# The Classical Concert Experience - Like an Art Gallery, a fine meal, or other?



## dantejones (Jan 14, 2015)

Which metaphor works?

For me, the orchestral (specifically) concert experience should be like a stroll through the Art Institute of Chicago (or somewhere similar). In this wing, we have the French Impressionists, and in that wing, Modernist painters beginning with Gauguin and Picasso. Over here, there are decorative arts from ancient China and Japan, and over there is American photography. Each wing contains works from a similar time period, medium, or style. *The viewer has time to immerse himself in the philosophical similarities of the pieces, and establish a frame of reference for appreciating the images.*

Today's orchestral concert experience to me is actually much more like a single course of contrasting elements. A single course because the eater has to finish off the whole plate before dessert can be offered, much like the listener has to sit, silently, through the program, ingesting everything at the artists' pace. I recently attended a symphony program that began with a work by Debussy, continued with a Lutoslawski Symphony, and ended with Dvorak's New World. Yes, late Romanticism and mid-century Modernism were both duly honored, but in keeping with the meal metaphor, I felt like *I had just eaten a meal of steak tartare with blueberry pancakes.*

What's your metaphor? Let's duke this out


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I think they can mix music from different eras while still maintaining similarities between them. In fact, I think they often do.

I don't know how you avoid the "artists' pace" issue.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Some people like programs with a theme, or at least a common idea or element to give "logic" to the whole concert. Others value contrast, and want each work to take them to an entirely different "room in the gallery." I tend to be the former type; looking at all the pictures in one room stimulates thought about period and style, or about how different artists have dealt with similar subjects or formal concepts. At a concert I can have the immediate pleasure of listening, but also come away with greater awareness and understanding.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I fully understand people preferring music closely related. Some have likened a very diverse classical concert to hearing a popular concert consisting of Metal , Hip Hop, Country, and Beatles's songs. Why would anyone expect that listeners would like such different music? Many (most) simply would not.

While I would not like such diversity in popular music, I'd love classical concerts featuring a Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary work. In fact, I would have no problem with Tallis' Spem in Alium, a Mozart Piano Concerto, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, and an John Adams work. I realize that could never happen at one concert, but I would be perfectly happy with that program. When I visit art museums. I like to sample works from the mideval through modern so my tastes in diversity of art and art music are similar in that sense. 

For reasons that I don't fully understand, I think it's easier to like a very broad range of classical music (over 500 years) than a broad range of popular (the past 40).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> I fully understand people preferring music closely related. Some have likened a very diverse classical concert to hearing a popular concert consisting of Metal , Hip Hop, Country, and Beatles's songs. Why would anyone expect that listeners would like such different music? Many (most) simply would not.
> 
> While I would not like such diversity in popular music, I'd love classical concerts featuring a Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary work. In fact, I would have no problem with Tallis' Spem in Alium, a Mozart Piano Concerto, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, and an John Adams work. I realize that could never happen at one concert, but I would be perfectly happy with that program. When I visit art museums. I like to sample works from the mideval through modern so my tastes in diversity of art and art music are similar in that sense.
> 
> *For reasons that I don't fully understand, I think it's easier to like a very broad range of classical music (over 500 years) than a broad range of popular (the past 40).*


For the same reason it's easier to like a dinner consisting of an appetizer, a soup, a salad, an entree, and a glass of wine than one consisting of a chocolate chip cookie, an ice cream cone, a twinkie, a stick of bubble gum, and a diet Dr. Pepper?


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I liken a concert programme to that of an art group show that is curated by the person/scholar in question. Interestingly enough, the selections tell us more about the people in power than the audience receiving the works in question.

