbican and Florence earlier in the week. There were cameras which beamed close ups onto screens for people at the back, there were no fancy lights other than the changing colour of the sky...and there were no waistcoats. What we presented was great music performed at the top level conducted by the best. It was a statement - You may think this is elitist, you may have been told it’s elitist but why not listen yourself. This is what we do and we do it well, apart from the fact that we’re outside in the square, this is what we do. What do you think?

If you were there, it was extraordinary how so many people can sit on the stone floor for a couple of hours and listen to challenging, probably unfamiliar repertoire. But they did. I watched some teenagers who stood at the front in my eyeline. As the melody whipped around the orchestra from firsts to seconds, to the trumpets and  piano, their faces turned to where the sound had moved like the crowd at a tennis match. When the orchestra punched out the rhythmic accents in the symphony, the notes punched out from the stage and the two girls in front of me turned to each other and grinned. At the end, they cheered and whistled. On my way home, all I could hear was people talking about about how much they enjoyed it, how they’d never heard an orchestra and how they didn’t realise how loud it could be and how exciting.I hope they come again next year and better still, I hope they come to the Barbican this weekend - why wait? If we’d played the old classics, of course people would have loved it, but they loved the Stravinsky and they loved the Shostakovich. Instead of apologising for what we do in the classical music, lets show exactly what we can do, not some watered down version deemed inoffensive. Let the music speak for itself.

No waistcoats were worn during the writing of this blog.

More pictures of the Trafalgar Square concert here
UPDATE: You can watch a film of the Trafalgar Square concert below including the London students joining in and Paul Rissman explaining the pieces to the audience. And people enjoying themselves.
18 Comments
Carolyn Kelly
22/5/2015 03:25:34 am

What a great article- am with you all the way Gareth!

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Isa Forde
22/5/2015 06:28:51 am

Totally agree with you, Gareth. I wasn't able to be at this year's concert but the Rite of Spring one lives on in my memory. It was glorious.

I think part of the problem is that Classical Music historically identified itself (or allowed itself to be identified) with the old white/European/upper class elite of the western world. The music needed (needs?) the money. The elite needed a veneer of cultural 'superiority' to justify their economic domination. Now, the music has fallen victim to a rejection of that elite’s right to dominate and the fact that the elite don't really need the music anymore. It's enough just to have money/power these days.

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Catherine Edis
22/5/2015 06:55:06 am

What a brilliant article. Couldn't have said it better!

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Joan
22/5/2015 10:08:36 am

My eldest son played trombone in the Trafalgar Square concert as part of 'On Track'. He's had seven years of involvement with the LSO including the Olympics - he's a very lucky lad. I suspect that that is one way of building your audience. He won't be going on to have a career in music (hopefully his love of maths is going to take him to interesting places!) but I bet he continues to go to concerts as it is an environment that he now feels relaxed in and informed about. Given that his dad and I can't play or read music this is something that we have to thank the local music provider Newham Music Trust and the LSO for. Outreach programmes must be extremely expensive to run but they do give some fantastic results. I love seeing the pictures of you and the young flautists by the way - I'm sure they'll carry the confidence they gain from playing with such support into the rest of their lives.

Since Finn has become involved we have been to quite a few LSO concerts - not something we would otherwise have thought to do. Abellio Greater Anglia permitting (admittedly never guaranteed!) we can get door to door from our Stratford home to the Barbican in 30 minutes. And we do come not just to see you lot but to concerts by the Britten Symphonia and others. But we still only get to a tiny portion of what is on. Time is surely the biggest barrier to many people getting to concerts. And it is surely one reason why retired people make up such a big proportion of the audience. Especially when your concerts tend to be on Thursdays and Sundays and people have to think about getting up the next morning.

One thing we certainly will be booking for is the John Adams Scheherazade. Was really pleased to get an email about that today.

Best wishes and thank you.

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Kent Peacock link
22/5/2015 06:11:25 pm

Gareth,

This is another very interesting and right-on post.

I just recently got interested in Shostakovich's music after playing 2nd flute in his 5th symphony. I've since explored others, working through #9, #7, and #11. (The first movement of #7 is horrifyingly good.) You've encouraged me to tackle #1 next. Luckily, there's an LSO performance of it on YouTube from 2006. (Nice hair, by the way.) What's cool is that he writes such great flute (and piccolo!) parts!

