Below is a Google Translation of an article from the Danish newspaper Politiken's online site only a few weeks ago. I can't spend time on making it a near-perfect translation. I've gone loosely through it and replaced a couple of Danish words that Google apparently couldn't manage, and I've noticed a few wordings, where even I would have to compare to the text in Danish in order to fully understand it. But it shouldn't be too hard a read, and maybe it contains enough info to find something similar on the net in proper English.
In short, free classical concerts in the streets, let the music come to the people on their conditions instead of choking it to death indoors with the poshness of the uberclass and upper middle-class to show off their expensive clothes and stuck-up manners. I mean: When Daniel Barenboim can do it, then what excuse could anybody else possibly have? There is no telling how much classical music would benefit from this on a much larger scale, crisis or no crisis. A full-sized orchestra is obviously expensive to keep on the payroll not to mention additional choir and singers sometimes, but the genre has become its own worst enemy by insisting on being treated with awe and "silence! we're playing now, don't distract us!" behind closed doors. It has to find a compromise closer to the informal settings of other genre concerts. Free or entrance fee is not the point. People still have money to burn off on concerts, but they have to be able to feel that the music is played for their sake, and that expressions of their enthusiasm and gratitude is not unwelcome, even if it happens in the middle of a symphony movement. It's so dumb, really. When else should it happen, up to several minutes later, when the composer has decided that now and not a second sooner is it time for a break? It's not Wimbledon, it's music. Viggo. http://politiken.dk/debat/profiler/marstal/ECE1676794/roll-over-tjajkovskij-and-tell-beethoven-the-news/ 2. jul. 2012 Henrik Marstal Roll over Tchaikovsky and Tell Beethoven the News In my last blog I allowed myself to go right with Politiken classical music editor Thomas Michelsen, because he is as a facilitator for my opinion does not address sufficiently open to both interesting and useful experiments with the classical music concert framework, which over the past few years have been good examples of home. In spite of these experiments sometimes affected by the next, anyone - arrangers, musicians, audiences and critics - in force them to learn more about how classical music institution can become an even more dynamic, contemporary cultural bastion of the 21st century. The key must always be that the classical music institution can be experienced by an ever more culturally differentiated audience on a unbiased way (and it goes well, to feel both ways), and thus it may continue to be very dynamic, contemporary cultural bastion of the 21 century. And if it is necessary to experiment to get there, then the musical world as a whole actively endorse it. An amazingly competent and successful example of how such a experiment can be done, I experienced yesterday in Berlin in the middle of the boulevard Unter den Linden at Bebelplatz the Deutsche Staatsoper and Humboldt University. The boulevard was the apartment closed to vehicular traffic and instead filled with concert-goers by Deutsche Staatsoper and the car company BMW had been invited to a free concert by symphony orchestra Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by the Argentine-Israel Semitic pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. It was not a single event but something that has regularly taken place in recent years. Here's how I experienced it: Thousands are bypassed up and has sat itself directly on the asphalt, with or without blankets and pillows, but all bear with sun hats, sunglasses, picnic baskets, beer, pizzas and umbrellas. In addition, possess a great deal of concentrated listening with their eyes fixed on the two big screens to the right and left of the stage. which there are to a microphone amplified symphony orchestra. And of course Barenboim himself, who leads the orchestra through Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in b-minor with the Uzbek-Israeli Yefim Bronfman as soloist, and then same composer's fourth symphony. The shape is classic, traditional concert with all that include - and yet not quite. The concert is not just underway, but is informally presented by the two partners respective directors. It helps to concretely put an sender or a face at the concert, mind you, in a manner that is both earthy, warm and appreciative of the present audience. It also plays into that almost no institutional expressions can be traced: No controllers, no fixed seats, no bell there for three laps before calling the concert to herding people in place, and no implied claims to the audience to be / Connaisseurs / or for that matter be suitably dressed for the noble even allowed to be present. Similarly, they act predominantly male band members did not in dark clothing, as tradition prescribes otherwise, but only in white shirts with complete individual dress code what their tie is concerned. How both release and hold the words on the forms of German musical life! Concert in which, of course, differ from those in a concert hall as a result of the slightly modified sound conditions that the necessary microphone gain brings about, and as a result of individual gusts which sometimes threatens to overthrow the node racks. The triumphant conclusion of the piano concerto first movement leads to a spontaneous, thunderous applause from the audience - something that might otherwise be regarded as a marked break in the concert hall