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In a recent letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail a reader scolds our symphony orchestras for playing music which he describes as ‘hackneyed’, ‘boring’, ‘dull’, ‘tiresome’ and ‘uninspiring’. It is difficult for me to consider that Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's 3rd Symphony or the piano works of Chopin, Rachmaninov and Brahms could be labeled ‘uninspiring’ and ‘boring’. Would a present day music fan call this music such because they have been raised on, loosely speaking, popular formats? Aren't such classifications as jazz, punk, rock, classical and folk only academic or conversational conveniences? Good music is good music, regardless of what genre it falls under, the instruments and techniques it employs or the year in which it was composed.
As a young child I picked up on rock, the Rolling Stones being the first band to catch my 13 year old ears, much sooner than I did jazz or classical. However, as I grew and encountered more music and sought out all forms to satiate my unquenchable appetite for music, more complex forms such as classical and jazz began to compete for my attention [and dollars] with rock, a less complex yet no less legitimate or engaging format.
Is there a relationship between age and a capability to understand and appreciate various musical forms? Or are there more factors to consider when asking why one would find a genre’s compositions irrelevant and uninspiring? To call a work by Beethoven irrelevant and uninspiring, while potentially valid, is still none the less a statement that certainly warrants examination. Or could it be that such a statement is commenting more upon its author than its subject. Can any one human experience and the art that results from it be deemed invalid merely because it happened two hundred years ago? Do human artistic endeavors have a shelf life? In a post-Elvis world, is there a place for classical music?
I lived the better part of my life eating and breathing rock and roll, my favorites being the Stones, U2, REM, King Crimson, Bob Dylan, the Cure, Pink Floyd etc etc. Now at 34 I still love these performers and long for new rock acts that stretch the boundaries of the genre, or bands that at least rock. However, as I entered my 20s a new appreciation for classical arose and now I am the rabid fan of classical that I was for rock in my teens. In classical I have discovered an endless world of musical ideas that simply cannot be relegated to the scrap heap just because of the form and age of composition. As an example, I have a number of different performances of Mozart's 'Requiem' by different conductors featuring various orchestras and soloists and each performance has it's own merits. However, listening to the various recordings teaches me more about the work in question as each artist brings something unique to the score.
The score may be static, yet the human experience is not. Classical music is a great forum in which to encounter the endless powers of the human imagination and the uniqueness of the individual imagination. Is it the duty of artists to bend to popular tastes or is the responsibility, should you be interested, of the consumer to take up the challenge of understanding a wider variety of musics, music making and human perspectives. So often the human element of music making and composition is forgotten as we promote styles and fashion, claiming this genre is better than another to the point of wanting to eliminate the other. This tendency, very real to teenage music fans, is certainly a species of intolerance based upon a reluctance to listen and learn. And while these styles and fashions may bring about wonderful new ideas and forums for musical expression, let's not forget that, in all endeavors, it is the human experience that is constant. That, I hope, can never be seen as irrelevant and, I hope, will always be interesting to all humans, regardless of the ever-changing zeitgeist and momentarily dominant tastes or commercial success of the day.
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