I'm used to getting to learn a piece by playing it, and have fallen in love with several symphonies that I didn't know before over the last few years. To learn the other Shostakovich symphonies, I've had to spent time listening to them repeatedly. And here's my point: some of the "inaccessibility" of at least some classical music is that it's not good enough to listen to a piece just once to fully appreciate it. I find I have to spend a long time with a piece to truly make it my friend.

Cheers,
Kent

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John Borstlap link
23/5/2015 10:25:31 am

A very strong article..... a message from the real world instead of all those flimsy theories. Accusations of elitism concerning classical music as a genre are unjustified and resulting from a misunderstanding what classical music is - it has never been written as something 'elitist'. And then, there is nothing wrong with elitism if this refers to artistic excellence, which is accessible to everybody able to pay for a ticket. It is a nonsensical notion. The current populism and egalitarian nature of 'modern society' gets things entirely wrong and it is depriving itself of experiences which are necessary for any personal emotional development towards adult maturity. Classical music is a means of coping with life's challenges, reinforcing the inner core of the human being.

As for solutions, there is one really important factor which contributes to the contemporary viability of classical music: new music which picks-up classical / tonal traditions from premodernist times and develops it in a high-quality way while being accessible to audiences, developed on the regular repertoire. Great talents who stand comparison with Shostakovich, Britten, and Stravinksy have meanwhile appeared: David Matthews in England (with increasing success, also at the Proms), the three french composers Nicolas Bacri (very serious and intense music of great depth), flashy Richard Dubugon and Karol Beffa i(the latter with brilliantly scored, sensational works, especially a recent piano concerto). It is really serious stuff without any touch of 'kitsch' or 'pastiche' and it may restore the image of classical, serious music in the 21st century.

For the rest - it is education and availability of correct information about classical msuic and what it really is, and not dumbing-down for innocent youngsters who would be seriously disappointed if they were attending a concert with Bruckner while expecting some light entertainment with cymbal clashes and tinkling celesta.

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Dilys Page
23/5/2015 04:32:06 pm

Lovely and heartening change from the usual gloom and doom about the future of classical music.

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Ken L
24/5/2015 12:07:22 am

I continue to be amazed by how much the classical world collectively fails to see anything from a layman's perspective.

I got my girlfriend into Formula One and the Premiere League by telling her cool stories about Sebastian Vettel's brash brilliance and Wayne Rooney's fights on and off the pitch. And giving her a bit of the strategy. Now she knows what she's watching, she's chosen who to support and who to jeer, and she enjoys it fully.

This approach is exactly how the NFL became America's top sport, loyally watched by millions of women and non-athletes.

I only came to love classical music once my knowledge of the pieces (my 17+ Beethoven symphony cycles) allowed me to actually hear the fun part: what an orchestra is saying (aka the interpretation). And my familiarity with the many unique characters (Barenboim, Lang Lang, Chailly, Ozawa) makes the experience even more vivid and entertaining.

Basically the same mix of context and characters that football and racing used to become so big.

Sadly classical music does none of this.

Maybe more people would attend classical concerts if the conductor actually spoke to the audience. Or if the anonymous robot players were in fact seen as individuals with interesting lives. Or if the personalities of each section was shared with the crowd (i.e the basses love to generate power, the flutes are all free-love hippies). Or if the program notes told me WHY the conductor tonight has chosen to take the tempi faster than his peers. Or if the recording industry created resources that taught laymen how a single piece is interpreted in vastly different ways.

Classical music's current elitism isn't primarily about class or income. It's about an unwillingness to communicate better with ordinary people.

This industry doesn't need lights or waistcoats. It needs more people willing to explain to uninitiated listeners why we love this stuff.


Ken

p.s.
It wouldn't hurt if orchestras were honest about the fact that *some* of the music written by our revered composers (Stravinsky, Mahler, and Shostakovich for example) isn't actually enjoyable to listen to.

Seriously. We could use more stuff like Dvorak New World, Haydn 90, and Ole Bull concertos in these programs. You can absolutely create more enjoyable concerts without dumbing down the repertoire.

