Hall of Shame
Musoc.org names & shames* those institutions and individuals who debase art music in the name of populism, philistinism or lucre. (*If only.)
Class.Traitor of the Month for September is 'classical' critic of The Arts Desk (and a dozen other anxious-for-hip-writers publications in the UK) Igor Toronyi-Lalic, for one of the most knuckleheaded, pathetically-desperate-to-say-something-outrageous descriptions of an art music work ever written - likening listening ('under duress') to Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto to "miserabilist torture porn" and watching a "grisly rape".
See also Donkey Gongs below right.
Beyond Sandow's Ken
July » A great deal continues to be written on the future of art music, often along the alarmist lines much beloved of Norman Lebrecht, one of the numerous arts journalists who think predicting the demise of an aspect of culture which has been trampled on by neoliberal forces for more than half a century is somehow tantamount to insightful writing. In his blog ("Greg Sandow on the future of classical music"), Greg Sandow (who else) has made a fine art of it (using the postmodernist 'anything goes' definition of art).
In one of his latest entries he quotes in full what he calls the 'Manifesto' of a musical chum of his, Ken Nielsen, whose "corporate background [for confectionery-makers Mars, no less] helps make him [...] impatient with solutions for classical music that aren't entrepreneurial."
Intrigued by this billing half as much as musoc.org was? Then read on!
What happened, it seems, was that over lunch one day (which is how these things usually happen), Ken gave Greg not only his Manifesto, but also his permission to reproduce it on his blog...The salient fact here is that Greg, self-declared clairvoyant and doyen of American musical postmodernism, "love[s] every bit of it" and proclaims it "far healthier than anything I've yet seen the industry come up with."
It is, of course, very unlikely that any self-respecting member of the public with an interest in art music would advertently read anything in an Arts Journal blog (home to both Sandow and Lebrecht, and existing, like much in American academia, purely for its own self-aggrandisement), but many of the same do quite naturally read musoc.org; and for that reason, the Manifesto - despite its skull-splitting banality, and despite the fact that it's not really a manifesto in any normal sense of the word - is reproduced below...without the explicit permission of Ken or Greg, it has to be said, but with the blessing of the spirit of copyright law. And a few added pointers...
"1. The classical music industry is in decline, with an aging audience base and a low rate of new audience entry."
That 'classical music' is an "industry", rather than an art form, would presumably come as quite a surprise to the thousands of composers who have seen themselves as artists producing art rather than industry workers producing, well, products.
"2. Governments, compulsory music education or any other external action will not solve the problem."
This is, of course, the exact opposite of musoc.org's position...On the other hand, musoc.org would be very happy to see the back of the "classical music industry". [Thinks: "Farewell, Warner! Farewell, Classic FM!"]
"3. To reverse this, the industry should change to make its product more attractive and accessible. Currently, there are elements that make concerts forbidding and inaccessible to new entrants."
There are, of course, elements that make pop concerts forbidding to new entrants. Some of these are, curiously, identical to those vexing Ken and Greg, such as costume (tight trousers, short skirts, dubious haircuts), expense (opera is widely cheaper in many cases) and, ahem, impenetrable repertoire. And then there's the ear-splitting amplification; and the lingering smell of sweat and marijuana.
"4. These changes need not be (and in my opinion should not be) to the music, with one exception, mentioned next."
It's true that the Mars Bar didn't get where it is today by becoming a bag of boiled sweets.
"5. More new music should be introduced to concerts. Any art form that does not renew itself will become moribund. Because elements of the current audience are so conservative, a greater variety of concerts and formats, aimed at different audiences, is probably necessary. Stick with the current stuff for the olds, offer innovation to those excited by it."
"Probably necessary", and, in truth, started happening some time around the French Revolution.
It's hard to imagine a more conservative audience than one prepared to 'listen' for two hours to the same bland, repetitious, formulaic thumpings, whinings or thrashings of a 'dance', pop or rock gig. The "current stuff" that most "olds" like is pop (from the 1950s and 60s, for example).
As for the first 'point': how can Baroque art, for example, renew itself? How can 19th century music ever be anything else but 19th century music? All 14th century art has been 'moribund' for 600 years - but it can still be studied and marvelled at...without renewing itself!!
"6. Changes to the format and style of concerts should be tried - everything from getting players out of penguin suits to the length of concerts. Concert models that have worked elsewhere should be tried. In this area, as in most areas of business, change comes about not from strategy meetings but from innovation - new things being tried, some failing, some succeeding. Such innovation, and the risks that come with it would probably be itself attractive to a different audience. "Are you game to come and hear this just composed work?"
If ever a strategy was designed to strike back against neoliberal cultural hooliganism, this surely is it! "Are you game to come and hear this just composed work?" Phew - no wonder Sandow is enthusiastic!
