Posted by Joe Baker on October 24, 2000 at 23:05:59:
Okay, I'm in a 'Kafka mood' today. Instead of kicking my dog, I'm gonna unload a little on you guys. Only YOU can say whether I'm taking a shot at you personally, and if I am then you deserve it! There is no group indictment intended.
The discussion below about the future of orchestral music reminds me of an event I attended recently. It was a concert given by a choir composed of a couple hundred church music ministers with a hired orchestra. The instrumentalists were all very fine musicians, as were the singers. But I saw no joy in the faces of most of the orchestra members. They looked less happy at their job than I am at mine (and I'm just finishing up a long day at the computer at 11:00 P.M.) I found the experience lost something because there was no joy in the faces - or the sound - of the players. (Note: I saw an occasional list contributor's name on the program as tubist, but he was obscured by the string basses so I'll assume that he was one of the few in the orchestra -- and there were a few -- who appeared to be enjoying their work). It was almost like many of them were trying to demonstrate (to us? to each other? I don't know) that 'this music is just so bourgeois, so beneath the masterworks we *should* be playing. Oh, the suffering...' These musicians had the opportunity to reach out to an audience that doesn't attend the symphony much, and make orchestral music lovers of them. Instead, with their blase expressions and bored looks, they lost any hope of such an 'outreach'. This is the kind of experience that insults ordinary people. It says, of music they enjoy, "you like this stuff? Yuck!" No wonder audiences stay away. It's a miracle they come around when they DO get to hear Sousa or Star Wars.
I think that if the snootiness of musicians gets bad enough, and demand dies down enough, and pay all but disappears, there will be those few players that will find a way to keep playing, because they love to perform.