Thursday, November 09, 2006
I am sending the following letter to James Levine, the conductor and music director of the BSO. It is simply a more formal, unhumorous rehash of my posting immediately below. Why have I taken action for the first time after some God-awful production and actually written a letter? Because the reputation of music itself is at stake! There are a series of Beethoven/Schoenberg programs this season.
November 9, 2006
Mr. James Levine
Music Directory
Dear Mr. Levine:
I would like to whole-heartedly applaud more 20th (and 21st!) century music performed by the BSO. I have always felt that BSO programs reflected overly stodgy and conservative musical tastes. However, I must take issue with programming the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg. While I have occasionally considered writing a letter to the director of a bad play, never before have I actually taken action and written after attending an event. I must do so now because Schoenberg single-handedly did more damage to the reputation of 20th century music than all other bad composers and music that pushed the limits of convention combined. It is a marvel to me that many people don’t like “modern” music which was written before they were born or when they were children! Schoenberg is to blame.
Too many people say they “don’t like 20th century music.” What they really mean is that they don’t like Schoenberg, whose compositions have been inflicted upon us as great “music” of the 20th century. Exclude Schoenberg from any consideration of 20th century music and you are left with the likes of Adams, Barber, Bartok, Carter, Elgar, Gershwin, Ginastera, Glass, Holst, Ligeti, Orff, Penderecki, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Tan Dun, Varese, Vaughn Williams, and Villa-Lobos. Great music. Beautiful, or at least interesting. Beloved by most. Present this list to people and you find that some don’t even lump much of this great music in with “20th century music.” Why? Because Schoenberg represents 20th century music and they hate it. Even Berg, Schoenberg’s pupil, wrote 12-tone music with recognizable melodies and thematic development. This is proof that it is not the “modern style” that the public doesn’t get, but it is Schoenberg specifically who wrote unrecognizable junk from start to finish.
It is way past time to call a spade a spade. Schoenberg’s “music” was crap when he wrote it, crap fifty years later, it is still crap now, and will continue to be crap in the future. I cannot and will not forgive him for giving 20th century music a bad name. His violin concerto was the last straw for me, and I will no longer forgive people who program it on public concerts, wanting to appear musically astute and display their wide variety of taste. They prove they are duped by crap. After many decades of listening to every variety of music, including way too much Schoenberg, I am no longer able to believe that his violin concerto moves you emotionally, or that you could sing back to me any significant section of it. It is many decades past the time to acknowledge that the public is neither going to “come to understand” nor “learn to like” this complete junk. As an American, I recognize his right to have written it, and our obligation to allow it to exist, but we have no obligation to perform it. There is a vast repertoire of music which is completely ignored or under-performed, so please, stop foisting Schoenberg upon us as if it had any value.
Please, continue to mix Beethoven’s wonderful music which packs the house with wonderful contemporary music, as well as the early-to-mid 20th century music which is somehow still considered “modern.” But don’t ever expect anyone to confuse the compositions of Schoenberg with real music and to enjoy them. You continue the irreparable damage to the reputation of modern music with the Schoenberg programs.
Respectfully,
signed by non-anonymous me
Alice and I just got back from the Boston Symphony. There was a violinist I'd never heard of, Christian Tetzlaff (Gee, I wonder if he's Jewish), who played the Beethoven violin concerto. He was fabulous beyond belief. He got a huge applause after the first movement. For those who don't frequent the BSO, there is almost never applause between movements, which shows how blown away everyone was. I was glad there was applause, because I was blown away, and wanted to applaud. He was so much better than I am it's just ridiculous to compare us (but I couldn't resist.) At the end, we gave him a huge standing ovation and I threw in many bravos and whoops and whatnot.
After intermission, he played the Schoenberg violin concerto. I once heard a Schoenberg chamber music piece I liked. I think it had lots of woodwinds piping rhythmically and randomly in a nice way that appealed to my youthful liking of weird music. This one wasn't nearly so good (why am I mincing words? It was effing horrible), though it occasionally had nice weird woodwind sounds that I rather like. Each movement starts with 3 to 5 seconds of what sounds like music (if, as I do, you like 20th century music and concentrate real hard), and then it is like Dada (the art form, not the excellent rock band) where it dissipates into something else unrelated at every opportunity. Schoenberg is good at finding such opportunities after every few notes. (If you think of the cost of the ticket in terms of the number of notes, we really got our money's worth on that program.) The final 2 seconds of each movement sounds like music also, such as having a nice fading dynamic and lyric quality that echoed the beginning. This is apparently an effort to make it seem like you've been listening to music. There were also 4 or 5 snippets of music, some up to 5 seconds long, in the middle of the movements, but again, nothing is connected to anything else, not even to the beginning or end. It is time to call a spade a spade. It was crap when he wrote it, it was crap 50 years later, it's still crap now and it will continue to be crap in the future. What is with people who keep wanting to appear broad-minded and putting this junk on programs? I have plenty of musical training, and no amount of concentration reveals form or substance. Schoenberg is a laughable joke, except that it isn't funny and we keep inflicting it upon ourselves.
During the 3rd movement, a thought occurred to me. I'd rather listen to Alvin and the Chipmunks! I heaved quietly in my chair trying to laugh discreetly. And then, while thinking that hell would be endlessly listening to the complete works of Schoenberg, or maybe even worse, just this violin concerto, I realized that it wasn't a hypothetical torture, I was experiencing a short version of hell right then and there. More grinning and laughter. Then just listening to it made me laugh. High-minded people all stuck there listening to complete nonsense. Would the torture never end? At a momentary pause in the music, I hopefully thought it was over and considered applauding, except that I didn't intend to applaud. I wish I had, because then I could have audibly said, "Aw, shit!" when he started up again. A few people seemed to like it and applauded quite a bit at the end, probably wanting to appear musically astute or open minded. I seriously doubt they actually felt any emotional impact or melodic understanding of the "music." I gave two soft claps to show my appreciation for my parole and left.
So many people say they "don't like 20th century music." What a crock. They don't like Schoenberg, which has been inflicted upon us as great "music" of the 20th century. Exclude Schoenberg from any consideration of 20th century music and you are left with the likes of Adams, Barber, Bartok, Elgar, Gershwin, Ginastera, Glass, Holst (The Planets), Ligeti, Orff (as in Carmina Burana!), Penderecki, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Tan Dun, Varese, Vaughn Williams, and Villa-Lobos. Great music. Beautiful, or at least interesting. Beloved by most. Even Berg, a 12-tone serialist pupil of Schoenberg, wrote 12-tone music with recognizable melodies and thematic development. Not Schoenberg. It is unrecognizable junk from start to finish. I cannot and will not forgive him for giving 20th century music a bad name. This violin concerto was the last straw for me, and I will no longer forgive people who program it on public concerts, wanting to appear musically astute. They prove they are duped by crap. Tetzlaff is sufficiently excellent that he can waste his time learning it (which he had to sight-read, I should point out, since memorizing random notes isn't something that excellent musicality helps with.) I, however, will no longer waste my time torturing myself with forced listenings.
All in all, the first concert of our series subscription was an odd mix of part finest program I've ever heard as well as one of the most tortuous I've ever unwittingly found myself sitting through. Hey, at least it provoked one of my occasional opinions. I'd listen to the Chipmunks right now, but it is no longer necessary, since it's thankfully over.