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John Borstlap link
25/5/2015 03:11:28 am

The last paragraph undoes a bit the sensible suggestions mentioned earlier. And already many orchestras do exactly what is suggested: better communication, showing the people instead of merely a chic façade, etc. etc. It's a myth that 'classical music' is ellitist and lazy.

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Ken L
25/5/2015 07:31:20 am

Your belief that 'they're already doing this just fine' is exactly what I'm referring to.

Kent Peacock link
25/5/2015 09:47:51 pm

> This industry doesn't need lights or waistcoats. It needs more
> people willing to explain to uninitiated listeners why we love this
> stuff.

Bingo! I think you've just explained why this blog exists! It's doing what you claim needs to be done in terms of humanizing classical music. (Case in point: the "Menage a trois" entry from awhile back.)

It occurs to me that I haven't shared it with my musical community, other than mentioning it at times. I'm going to fix that!

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Ken L
24/5/2015 12:47:03 am

By the way, I'm sure it felt nice to be a rock star in Trafalgar Square with teenage girls watching!

It's remarkable that you ultimately attribute this to the music - which you think can 'speak for itself' - instead of the combined charm of a rare summer public spectacle, free tickets, and the pleasant feelings had during everyone's once-a-year visit to church... I mean the orchestra.

If classical music spoke for itself it wouldn't be in its current state.

The unpleasant reality is teenage girls who had their first ever classical music experience will not be doing it again next weekend. Neither will any of the other 10,000 passersby.

To think an orchestra can get a big crowd by just showing up and playing the music is romantic at best.

(Arrogant and lazy at worst, but most likely just a bit naive. What rock band do you know with this attitude? Pop stars work night and day to *create* their fans and draw people into their world. For some reason classical musicians seem to think they can just sit back and let Johannes Brahms handle it.)

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Kent Peacock link
25/5/2015 10:02:34 pm

Hmm... Brahms... sucks me in every time... I get to see the San Francisco Symphony perform them. What's interesting is that if you look at the SF musicians' profiles, the fact that they get to perform these composers' works is one of the things they like about playing in the orchestra. I can relate, since my first professional flute gig was playing Brahms 4 in the late 70s, and I still remember it.

I guess the point is that it brings in the fans. By the way, I snoozed and loosed when the LSO was here recently and missed their concerts. They were essentially sold out.

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S.V. Millwood
24/5/2015 03:42:45 am

This is a wonderfully compelling article, with which I find myself almost entirely agreeing, although I would have liked to see a more strident defence of insisting upon high standards of behaviour from audiences -- noisy audience-members and mobile telephones do put me off going to 'alternative' concerts, and I have heard of many people who have even gone so far as to stop going even to regular evening concerts on account thereof. I think the crux of the issue is that classical music (like *any* artistic movement or style that has been around for more than a few years) is a minority pursuit, yet the marketing hacks are trying to make it mainstream at all costs. Personally, I think this is a flawed strategy: of course, we should not erect unnecessary barriers, but we must stand up for what matters. In the same way that a mosque would never countenance serving pork and alcohol on its premises to attract more visitors, we must never undermine the capacity for concentrated listening and for appreciating the role of silence in classical music.

Nonetheless, I shall be sure to cite this article widely in support of many of my own views.

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John Borstlap link
25/5/2015 10:10:45 am

If people think that orchestral practice has to drastically change because 'in that world' everybody is complacent, it has to be concluded that they are seriously misinformed, which neatly ties-in with their obvious misunderstanding what the art form really is. There is no symphony orchestra in the West, and probably also in places like Colombia, Venezuela and Chili, that is not aware of the problem of how to formulate the genre 'classical music' within contemporary cultural identity.

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Paul Davies
29/5/2015 02:08:57 am

Wow - so much good discussion here! Thanks for a great, and what has proved to be provocative, article. PS: Really enjoyed being a volunteer at Trafalgar Square (for the 3rd year in succession!)

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John Borstlap link
29/5/2015 05:09:53 pm

This debate has also launched a feverish discussion, sprinkled with abuse and heartfelt revelations, at Normal Lebrecht's 'Slipped Disc':

http://slippedisc.com/2015/05/weve-tried-change-mostly-it-doesnt-work/#comment-69224

Should be read by any orchestral programmer.

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Gareth
3/6/2015 03:02:54 pm

Updated post above. You can watch a short film about the Trafalgar Square concert.

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