# Historical program envy



## licorice stick (Nov 24, 2014)

I often find myself wishing that orchestras presented the highly ambitious concerts common until the era of musicians' unions and general public disinterest in classical music. I just found this Mahler/NYPO program from Nov. 1, 4, and 6 of 1910...

Bach/Mahler Suite for Orchestra (with Mahler at the "harpsichord," actually a modified piano, as harpsichords were not yet in vogue)
Schubert 9
Mozart Idomeneo ballet music
Mozart Six German Dances
Strauss Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Patrons got a good return on investment in those days!


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2018)

NYPO has a great digital resource of online programmes covering all of their history. Things like the Rug Concerts later on in the 20th century are another great example of interesting thought-out and ambitious (in its own way) concert programming as well.

I do want to emphasise that there _are_ still very many ambitious and unusual programmes happening, but these tend to be outside the mainstream orchestral concert hall/mainstream opera theatre. Always worth checking out imo.


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## licorice stick (Nov 24, 2014)

Yes, of the Big 5 orchestras, NYPO and maybe BSO have complete program archives, and the NYPO archive has by far the best user interface. All programs back to 1842! I didn't realize how few concerts they played for the first 30-40 years of their existence. I was looking at the frequency of performances of Auber, Spohr and other obscure-ish composers recently in my playlist when I was struck by an acute case of nostalgia for the mega-concerts of a time long gone.


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2018)

What are the Big 5?


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## licorice stick (Nov 24, 2014)

NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland. Now everyone puts LA and San Fran at the same level.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Programs used to be much more varied, longer, and interesting. It's in the last 50-60 years that so many orchestras have frozen their repertoire, keep replaying the same hallowed classics in order to not offend potential ticket buyers and sponsors. A elderly lady I knew went to practically every concert of the NYPO from 1930-1970, and heard most concerts by Boston and Philadelphia in Carnegie Hall - and a lot more. She kept scrap books with every program and newspaper reviews. I spent days - weeks - reading through them. Talk about envy. The Boston programs in particular with Koussevitsky stood out for the amazing repertoire. New York with Rodzinski or Mitropoulos was terrific, too. Those were different times. Were the audiences better educated? More cultured? I don't know. There are orchestras that occasionally bring out something outside the mainstream, but let's face it: the bread and butter of orchestras remains the war horse classics. What's really annoying is that summer music festivals have also stopped taking risks and do the mainstream repertoire. The London Proms is a great festival, but there's little adventure compared to the 1940s and 50s.


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2018)

Orchestras tend to market themselves with the core repertoire and the most famous soloists in order to sell themselves, but I don't exactly think it is a strategy that will work in the long run. One thing that classical music doesn't do so well these days is present itself as an evolving culture in the same way other styles of music, art, film, literature, theatre etc do. I see a predominantly ageing population at orchestral concerts that focus on warhorses, though not so much at concerts of more unusual and contemporary repertoire. 

Something that surprised me when I started at university is the interest that young people have for opera, particularly when it comes to contemporary productions. I suspect it is because there is more of a sense of opera being able to reinvent itself with each new and different production, focussing on interesting themes, symbols and ideas present in it without being conservative. Recently one of our opera companies did a production of Der Rosenkavalier where Baron Ochs was dressed up as Donald Trump, orange makeup, toupee and all. It was a real hit!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

licorice stick said:


> I often find myself wishing that orchestras presented the highly ambitious concerts common until the era of musicians' unions and general public disinterest in classical music. I just found this Mahler/NYPO program from Nov. 1, 4, and 6 of 1910...
> 
> Bach/Mahler Suite for Orchestra (with Mahler at the "harpsichord," actually a modified piano, as harpsichords were not yet in vogue)
> Schubert 9
> ...


Quite a concert. The NYPO digital archives (easy to find online) can be explored by anyone, such as seeing the other programs conducted by Mahler. Also, one can read about the Mahler performances conducted by Bruno Walter and others. (According to the archives, Walter never conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 3, 6, 7 or 8, and had ample opportunities.) Plus, there's the entire performance history of the NYP going as far back as 1842. I believe that anyone who loves history and research would enjoy a visit.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

shirime said:


> Orchestras tend to market themselves with the core repertoire and the most famous soloists in order to sell themselves, but I don't exactly think it is a strategy that will work in the long run. One thing that classical music doesn't do so well these days is present itself as an evolving culture in the same way other styles of music, art, film, literature, theatre etc do. I see a predominantly ageing population at orchestral concerts that focus on warhorses, though not so much at concerts of more unusual and contemporary repertoire.


