Classical music attendance is way down and dying, compared to mid 20th century attendance in the US. Giving preference to today's composers by gender, skin color or ethnicity won't help revive it.

Today's classical orchestras are quite diverse. Yet folks, don't attend their concerts.

The large contributors to keeping today's orchestras alive and functioning are usually rich, conservative people who enjoy their Beethoven and Brahms. They don't care about any music post late 19th century.

Any classical composer writing music these days, regardless of ethnicity, gender or skin color, is doomed to failure, IMO.

Classical music will always be considered as stuffy museum music by the general population. Being sensitive to diversity of today's classical composers won't fix things. They will all starve.

 

Giving preference to today's composers by gender, skin color or ethnicity won't help revive it.

That's the truth. So many orchestras are pandering to minority cultures and for what? One orchestra I play with did a concert of all Black composers last year: William Dawson's beautiful Negro Folk Symphony received star billing - and who showed up? The usual crowd: white, educated, older. The Black community couldn't have cared less. Later, in May we did a concert of composers from South of the Border to appeal to that demographic. Same result. They seemed to have learned the lesson and this year it was back to dead, white, European composers. Now 2020 is looming - the 100th anniversary of women in the US getting to vote. Watch as everyone bends over backwards to play the Amy Beach symphony, music by Jennifer Higdon and Ethyl Smith. Won't make a difference.

 

'Diversity' is a concern of sick, disintegrating societies that have lost contact with their heritage and identity. Classical music was the creation of white, aristocratic Europe. It should not be forced into something it isn't.

 

Diversity is created by, and welcome in, free and open societies whose "identity" is not limited by racism, sexism, tribalism and religious bigotry, and which don't view their "heritage" as something finished and immutable.

America was also a product of white, male, aristocratic Europeans, but what they produced was an idea that had the potential of transcending that identity. If programming a few works by female or black composers is a threat to any American's identity or heritage in 2018, that American needs to take a year off from Fox and Breitbart and read some history to discover who we all are, how we got here, and what we've gone through to learn to live together even as well as we have done.

That process of learning is, quite obviously, not finished. The thing that's really sick and disintegrating is the faction that's trying desperately to stop it and turn back the clock to a society that never really existed except as a fond, chauvinist fantasy.

 

The foundation of classical music was created by White, European, males of a Christian background (classical music began in the church). Without taking a thing away from some very talented and creative African, Asian and female composers, the music simply didn't include Africa and Asia (or America, for that matter) as part of it's origins. It would be as if one were to insist that any forum that highlights the many forms of American music that was started by Black people (Gospel, Ragtime, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Hip-Hop, Rap), should have to include a fair sampling of non-Blacks that contributed.

As for the dying of classical music, it is not dead or even on life support, as this forum demonstrates. It has moved, though, from the church to the concert hall to electronic media. As far back as the 1960s, the pianist, Glenn Gould stopped touring and began recording exclusively in the studio. His final recording from the 1980s included his conducting debut (Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll"), and if not for his untimely death, his next step was to record piano concertos with himself as both conductor and soloist; able to use technology for the purpose of editing and dubbing every aspect to his own specifications.

While people will continue to attend concerts and will want to hear live music from time to time, technology has made it so much easier to enjoy what ever music you like without being economically and geographically inconvenienced.

 

...While people will continue to attend concerts and will want to hear live music from time to time, technology has made it so much easier to enjoy what ever music you like without being economically and geographically inconvenienced.

Yes. The live concert is simply a music delivery system. Back in the '50s its only competition was the AM radio and that living room (mono) record player. Things are a LOT different today.

Later this month one of my wife's favorite pianists is coming to town. His program includes music we both like. Asked my wife if she wanted to go, she said, "No, we've got all that right here."

Also, you can't very well stand up in the middle of the Brahms piece and shout, "Excuse me Mr. Ohlsson, could you hold it right there, please? I gotta go take a leak."

 

While I disagree with ClassicalListener and strongly believe that classical music is for everyone, regardless of ethnicity or gender, I have to agree with hpowders that the popularity of classical music in general seems to be in decline as reflected by sales of the genre. This is regrettable but I'm not sure how it can be reversed. Nonetheless, I take comfort in the fact that, although it may not be relevant to the majority, there will always be a minority that continues to appreciate it, however small. Talkclassical is itself evidence of this fact.

