Opinion: If the classical concert scene ain't broke, don't fix it | reviews, news & interviews
Opinion: If the classical concert scene ain't broke, don't fix it
Opinion: If the classical concert scene ain't broke, don't fix it
Try out fresh approaches, but don't change the formula of respectful listening
Monday, 24 January 2011
An empty Royal Festival Hall auditorium. What does it need to fill it?Morley von Sternberg
Most of us don't object to experiments in concert presentation - the occasional one-off showcase to lure the young and suspicious into the arcane world of attentive concert-going, the odd multimedia event as icing on the cake. It's only those pundits obsessed with the key word "accessibility" who tell us that the basic concept of sitting (or standing, as they have at the Proms for well over a century) and listening with respect for those around us needs overhauling. It's a typical journalistic conception of "either/or" instead of "all approaches welcome" - a case of what an American academic I know calls "bad binaries".
Most of us don't object to experiments in concert presentation - the occasional one-off showcase to lure the young and suspicious into the arcane world of attentive concert-going, the odd multimedia event as icing on the cake. It's only those pundits obsessed with the key word "accessibility" who tell us that the basic concept of sitting (or standing, as they have at the Proms for well over a century) and listening with respect for those around us needs overhauling. It's a typical journalistic conception of "either/or" instead of "all approaches welcome" - a case of what an American academic I know calls "bad binaries".
A conductor who's more than a showman will know how to freeze incipient, untimely applause
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