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
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