 

While I disagree with ClassicalListener and strongly believe that classical music is for everyone, regardless of ethnicity or gender...

Just to make a distinction; I don't think that anyone here (including me) is of the belief that classical music can't be enjoyed and played by anyone. Just look at how Black opera divas Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman have dominated the vocal arts, as well as, the huge influx of Asian musicians since Yo-Yo Ma burst upon the classical music scene.

For me, anyway, it's the European heritage of classical music that always remains, just as Whites such as Benny Goodman, David Brubeck and Elvis Presley have excelled at swing, jazz and rock respectively, the roots and culture of those genres remain essentially African-American; and, of course, anyone, regardless of race, gender and social status can enjoy whatever music they seem to like.

 

I understand some of these "last ditch" efforts to increase the popularity of something that will probably never see a reversal in popularity trends and I don't have a problem with trying to include music by lesser-known composers. But I don't believe in including works just because of their composers' race or sex. Diversity can be used to at least take a look at works by composers you might not have otherwise considered, but once that's happened, don't include works that are mediocre but happen to be by composers who are non-white non-male. If there's good stuff in there, use it, but there shouldn't be "quotas". I feel the same way about diversity in the workplace: you can use diversity to look at a wider pool of applicants, but in hiring those applicants, only the best should be chosen, regardless of their race. Diversity often seems to be employed for diversity's sake.

But yeah, classical music is unlikely to increase in popularity no matter what is done. Sorry to be pessimistic, but that just seems to be the reality. I wish it were another way, but I listen to classical music mostly alone in my room, so how popular it is with the general public doesn't have much affect on my ability to enjoy it.

 

I feel the same way about diversity in the workplace: you can use diversity to look at a wider pool of applicants, but in hiring those applicants, only the best should be chosen, regardless of their race. Diversity often seems to be employed for diversity's sake...

That would be a nice ideal if it had ever existed, but the fact is, at least here in the United States, that people have always been chosen for jobs based upon their background; and that has always favored: rich, White, Christian, males. You can complain that someone got a job because their name happened to be Jose Rodriguez or Derrick Washington or Ming Wong or Mary, Jane or Alice; but the fact is that the majority of American history people have always been given preference because of their name or who they knew or who they were related to. Here in the Boston area, there has always been a system that favored blatant favoritism and nepotism in regards to city jobs that favored Whites. I know that quotas and programs such as affirmative action are flawed and not fair to everyone, but if you can think of another way to break that system of people "letting in their own" without some kind of mandated diversity program in the hiring process, I'd be glad to hear it.

 

Thanks, that was an interesting read. It seems to be an attempt to redress the balance in these supposedly more enlightened times. It was a musical culture that was born and existed exclusively in a white, wealthy, male world. But now , on the "supply" (composers and promoters) side this patriarchy has subsided to an extent, it is a more open and diverse environment. But the "demand" (consumer) side is still very conservative (just four male dead composers accounting for nearly a quarter of major US orchestra performances). Hence the big mis-match of the two sides. I think this will change over time; there is the whole world of music available at our finger tips now, as never before. It's no longer just about concert attendances, thankfully. Also the newer generation of listeners are far less conservative in their tastes than their predecessors it seems to me.

 

There appears to be a fairly clear choice: either classical music is a dead art form, in which case the purpose of a concert is to present historical artefacts, and therefore the music will be almost entirely by white males and there's no point in arguing it; or classical music is a living thing, in which case a concert should be focusing more on the music of the present, and diversity "quotas" are in some shape or form inevitable until such time as the apparent institutional biases have been dealt with.

I suspect that the people most opposed to such quotas are those most wedded to the idea of the concert as a musical museum.

