OLD WORKS VS. THE NEW
By Sedgwick Clark
When was the last time you heard a world premiere on “Live from Lincoln Center?” The typical fare is last season’s New York Philharmonic opener, at which Yo-Yo Ma played Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Lorin Maazel led Tchaikovsky’s Fifth for the umpteenth time in his seven-year tenure.
Alan Gilbert’s first official concert as music director of the New York Philharmonic tomorrow evening (9/16) will begin with an overture by the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg called EXPO. He’s a fine composer—yet another in his generation of superb home-grown musicians benefitting from an enlightened national music-education program—but the important thing is that the Phil, under its new leader’s inspiration, finds it important to acknowledge that music (“classical,” “serious,” or whatever we’re supposed to call it these days) is still being written.
I was prompted to take time from my deadline on the 2010 Musical America Directory to key these august thoughts by Vivien Schweitzer’s review of the San Francisco Opera’s production of Il Trovatore in this morning’s Times. She points out that the company has curtailed newer works this season to fill seats. She quotes General Director David Gockley, who has a strong record of innovative leadership, as saying: “The research that I have access to says that it’s the core works, the great central works of the operatic tradition, that attract and inspire the new audience. You might have heard, ‘Well, new works or edgy productions are what get the young people in.’ Well, it’s not true.”
I have argued this point for years with my good friend and colleague, Musicalamerica.com editor Susan Elliott. The chief music critic of the Times, Anthony Tomassini, also believes in new music as the answer to attracting young audiences. Sorry guys, I have no doubt that Gockley is correct. There’s a reason these works have stayed in the repertory for centuries—audiences like them—and the kids are hearing them for the first time. Tony’s a fervent opera lover, and I can’t imagine that he would bet the house on Doctor Atomic (which was premiered at San Francisco Opera, by the way) over, say, Otello, as a young-audience pleaser.
Nevertheless—NEVERTHELESS!—a full-evening opera production has higher stakes than a single concert, and I think that Gilbert and the NY Phil deserve full support. A national television broadcast of a ten-minute overture by a successful composer who works in the tonal idiom isn’t that scary. It’s not Aaron Copland’s ear-rending 12-tone Connotations, which Leonard Bernstein conducted on the first concert in Philharmonic (now Avery Fisher) Hall in 1962, or the 80-year-old Stravinsky’s serial The Flood, commissioned by CBS and broadcast in prime time the same year, which effectively ended any further thoughts of classical music on network TV.
A not-so-minor musical point: Gilbert has programmed Lindberg’s EXPO on subscription concerts two weeks from now, a vote of pride in his new composer-in-residence (judging from his Violin Concerto played at Mostly Mozart last year, an excellent choice). Many—probably most—music directors drop new works like hot potatoes after their premieres.
It’s a good sign. I look forward to hearing it again. Carry on, Alan!
WELCOME BACK, ALAN!
Alan Rich, that is. He’s been out of commission for the summer. In his first blog entry since June, it’s clear his sense of humor hasn’t deserted him (“A series of small strokes had disarranged the components of my skull for most of the summer.”) Nor has his love of music and music makers. Click on So I’ve Heard in the Web site’s roster of blogs.