The art counterpart of this would be: http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/2014Biennial


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

A fine concert is definitely analogous to going to a fine art gallery. *A refined experience to appreciate high master works of the great past.*


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

For me the metaphor of a museum or gallery does not work. Because performed music is an intangible thing that exists in time, it has 'life' to me. New works, old works: they all require a performer (live or recorded). When I go to a gallery or museum, I gaze at the displays, read the captions and move on. It's mostly rather passive, even if I am interested in the materials. I might go home and read more about some of the stuff. Music, conversely, is participatory. I need to engage my brain to make it happen for me in the present moment. It's happening for real for me, right now!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

brotagonist said:


> For me the metaphor of a museum or gallery does not work. Because performed music is an intangible thing that exists in time, it has 'life' to me. New works, old works: they all require a performer (live or recorded). When I go to a gallery or museum, I gaze at the displays, read the captions and move on. It's mostly rather passive, even if I am interested in the materials. I might go home and read more about some of the stuff. Music, conversely, is participatory. I need to engage my brain to make it happen for me in the present moment. It's happening for real for me, right now!


A painter might view this "active vs. passive" distinction rather differently.

In fact, we do. :tiphat:


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I have my tickets for the Pittsburgh Symphony's upcoming Beethoven Fest finale "The Immortal" on June 7 -- to feature the Violin Concerto (Christian Tetzlaff, violin) and the Ninth Symphony (Simona Saturova, soprano; Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Phan, tenor; Liang Li, bass; with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh). Manfred Honeck conducts.

The PSO often selects a theme for their concert performances. This past season featured three Beethoven themed concerts: "The Revolutionary" (Fifth and Seventh Symphonies), "The Hero" (Quartet Op18 No4, Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 3), and the upcoming "The Immortal".

The thing about attending these live concerts isn't to experience new music. I know all these pieces well, have heard them dozens if not hundreds of times. (In fact, it was only in April 2013 that the PSO last performed the Ninth in a concert I attended.)

I would prefer to hear a new work at each live concert I attend, but that is not always the case. (Going back to the April 2013 Beethoven Ninth concert, I recall the concert opened with a world premiere: Christopher Theofanidis _The Gift _(a PSO commission).

The point of going to a live concert, even if it is to hear a familiar piece, or another performance of the Ninth Symphony, has to do with (at least for me) respect -- for the composer, the work, the performers, the heritage. I have several dozen recorded versions of the Beethoven Ninth on my record and CD shelves and the score on my book shelf, but the work was written to be performed before a live audience and I don't mind paying homage (and hard-earned cash) to experience the work live the way the composer intended it be heard. I still have my recordings. But the ambience of the live concert hall is something my listening room can never capture, and it's good to revisit that live venue every now and then just for the sake of focus.

I can also view most great art on-line with this very lap-top on which I now type. But there's something special about strolling through the Philadelphia Museum of Art that can't be duplicated via computer -- at least not yet.

But mostly it's a matter of respect.

We who cherish art understand this.

I just finished watching the George Clooney film "The Monuments Men", and it is fascinating to reflect upon the value of art by way of that movie. At the end the character Clooney plays is asked if the loss of life was worth the salvaging of the art, and he responds that he thinks it is. The fellows who put their lives on the line to rescue the art (even though there were likely photographs and replicas of the pieces) did so out of respect for the humanizing element that art provides. Art is, after all, what makes us human. No other earth species produces art. And we were likely not human of mind until that day in the ancient past when one of our ancestors "created" something to appreciate only for its beauty.

It's interesting to note that in "The Monuments Men" the Russians, Germans, and Allies were all concerned about saving the art, albeit for different reasons. It's frightening to think there is the radical Moslem terrorist organization ISIL out there right now dedicated to destroying art. And they do it in the name of God? Which is proof enough that ISIL is not a religious organization, for no religion can honor "a Creator" by destroying creations. If we are, as some believe, "God like", it is mostly, I suspect, in our ability to create what is good and beautiful.

So let us cherish our concert halls.

Did I tell you I have my tickets for the upcoming Beethoven Fest in Pittsburgh on June 7?

Did I tell you I also have tickets for Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band in Pittsburgh in October?

Hey ... it's a matter of respect for art and artists. No matter the genre.


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