 

I read this earlier and found it to be fairly interesting and balanced. Had read an article on the same topic elsewhere (I'll try source it for you) which was more concerned with aggressively pushing modish gender thinking into the musical sphere, with the effect that it would penalise talent and greatness, while patting itself on the back for raising mediocrities to a place they don't belong, based solely on their chromosomes. I'm not a fan of affirmative action, generally, though I can see that there may often be sincere motives to some of it, nor do I think that expecting the paying punter to sit through a programme that's engineered more towards ticking trend-boxes is fair.

just four composers-Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky-make up a nearly a quarter of all music performed by major American orchestras. Thus, if some young white male composer is unlucky enough to have his work premiered alongside one of those masters-a decision often entirely out of his hands-then he can expect complete silence from a website ostensibly dedicated to the advocacy of contemporary classical music. His offense? The original sin of being born a white man.

More or less sums it up. And of course, it's only a matter of time before the trans-activists get wind of this and then there'll be all hell to pay...

 

I admit that the "stuffy" factor has been a hurdle even for me. I like my classical music a bit more approachable than overwrought. Maybe we can call it "open-collar classical music." :lol:

But I suspect that attendance of a classical symphony in 1950 compared to today, and the stark contrast, cannot all be attributed to a linear decline of public taste. Sure, there has been that, but there is also the anti-elitism that has become the norm in our mentality. Back then, someone would have automatically associated classical with "the good/great music" deemed so by an untouchable elite, versus the crop of little radio hits that take no effort to enjoy, but did they actually understand and enjoy the classical performance going home the way they would want you to think? Was it putting on airs, keeping up with the Jones, and feigning affinity with success in a society where the range of culture and the road of success was far thinner? For many, I think so.

Diversity isn't the real issue, it's the music. Can we find a stillness within ourselves to sit for an hour and discern what music without either beat or lyrics is saying?

 

...But I suspect that attendance of a classical symphony in 1950 compared to today, and the stark contrast, cannot all be attributed to a linear decline of public taste. Sure, there has been that, but there is also the anti-elitism that has become the norm in our mentality. Back then, someone would have automatically associated classical with "the good/great music" deemed so by an untouchable elite...

Diversity isn't the real issue, it's the music. Can we find a stillness within ourselves to sit for an hour and discern what music without either beat or lyrics is saying?

When I listen to recordings made in 1950, I can see why classical music lovers went to the concert hall as recordings from those days lack a sound quality that was later refined and perfected to the point where by the year 2000 recordings became preferable to the concert hall.

Diversity, of course, isn't the issue; never has been, in music or in the other arts or in education; except when it comes to providing jobs for people which I seem to be lone voice here (so far) trying to bring forth reasons to that point of view.

That aside, the fact is that classical music has always been a favorite genre of only a fraction of consumers. I read in a book (I think it was by Norman Lebretch) that classical records always, as a matter of course, lost money; and were only marketed by RCA, CBS, EMI and so forth as a courtesy for the sake of culture. Along this line, the top demographic for music marketed had always been teenage girls who swooned over Frank Sinatra in the 1940s, screamed over Elvis Presley in the 1950s, fainted over the Beatles in the 1960s and danced to Michael Jackson in the 1980s. Those teenage girls whose spending power fueled the music industry, allowed we middle aged men to enjoy our Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. The fact that composers such as Schonberg, Varese or Berio, who garnished even less of fraction of a fraction of an audience, were recorded at all, is incredible.

As long as we have musicians who love the music, live performance classical music will always be with us. It may not fill concert halls, but will still be available at smaller venues. Technology, as in all, things, is the blessing and curse of classical music. While RCA and Columbia budget lines of reissues, gave a kid from the streets like me more classical music to enjoy than any king who lived during the times of Mozart or Beethoven; it has also made the concert hall as we once knew it obsolete.

 

Also, that article's lamentation of "the original sin of being born a white man" is such a f**king cliché at this stage.

 

The article doesn't seem to say that, in fact it quite clearly states both sides of the argument as to whether or not make a conscious effort to program works of ethnic minorities and women composers. The fact that there is such a defensive reaction going on here to any argument regarding equal representation in the arts or in job appointments tells a story all it's own.

My own remarks on equal opportunities in hiring is in response to a comment made later in the thread, not the article.

