Letters to the Editor

Arrington should appreciate chance to hear to new works

I am writing in response to the March 28 column, "On musical — and audience — appreciation," by Nathan Arrington '02. I know Mr. Arrington, and I believe him to be a talented musician. Therefore it was with dismay that I learned from his writing just how closed-minded he is concerning music written more recently than Ravel's.

I see little reason for Mr. Arrington's proposed revision of orchestral repertoire: The situation as it stands is already close to his ideal. Unlike every other performing ensemble, symphony orchestras — at least most of those in the United States — have long been museums. The majority of their performances are of music written by composers long-dead, and many orchestras still have programming that essentially matches the repertoire from the turn of the last century. Ironically, many of these orchestras are learning that this mode of operation doesn't win a new audience, and their audiences of previous seasons are getting older and smaller. In the last 10 years, scores of community and small city orchestras have gone belly-up. And even such bastions of status quo repertoire as the Philadelphia Orchestra are learning that to stay afloat they can't simply reproduce the same concerts year after year; there are just too few motivations for a young person to spend $35 on a concert of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony when he or she can buy three recordings of the symphony for that price, plus pick up another handful of interpretations for free as MP3's from the web.

Besides, if Mr. Arrington or any other listener wants to hear an all- Beethoven concert, an all-Mozart afternoon on the radio or a series of concerts dedicated to Vivaldi or Bach, he or she will not have look very far; there are whole ensembles dedicated to being just that sort of museum: The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Musik Antique Köln, the Hanover Band, etc. If he or she wants to hear a performance of any of the over 100 symphonies written by Haydn in the 18th century or any of 4 by Brahms in the 19th, a search on any Internet CD store's site will also display myriad options. Tippett's symphony disappointed Arrington, but Michael Tippett is dead and gone and has long been accepted as a great composer in his home, Britain. Yet trying to find a single recording of his larger works here in the United States is not simple; finding multiple recordings of them is practically impossible. (An Amazon.com CD search for "Beethoven symphony" produced 1093 results; one for "Tippett symphony" produced 11, only 4 of which were actual recordings of Tippett symphonies — a single reading each of symphonies 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

But, Mr. Arrington would have his orchestral concerts give him only what he asks for, and he says he wants a consumer model. Should the Metropolitan Museum do likewise and restrict its acquisitions to 1860 and before? Should viewers have no access to the works of Picasso, Dali, Chagall, Rothko, Monet, Warhol, Parrish, Magritte and Rockwell? In truth, this so-called consumer model has been tried by the symphony orchestras and has failed — and it doesn't even work for commercial musical artists. Rock and pop bands issue new albums, and they tour in support of that new material in an attempt to introduce their fans and win new fans to their new material. At the same time, they lace their performances with examples of their greatest hits in hopes of placating listeners like Mr. Arrington who want nothing new or "extra" on their plates. Arrington sounds just like Homer Simpson at the state fair performance of Bachman-Turner-Overdrive. The band says it's going to play some of its hits, but first it would like to play some of its new material. And Homer just keeps yelling, "Play 'Taking Care of Business!'" Even leaving off the new material doesn't satisfy Homer, and I doubt Mr. Arrington would've been satisfied if Philadelphia had foregone the Tippett. Though I love "The Simpsons," I hope that orchestral music listeners won't follow Arrington's suggestion and that they, in this case, won't follow Homer's lead — that they won't start yelling "Play the Beethoven" and "Skip to the 'working overtime' part!" Alan Shockley Music Department