"7. I believe that greater engagement with and involvement of the audience is an important part of the puzzle. A concert should be more like communication than a one-sided speech."
Ah, but what to do about all those people who insist on going to art galleries and museums to one-sidedly look at exhibits, not to mention their propensity for one-sidedly watching plays and one-sidedly reading books? And then, what to do about speeches themselves - a very one-sided art form?
"8. Such changes as I am suggesting must be tried at the level of the organisation - the orchestra, opera company or whatever - others can watch and steal the ideas if they work but an industry wide approach is doomed."
Wait a minute...if an "industry-wide approach is doomed", then what is the reflective reader to make of 3. above, that: "the industry should change to make its product more attractive and accessible"?
But then Arts Journal probably doesn't get enough reflective readers to make such rambling, self-contradictory guff very noticeable.
You can respond to this article at any time by emailing gro.cosum@srettel. See right for details.
Comments: See "Unsurpassed Sandow", Letters, July 2010
NB: Further evidence in a similar vein of the sheer fatuousness of Sandow's rhetoric can be found in Heather Mac Donald's entertaining trashing of Sandow's over-the-top, postmodern-cheerleader critique of her recent article, Classical Music's New Golden Age.
BBC Radio 3: Public Consultation Response
August » As part of its campaigning intention, musoc.org finds it appropriate to respond to (rare) public consultations of the sort currently underway at the BBC Trust, namely a review of the service provided by BBC Radio 3 (and Radios 4 & 7).
It goes without saying that the Trust has an obligation only to read all suggestions and opinions offered up by the public, not actually to act upon any. Nevertheless, musoc.org urges anyone who cares about the future of art music - not just in the UK, but worldwide - to submit their opinions to the Trust (it may only take 10 minutes). Closing date is August 26th.
Meanwhile, many subscribers to Anti-pop, as well as other correspondents, are listeners (often longstanding) of BBC Radio 3, and on that basis musoc.org has submitted its own set of responses. Whilst the opinions offered (see below) are not necessarily those of all or any of musoc.org's supporters, they will be broadly representative; moreover, they will undoubtedly be more critical than any entertained by Friends of Radio 3, whose campaigning position is inevitably mitigated by its broad-church membership.
The questions that follow are those to which musoc.org has replied.
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Q3: Radio 3's main role is to broadcast high quality classical music ranging from the great composers to more exploratory work, with an emphasis on live and specially recorded music. How well do you think Radio 3 does this?
A. The station does this pretty well on the whole, though it seems blithely unaware that there are thousands more great composers outside the institutionally controlled 'standard repertoire'. Similarly there are hundreds of living composers negelected by Radio 3 whose music is of a sufficiently high quality to be broadcasted (indeed, championed) by the station.
Q4: Radio 3 also includes other styles of music such as jazz and world music. What do you think about this programming on Radio 3?
A. Unequivocally, it shouldn't be played on Radio 3 at all. One thousand years of art music deserves and needs a station all to itself - it shouldn't have to share it with anything.
Q5: What do you think about the range of music played on Radio 3?
A. It could be far greater. There is very little Early (pre-Baroque) music or music composed in the late 20th and 21st centuries, and almost no genuine folk music.
However, to repeat, there should be no jazz, pop, musical theatre or world music whatsoever.
Q6: What do you think of Radio 3's speech based programming which includes drama, arts and religion?
A. It's broadly praiseworthy, but it shouldn't be on Radio 3 - Radio 4 broadcasts much similar material already, and that's where the rest of it belongs.
Q7: Radio 3 features performances by the BBC orchestras and BBC Singers. What do you think of these performances on Radio 3?
A. These are generally of a high standard.
Q8: Radio 3 should help build appreciation of music and culture, particularly amongst people with little knowledge of classical music. How well do you think it does this?
A. It doesn't do this at all. Its various and continuous attempts at striking a 'populist' note alienate many (if not all) of those that aren't novices, which is, historically, the vast majority of the station's listenership.
Radio 3 can't educate like this on its own; there needs to be a concerted and sustained effort right across the BBC (including TV and online) to counteract the portrayal and projection of culture by all those media in competition with the BBC (and by the mass media in general).
Q9: What do you think of Radio 3's website?
It could be worse, but it should be far better - with more information, fewer space-filling graphics, more BBC-originated information, less lazy linking to Wikipedia, and stricter fact-checking (the recent hyperlinking of the 19th century composer Engelbert Humperdinck to a biography of the 1960s pop crooner (who borrowed the former's name) being a case in point). It could also be soberer or less 'postmodern' - e.g. not plastered with photos of inanely-grinning presenters or written in juvenile-friendly language.