 

I absolutely refuse to feel guilty about being white. That is ridiculous. Also, I'd like to point out to my PC friends that are driving this assault on white men that I am Irish. My ancestors came to America and my great granddad pulled barges down the canals with a rope over his shoulder because, as my grandmother told me, they used "oxen and Irishmen" for that sort of work.

my granddad pumped gas at a gas station until he was 74 years old, his wife, my grandma worked at a steel mill when she was a 12 year old girl

I started working at age 12 unloading trucks in a warehouse after school so I could buy my own instruments

explain this idea of "white privilege" to me again because I can use a good laugh

Here in America, not all white people are white. You got me confused with the anglo saxon protestants. I'm Irish Catholic. Its not the same thing, unless you are a racist and all you see is my skin color.

 

I don't know who you're talking to but since I'm the only one here who seems to be in favor of some kind of mandated policy that ensures that ethnic minorities and women are guaranteed a more even chance at acquiring jobs; I'll say that I don't know where I ever disparaged anyone's heritage or asked that anyone should feel guilty.

You're Irish-American and I'm Italian-American. I could tell you a story too about my people who came to America with nothing, and how my grandfather worked construction, and was discriminated against and how I started working at age 14 washing dishes and so and so forth; but that's not what this is about.

Truth be told, there's a good deal of mythology around the story of American immigration. While the so-called "Anglo-Saxon Protestants" were sometimes bad to the Irish and Italians, the Irish and Italians were also pretty bad to each other and treated Blacks even worse, because they were all competing over the same jobs; and I grew up in a world of ethnic enclaves where such was still quite apparent even into the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Along this line, I remember a world where when the Irish and Italians weren't calling each other "****" or "mick", they were saying some pretty mean things about the Blacks and Puerto Ricans.

In my world view, we should all count ourselves as Americans, and some of our fellow Americans need our help.

I'm not even going to address our long history of slavery and segregation in order to support my point. Our president, Trump, stated that in a Neo-Nazi/KKK rally that there "were good people on both sides", he's called Mexicans "murderers, drug dealers and rapists" and is still allowing pockets of Puerto Rico to go without power months after the hurricane hit the island.

I'm not even going to soil this forum by repeating what the president has to say about women.

I'm not asking that you feel guilty or saying that your family didn't do what they were supposed to do in order to provide a better future for subsequent generations. All I'm saying is that we should afford people jobs as a means towards upward mobility.

All through my youth I heard Irish and Italian Americans complain about Blacks and Puerto Ricans being lazy welfare bums; well for God's sake man, make up your mind, either give them welfare or give them jobs!

 

I might suggest that the situation is rather similar in popular musics. The biggest concerts with the most bums on seats are centred around a relatively small number of artists. The great majority of artists could NOT fill these venues, but no-one is saying that popular musics have had their day. Most artists struggle, play small venues, maybe only semi-professional, twas ever thus.

The near universal availability of so much music via the tinterweb has certainly changed attitudes across the board I think. A live concert is no longer so de rigueur.

 

Boston Charlie, would you be in favour of concert programmes being selected according to a quota system, which allocates slots on the stage according to race, colour and gender, ahead of talent? Or how do we achieve a workable criteria?

I'm not being argumentative, by the way, just want to tease out the logic of this proposal, which is a goal of the BBC Proms, by 2022, according to the article...

 

My answer to your question is that I don't know; although I think that some effort should always be made to be fair to everyone; to take into consideration one's own personal bias in a field that has been dominated by white men.

One of my first books on classical music is "Lives of the Great Composers" by Harold Schonberg. It was given to me by my mother one Christmas while I was still a teenager, not that my mother even liked classical music, but I guess she encouraged my interest in classical music because she thought there were worse things a teenage boy could do with his time. Anyway, Schonberg's book was almost like my classical music Bible. I read it so much that I unwittingly committed some of it to memory and eventually the book fell apart.

When I purchased a new copy of Schonberg's book, it was a newer edition (the 3rd edition), an edition where Schonberg integrated several women composers into his narrative. I think that Schonberg made a fair judgment that we all should make; not that we must feel guilty or feel as though there's something defective about white and male, but that since the power has tilted one way for so long, that we ought to take some time to reexamine our own biases.