The idea that the way to save orchestral concerts is to stuff them with more "unusual and contemporary repertoire" is patently absurd (except to the degree that "unusual" simply means lesser known pieces within the broader tradition). If there were one iota of evidence that putting more "contemporary repertoire" on the program would increase attendance, I have do doubt that every orchestra would be doing it. The fact that they are not following such a plan is strongly suggestive of the opposite. (In any case, I would certainly recommend against a program of musicians barely touching their instruments and producing little to no sound, in case someone thought that might be a winner.)


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

"One thing that classical music doesn't do so well these days is present itself as an evolving culture in the same way other styles of music, art, film, literature, theatre etc do."

That's changing. More large-screen visuals can be found at concert venues and recitals to attract a younger audience. I consider it a progressive trend and necessary adjunct to the appreciation of the music for today's concert-goers, whether young or old. I'm all in favor of it because there's just no comparison between the sound quality of attending a live concert and listening to most sound systems at home. Live concerts are also good for the community as a way of bringing people together around cultural events.

https://www.wqxr.org/story/311596-orchestras-video-technology-younger-crowd/
http://www.bsomusic.org/stories/do-visuals-help-classical-music/


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

If I remember correctly there was a concert once with Mahler as conductor and Rachmaninoff as pianist. Envy indeed....


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

licorice stick said:


> Yes, of the Big 5 orchestras, NYPO and maybe BSO have complete program archives, and the NYPO archive has by far the best user interface. All programs back to 1842! I didn't realize how few concerts they played for the first 30-40 years of their existence. I was looking at the frequency of performances of Auber, Spohr and other obscure-ish composers recently in my playlist when I was struck by an acute case of nostalgia for the mega-concerts of a time long gone.


I must thank you for mentioning the program archives. I am exploring one of the NYPO and finding it to be pretty fascinating (quite a bit of Glazunov and Bax programmed in the 1920s and 1930s).

Nice!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Many orchestras today tend to stick to the same old beloved staples of the repertoire , but there are more exceptions to this rule than most people realize . For example, the New York Philharmonic plays more new or recent music than most orchestras , and as been doing this with all of its music directors , all the way from Mitropoulos, Bernstein, Boulez, Mehta, Masur, Maazel and Gilbert . 
It's impossible to know how much the new guy , Jaap VanZweden will do, but he does seem to be interested in new music . Guest conductors have also done lots of new music . 
Leading conductors of our time such as Rattle, Slatkin, Thomas, Zinman, Eschenbach , Dohnanyi, Barenboim, the Jarvis, Ozawa, Mehta, Salonen, and others have been committed champions of new music . Leon Botstein, with his part time orchestra the American symphony , has performed an enormous amount of long neglected but interesting music by so many different composers . 
The warhorses will always be played , but there is no lack of new music at orchestral concerts today .


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

There are some of us out there who don't want to hear the admittedly great warhorses played over and over, yet we also don't give a damn about new music. What we want orchestras to play are the wonderful works that have been skipped over and ignored for the last hundred or more years. We suspect and believe that modern composers (and I mean 1960 on) just aren't as good as the older composers. We want the music of Raff, Bax, Rubinstein, Chadwick, Schmidt, Balakirev, Glazunov, Atterberg, Suk, Goldmark, Arensky, Pfitzner, Gliere, Zemlinksy, and many others who rarely show up in concert. There are, sadly, few conductors or orchestra managers willing to do it.


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## licorice stick (Nov 24, 2014)

Yes, I strongly believe that longer programs with more rarely heard classical music of the tonal variety would increase concert attendance, but of course the trend is in exactly the opposite direction. I usually find myself unwilling to shell out gobs of money to hear a Mahler symphony (sans overture or concerto) that I could whistle in my sleep.


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