Q11: Is there anything else you want to say about Radio 3?
A. Above all, Radio 3 should be a broadcaster of art music and nothing else. Its demeanour should be more serious, less middle-brow. It should seek out new management not obsessed with patronising populism, and more knowledgeable presenters, replacing those complicit in the ongoing dumbing-down (particularly Sean Rafferty, Petroc Trelawny, Rob Cowan, Sarah Walker, Sara Mohr-Pietsch, Katie Derham, Suzy Klein & Lucie Skeaping).
It could and should be a globally unique station, not a ragbag of programming afraid to acknowledge the historical importance and cultural high ground of what it broadcasts.
You can respond to this article at any time by emailing gro.cosum@srettel. See right for details.
Birthday Blues
June » It's been a year already since musoc.org burst (all right, 'slunk') onto the scene and the internet's cultural illuminati saw red (as in blood, not socialism!).
Although musoc.org has undergone a minor facelift and a little bit of surgery since those first days - one or two features have disappeared, a paragraph rephrased here and there - nothing much has changed in the world at large. In fact, culturally things have probably - in fact, undoubtedly - got worse.
Last week, for example, BBC Radio 3's ragbag and pointless 'Classical Collection' programme, presented by the equally pointless Sarah Walker, opened ludicrously with one of The Beatles' countless banal pop ditties. Now while it's true that the BBC may well reciprocate with a Schubert song sung by Fischer-Dieskau on Radio 1, 2 or 6, you can be sure it won't happen until there's been a global nuclear holocaust leaving playlists in the hands of mutated cockroaches and the sun has swollen to a red giant.
Leaving aside that epitome of crass/mass culture, the FIFA World Cup finals (whose non-existent relationship was trendily ignored in a cretinous BBC Music article) other predictable but nevertheless depressing current stories include the massive media coverage and eulogisation of the Glastonbury (UK) pop festival: if ever anyone doubted the brainwashing potential of media hype, they need only survey the boozed-up tens of thousands, penned in like sheep at market at their own considerable expense, bawling along word-perfectly to the puerile gibberish of their preening pop idols on distant stages. As Richard Godwin dribbled in the London Evening Standard: "He ['Snoop Dogg', former drugs and firearm felon] seems to be a family entertainer, too - I stood next to a nine-year-old girl holding mum's hand and jiggling to the chorus 'I just wanna f**k you'".
Or the US Library of Congress's announcement of the latest 25 recordings it will preserve in its archives for their 'cultural significance'. Alongside a single piece of art music were numerous items of pop dross (some, like Willie Nelson, beggaring belief), including a virtually illiterate 'song' by one of hiphop's leading thugs, Tupac Shakur.
So it goes. As for decades now, the marketing machinery and sociopolitical homogenisation of postmodern capitalism have thundered on, unswayed by war, environmental disaster or political sleaze. Art music, and art for art's sake, fit poorly into the shiny plastic world of cultural relativism.
So it is that musoc.org is really still only at the beginning of its undertaking to record the cultural vandalism inflicted on society in the name of neoliberalism, to criticise all those who participate in it (not just the obvious delinquents like the Classic FMs, the Warner Musics and the Alex Rosses, but also the likes of BBC Radio 3, Gramophone magazine, Lang Lang and numerous big-name critics), and to campaign for change.
Musoc.org would like to thank all those who have shown their support so far for this generally thankless project by subscribing to the Anti-pop or otherwise by sending letters of encouragement. Please - keep reading, keep thinking.
You can respond to this article at any time by emailing gro.cosum@srettel. See right for details.
Lo-Fi
"Now call me a cynic," says Gramophone's Audio Editor Andrew Everard in the April 2010 issue, "but this [3D TV] does look like a way to snare people into buying a whole load of new equipment". He adds - cynically? (his vox pop is called 'Infidelities', after all) - that "you can be sure these are likely to be premium-price sets", and suspects that the New Wave of 3D Everything may be just another way for business to separate people from their income.
Coincidentally, right alongside his column you can read reviews on the latest must-have audio kit. There's Naim's "all-in-one wi-fi streamer" - an internet radio, basically - a snip at £1350; a Denon CD player - can play SACD too! - costing a mere £1700; and - sweet bargain! - a pair of Bowers & Wilkins speakers at £3950.
Actually, why not keep those speakers in the spare room (to impress overnighting guests), and go for the top of the Bowers & Wilkins new "flagship" range, the '800 Diamond'? True, a pair will set you back £18,500, equivalent to, say, one thousand recital/concert/opera tickets or, put another way, one and a half year's wages for the millions on the UK's statutory minimum wage...
...But come on, who doesn't own a pair of hi-fi speakers that are well over a year old and actually getting quite threadbare, or at least dusty?