I made clear in my initial posting on this thread that the foundation of classical music is with dead White European men of a Christian background. This can't be changed anymore than the foundations of gospel, jazz, blues, rock, hip-hop and rap can be regarded as essentially coming out of the experiences of African Americans.

Even so, concert programming and providing people with jobs are two different things.

I don't take your comments as argumentative. Honest disagreement helps us all to learn.

 

Living composer of "continuous piano music" Lubomyr Melnyk -- highly do I recommend, btw -- is of the opinion that there are no bona fide classical composers on that level today. Or probably not. He identifies Prokofiev as the last of the breed. He says his technique is certainly, thoroughly based in classical music, but nobody is truly capable of composing the same way today. Also fascinating, he claims to enjoy listening to that classical, but that it is not enjoyable to play (it's like necessary toil for a result) whereas his own continuous technique, is as enjoyable to play as hear.

 

Classical music appreciation may certainly be in decline today. I am rarely at a classical music concert that is sold out. But, I do think that like all things, it is cyclical. I can see a regeneration of keen interest perhaps fifty years down the road, possibly sooner. I consider myself enormously fortunate to still be able to go to the concert hall and hear masterful performances of the greatest works. I really don't care if the classical music I love was written by white European men, just as I don't care if some of the greatest jazz I love was created by African American giants like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, etc. Good music, regardless of the genre, transcends the bounds of race, age and gender. With ever-increasing new music, future cultures will sift out the treasures of human ingenuity and the masterpieces will again rise to the surface. Great music will never be forgotten, just temporarily set aside.

 

Excellent comments so far to this article which, I think, was balanced and reasonable. I think this is key to much of the current debate over diversity:

It is truly one of the saddest ironies of our time that those most vocal about diversity cannot see the merits of such individuals beyond their Y chromosomes or the melanin in their skin.

"Diversity" is essentially an arid argument, in my opinion, wrapped up in ideological and doctrinaire clothing. The best method of creating 'fairness' in the workplace/creative world (an emotive word anyway, which I'd expect to hear a child use in a playground) is within the supply and demand chain. If you read about James Damore and his experience with Google (he was sacked) you'll see that there isn't a scintilla of 'fairness' or 'diversity' at Google, just a repressive regime of conformity to the corporate ideology of - ironically - 'diversity'. Whenever you start the 'diversity' argument, or one based on identity politics, you're certain to lose. It has a self-defeating circularity about it which can be used by your opponents. In short, everybody can play THAT game. And it IS a game.

As to 'diversity' in the concert hall; I don't know if anybody has noticed the fact that 20 million Chinese children are learning the piano, that a South Korean won the last Chopin Competition, that orchestras are filled with people from many nations and that the El Sistema program in Venezuela spectacularly drew international attention to the love of serious music by ordinary, impoverished youth. And they play magnificently.

As to whether we ought to pay a lot of money to go to a live performance and hear a program based on affirmative action; I wouldn't go myself for that reason. I attend a lot of high-quality live concerts - in fact, they are of such a high quality that I'm less inclined to attend anything which doesn't feature the world's very best artists. Most of the time I attend because of the artist or orchestra - the program is secondary. I've heard 'contemporary' pieces sandwiched into programs of more traditional fare and I can tell you that's more exposure than Beethoven or Schubert or Bach ever got outside their small coteries.

Western European classical music is as per the descriptor; an art form which arose because of the Catholic Church, the Enlightenment and wealthy patronage. You simply need to be wealthy to be able to afford the "infrastructure" which facilitates such an art form - from venues, to instruments, to music schools. Western European classical music has been a proxy for rising wealth, intellectual and artistic movements and independence of thought. I'm on my knees much of the time thanking god for it!!

Tamper with that at your peril.

 

...Whenever you start the 'diversity' argument, or one based on identity politics, you're certain to lose. It has a self-defeating circularity about it which can be used by your opponents. In short, everybody can play THAT game. And it IS a game...

Agreed, except that the "game" has always existed, at least in the work place. People have always been hired and fired based upon favoritism and nepotism, who they were, where they were from and whether or not they were one of "us" or one of "them". I'm not saying that the whole movement towards diversity hasn't gone to some ridiculous extremes which should, of course, be duly noted and avoided. What I'm saying, and what nobody here can seem to answer, is how else do you ensure that people are provided jobs most fairly, without some kind of system being in place?