etiquette of silent devotion between rates. Barenboim and Bronfman appears in the first place Nor brand with it, but after 10-15 seconds travel Bronfman nevertheless slightly awkward, overwhelmed by his piano chair in order to acknowledge the audience's applause. The incident helps to lift the mood and make the audience even more hungry in the subsequent second movement, however, concludes that subtly that nobody when to clap before the third and final movement is in full swing. Since piano concert is over, the applause is so resounding that Bronfman himself may contribute to the degradation tag by making a small additional number. How do you normally certainly not in the middle of a concert, but it helps only to make the atmosphere even more uplifted the audience. No sooner is Bronfman complete before the piano is rolled away from the scene, and the orchestra is currently the fourth symphony. Again applause after first rate, and this time also after each of the next. Barenboim seems to not even now do not notice it, but does during both happy and inspired, especially in the third movement he allows to flirt with the conductor's baton and act / showman / in a way that he guaranteed could not afford in a concert hall. The audience is hardly connoisseurs of the work, making sure Barenboim also for his gesture to signal when the work is over. And the applause bursts, therefore with the same loose again, ecstasy and with a weight, as an ovation can only have when the audience actually have immersed themselves in music and had an experience. In applause goes all the way to Barenboim every corner of the stage and throws hand kisses out to audiences and obligatory bouquet of flowers that he has just been handed, then becomes Also thrown far beyond the audience acknowledged with an enthusiastic hoot. Barenboim is inspired, you feel, and he now keeps a short speech is about how the ongoing alteration of the Deutsche Staatsoper seem quite capable of protracted (it has just been postponed yet one year), playing musicians now even always at the time they are advertised to. He asks rhetorically: What if we instead of playing today had said to you: Ahhh, come back tomorrow - and that we morning so had said: Ahhh, come again on Wednesday - The audience enjoying themselves, but I think they also understand very well Barenboims point: The music is always present here and now, and that in Contrary to world builders can never afford to let his audience waiting. And as if to substantiate precisely the point, he concludes by saying that if someone does not think they played well enough, or that they did not play long enough, so here are a little encore - after which the orchestra plays a sweeping waltz, before everything is finally over. It's an interesting power relationship that unfolds between audience and musicians. The concert hall's formal, quiet environment takes things institution's own terms. But an outdoor concert is something else - as true as that - street belongs to the people - is the concert by. definition a popular event, highlighted by the sale of beer and pizza, of free admission and the informal / setting / with street pavement as seating surface. The highbrow dimension has a number of plans put completely out of power, the music here is nowhere else than at street level with the audience. And it makes itself useful, not nice. This reduces the opportunity for increased to connection between the sender (the composer) and receiver (audience) is precisely such as Beethoven took as the motto of one of its works: - From the heart - it had to go to the heart. It's an important point at the concert that not only the public, but also musicians are more unrestrained, more free and more informal when situation allows it. The result is that the mood is better, energy flows more freely, and the musicians can be more tear with the audience's enthusiasm, because this can flow freely. Alone Therefore, alternative concert forms like this worth pursuing, even of the reason that they eventually will undoubtedly be able to draw a new curious audience right into the concert halls. And Tchaikovsky himself, I wonder what he would have said that two of his masterpieces of yesterday was played in this way - I think he would have been happy to see how his music streamed over Thousands of concentrated and receptive listeners, as freely and as rampant in the streets. And, to paraphrase Chuck Berry's famous Rock 'n' roll number, I do not think that Tchaikovsky would have anything against a change in the chorus line for - Roll over Tchaikovsky and tell Beethoven the news. Precisely Beethoven is for the rest the next composer who Barenboim takes on the program when he knows an outdoor concert in Berlin in late July with the Seville-based summer orchestral West Eastern Divan Orchestra, consisting of young Arab and Israeli musicians. Again, play with two of the composer's most weighty symphonies, the legendary Eroica-Symphony and the no less legendary Destiny Symphony. Again: no fine sensations of inherited gold is durable, and quality of High performance. And now when we talk about the quality that many are afraid of losing every single time for experimenting with classical music form and Content: The quality, completeness and sincerity were at the concert on Under den Linden never squandered. It / can / be possible to experiment with shapes without tivolisering - while create the best possible conditions for that music can unfold optimally for the benefit of each and every one who listens. I think it is worth remembering - also in the continued and necessary debate on the classical music means and ends at home. HENRIK MARSTAL _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