For the record, most of what I see of "diversity" is a crock; PC nonsense concerned with taking down Confederate flags and statues of Robert E Lee, as if that helps to solve anything; and having us all walk on eggshells lest we offend someone.

If you really want to help women, give them equal pay.

If you really want to help ethnic minorities, give them jobs.

 

Alas, nobody’s talking about the elephant in the room – discrimination in the concert hall against the talent-challenged. Like any other form of disability, lack of talent is hardly the composer’s fault. So why should the composer suffer for it?

For more visible disabilities, society provides by law for offsetting advantages – wheelchair ramps, beeping crossing signals, and so forth. All these cost money, but it’s a price a just society is willing to pay. Similarly, low-talent composers should have their moments – and more than just moments – on the concert dais. This should not be left to the narrow commercial interests governing concert music in our society, but should be rather a legal requirement, with minimum percentages to be met.

Some thought will be required to establish these standards. For example, if we determine that 85 percent of music is written by the talent-challenged, then a “level playing field” would demand that 85 percent of concert time be devoted to their works.

I hope I have your support in this. If so, my organization SPAM (Society Promoting Access for Mediocrities) welcomes contributions. Pay Pal accepted.

 

In fact, classical music today is vastly different from what it was 50, 60 or 70 years ago . The repertoire is vastly different despite the lasting popularity of the so-called "canon " of classical repertoire , and it is much more diverse in many ways .
For example, if you look at pictures of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic back in the 60s when he was its music director , you will notice a see of white males with at most, one female member . Today , there are numerous women in the orchestra and many are either Asian American or from Japan, China and South Korea . There is only one black member today , the principal clarinetist .
Since Bernstein's stint with the orchestra back then, numerous young Asian or Asian American musicians have joined the orchestra , as numerous people of Asian origin have aimed at careers in orchestras all over America and even Europe .
There are still only a small number of blacks in orchestras, but this is not the fault of the orchestras . Thus far, very few young blacks have taken up orchestral instruments . The practice of blind auditions has also enabled orchestra personnel to become more diverse .
The repertoire is also vastly different . Fifty or so years ago, leading composers of the present day were either children or teenagers or had not even come into the world . John Adams, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Nico Muhly, Kaaia Saariaho, Tan Dun, Unsuk Chin, Christopher Rouse ,
Thomas Ades , Arvo Part . Tobias Picker, Osvaldo Golijov , Sofia Gubaidullina , for example, to name only a limited number .
This list includes women, Asians, Latin Americans , not only white males, European or American .
If someone who lived in New York ,loved classical music and regularly attended concerts, opera, recitals, chamber music etc and died 50 years ago and also died 50 years ago could miraculously come back, he or she would find a vastly changed New York city classical music scene and would not be able to recognize the names of so many composers , conductors , opera singers and solo musicians .
The repertoire at the Metropolitan opera and New York city opera would scarcely be recognizable except for certain lastingly popular operas .
The classical music scene in New York, the capital of classical music in America is still extremely lively and more diverse than ever before . And this is only New York . Other US cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco , Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago have a similarly changed musical life .

 

The repertoire at the Metropolitan opera and New York city opera would scarcely be recognizable except for certain lastingly popular operas .

The Met's 2018-19 season, by performances at the Met (approx) 1960-1968:

Aida (Verdi) 104
La bohème (Puccini) 84
La traviata (Verdi) 79
Tosca (Puccini) 70
Don Giovanni (Mozart) 59
Rigoletto (Verdi) 59
Carmen (Bizet) 39
The Magic Flute (Mozart) 37
Falstaff (Verdi) 36
Otello (Verdi) 33
Die Walküre (Wagner) 27
La fanciulla del West (Puccini) 23
Adriana Lecouvreur (Cilea) 19
Samson et Dalila (Saint-Saëns) 17
Götterdämmerung (Wagner) 10
Pelléas et Mélisande (Debussy) 8
Das Rheingold (Wagner) 6
Siegfried (Wagner) 3

Operas not seen at the Met over those 9 years, but seen in 2018/19:

Marnie (Muhly)
Les Pêcheurs de perles (Bizet)
Mefistofele (Boito)
Suor Angelica (Puccini)
Gianni Schicchi (Puccini)
Il tabarro (Puccini)
Iolanta (Tchaikovsky,P)
Duke Bluebeard's Castle (Bartók)
La Fille du régiment (Donizetti)
La clemenza di Tito (Mozart)
Dialogues des Carmélites (Poulenc)

Marnie is from 2017, and Dialogues des Carmélites the next oldest, from 1957, and was presented by NYCO in 1966. Poulenc was a world-famous composer even if his operas were not famous; this would not blow any minds.

The others on this list are lesser known works from famous composers they'd know well: Puccini, Mozart, and we could maybe count in there Tchaikovsky (Eugene Onegin was done in 1964, and The Queen of Spades was seen 21 times in the period), Bizet (see Carmen above), and Donizetti (though to be fair 1968 is a little early for the revivals of his operas. Sutherland sang Marie in 1966, but at Covent Garden. Sills would not bring it back to NYC until 1970.

The Boito and Bartók still throw people today, and are rarely seen (Mefistofele was last done in 1999-2000, Bluebeard didn't premiere until 1974, and other than the 7 performances in 2015 hadn't been seen since 1989).

I'm not going to do the same analysis of other seasons, but I do believe they'd look much the same. Your time traveler from 1968 would be very comfortable with what one could see at the Metropolitan Opera. They have remarkably conservative programming.

 

I simply don't understand why a little compensatory action on behalf of marginalized people or an effort to acknowledge their forgotten achievements has to be seen as "racism,"or any other sort of "ism." Is deciding to include a program devoted to female composers during a concert season "sexist"? The application of such terms seems at least defensive, possibly an act of projection, and at worst an attempt to "blame the victim" as justification for maintaining the status quo.

 

I'm not projecting or blaming anyone - giving preferential treatment to someone based on the color of their skin is nakedly racist. You just seem to think your racism is justified because of crimes committed by prior generations. And that is perhaps why such policies will always be met with resistance - not only do they limit a person's freedom of association by law but they also are a flagrant violation of equality under the law as guaranteed to the people in the 14th Amendment.

As for who programs a female composer: I suppose they can program whatever or whomever they want. I would only object if there were government policies allowing discrimination in only one direction and for the benefit of only one or a handful of arbitrary groups.

 

If you had said, say, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, then sure, the time traveler from 1968 would have their mind blown. But their season befuddles me, too! I wish I lived closer to Paris!

Et in arcadia ego (Rameau)
Le mystère de l'écureuil bleu (Dupin)
La Princesse légère (Cruz)
Le domino noir (Auber)
Marouf savetier du Caire (Rabaud)
La Nonne sanglante (Gounod)
Bohème, notre jeunesse [reduction] (Puccini)
Orphée et Eurydice (Gluck)
Pelléas et Mélisande (concert) (Debussy)
Donnerstag aus Licht (Stockhausen)
Hamlet (Thomas,A)

 

Seems to me that 'diversity' was already a feature of classical music (see my earliest comments) long before political activists became involved. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in perpetuity our musical legacy will largely be carried by Asian nations as they have an incredible interest in it. What's not to love?

So, affirmative action and identity politics are just a trojan horse for other power games. The creative arts will sort themselves out without the need for these ideologues - and they always will. May the best man or woman win!!

 

Diversity and concert hall (as in, classical concert halls) simply don't go together - it's an oxymoron

 

Thinking of the audience at a classical music event, one part of the problem is the high cost of going to a concert, especially when you do not live in a major city. Yes, I know that attending sporting events can often be even more expensive but watching sport is a vigorously strong cultural activity. So is listening to the aging Rolling Stones. Classical music is a minority interest but many members of that minority cannot afford to go often or, as others have said, feel the value over what they can get from recorded and broadcast music makes pay to attend regular concerts a huge luxury. But, our heritage - including music still being composed as "classical music" - belongs to us all. So I think hearing it is,, or should be a right rather than an elite activity. The Soviets didn't get many things right but they did make classical music much more accessible and thereby created a vibrant scene. I am talking about subsidies and the wisdom, for a government, of investing in classical music so as to ensure a more satisfied and happy community. This obviously goes to encouraging a diversity of interest.

 

That's an interesting take, Enthusiast, but what are we talking about here? Let's look at cost. Rightly, you mention the Rolling Stones, and to this I would say that even smalltime rock bands without a huge international following would generally charge us more to go listen, than it would cost to get tickets to the opera. In the Vienna opera house, they have cheapy standing areas which are very popular, cost about a tenner. It's a glorious venue and I remember being there watching a Mozart opera and being surrounded by people of all races and colours, genders, and no doubt, creeds. I once the Marriage of Figaro in an elite production in Dublin for about €20. Don Giovanni, too. Twice. Still in Dublin, I sat in the cheap seats and saw Alfred Brendel play. There are free concerts too, in the Hugh lane Gallery. Classical music isn't generally expensive to get to. Back to Vienna, below St Peter's Church off Graben, there's a hall, and I paid €10 to see a great concert of Schubert and Beethoven music. I thought, I hope they subsidise the performer, because they'll never get money this way.

In the National gallery, London, paid a tenner to watch Sir John Tomlinson perform music by Britten, Shostakovitch and Hugo Wolf - lyrics by Michaelangelo. On and on, I never paid a huge amount of money to attend classical concerts, and certainly it was more often cheaper than rock concerts - and often cheaper than some local ballad sessions in Dublin

I bought the complete Beethoven piano sonatas in Tower Records for less than it cost to buy Robbie Williams latest (at the time) tripe. The elitist prices are almost all in popular music. €135 to see Tom waits in the park, €130 to buy a Bruce Springsteen boxset (I actually heard it - and he was right not to release the stuff in the 70's, it was largely substandard, but hey, we pay for the privilege). Paul Simon's 30th anniversary of Graceland? Similar tale. The market has spoke. And we, the classical fans, benefit, it seems to me.

As for the Soviet Union, I'd rather they'd have charged full price and set their people free, than to throw them sweets to shut them up with....

 

This (one from one of Britain's more conservative papers) is about "Europe's first" black orchestra

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/c.../classical-music/chi-chi-nwanoku-young-classical-musicians-colour-have-no-role/

https://www.ft.com/content/2438f220-8f04-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d

Having seen relatively diverse faces in most top flight orchestras these days I did wonder if such an endeavour was needed. But they are a good orchestra, presenting interesting programmes, so there seems to have been a need. Presumably, many of its members were not getting the work they deserved without this initiative?

 

My answer would be "whatever floats yer boat". (The work they 'deserved'? I 'deserve' a Pulitzer Prize but I don't think I'll be getting one!!

 

There is a lot of negativity about the state of classical music on this thread. It seems to me that it is booming like never before, both in popularity, accessibility and diversity. There are numerous global composers producing a great range of high quality innovative music, and, obviously, as time goes on, there is a legacy of more and more music with revivals of long forgotten works and new interpretations of more popular ones.

In terms of diversity, equality of opportunity is desirable, in so far as it can reasonably achieved, but equality of outcome is not. Quotas should therefore be based on whether or not they help to increase the opportunity and exposure that the less privileged masses have to the music.

 

It's my understanding that during the 1950s, 1960s and 1980s, Ultra-Modern, very academic, composers such as Babbitt, Berio, Boulez, Xanakis, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Varese and others were programmed and recorded for the sake of culture, even though they garnished very little or no enthusiasm from the vast majority of classical music listeners. The "market" didn't support it, but the concession was made by musical companies and even major record labels for art's sake.

That was an "agenda" made for the sake of art and culture.

It is, after all, art that we're talking about.

If we leave it up to "market" and forget art and culture, then it becomes about money , what sells; and then we may as well face it that even our beloved Beethoven and Tchaikovsky are not selling that well either, these days.

 

That was an "agenda" made for the sake of art and culture.

Exactly. For the sake of art and culture, not for the sake of a dangerous political ideology. The market then looked after the rest of it...