Classical music in the course of time

04. April 2011 - 14:37 Uhr

By John Axelrod, conductor

Recently, I did a concert introduction in Düsseldorf. We talked about etiquette, the evolution of the orchestra and the necessity of the orchestra to the community. I reminded the audience that the etiquette at the concert hall that everybody knows – sitting down, not coughing or clapping between movements – was created in the late 19th century, early 20th century, during the times of dictators. So people sat down and shut up.

conductor John Axelrod (Foto: © Marc Roger/ONPL)

When people want to clap between movements, it doesn’t bother me. And most orchestras I noticed aren’t bothered neither. It really depends on the piece of music. So I said at the introduction: "You want to clap? Go on clap! You want to whistle? Go ahead and whistle! You’re in a concert!" The young people really liked the freedom to be able to express themselves in the concert hall. So when Anne Akiko Meyer and I played the Barber violin concerto, the kids behind the orchestra went crazy, screaming, dancing, clapping, having the time of their life. Afterwards coming to me and saying: "Thank you! This was the classical music experience that we will remember all our life!" The same thing happened to me recently in France with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, during a concert of Tchaikovsky’s Nutrcracker with Duke Ellington’s Harlem Nutcracker. I even had a 16 year old dancing the Valse des Fleurs with me on the podium during the encore! We didn’t miss a beat!

When you know that you’re making those memories for life for an audience, then you know you’re developing an audience. If you’re just trying to do lip service, saying "Oh, we do educational programs" and it doesn’t necessarily have a measurable or substantial impact on the audience that you’re trying to develop, then it’s just outreach programs for outreach programs, it doesn’t really have any substance. So I love the fact that these young people went crazy and it then communicated what it meant to them.

We have to understand how a younger generation, the 21st century audience, defines a concert experience. They’re interactive, clapping, singing, dancing, whatever it is. It is the public that will define in the future the etiquette during the presentation of classical music by an orchestra. It’s not the orchestra that will define how the public is supposed to react. I think when the orchestra does impose on the public like that, very often the public rejects what the orchestra’s trying to create. This ivory tower impact: "We don’t need to serve the community. We don’t need to talk to the community, we don’t need to do anything… Our job’s just to play the music…" In that kind of an ivory tower mentality, the chances of building an audience are much more limited.

Truth

Unfortunately music has followed the path of politics and religion over the last 250 to 300 years. Even in the 20th century it was used as an instrument for political propaganda. Today I think it’s different. Now we’re getting to the point where music has more a humanitarian message. We are more contributing to the dialogues in the world, even if it’s on a political level, so that we can actually hold up the mirror and show the truth to the world. When unfortunately today politics and religion aren’t always telling the truth to people, art is supposed to tell the truth. That’s what makes art art. That’s what makes art the creation for a human civilization. That through art we’re able to express what the truth represents. Sometimes beyond the truth, sometimes it’s fantasy, surreal, sometimes it’s a lie we’re actually expressing through the art. But ultimately what the art is supposed to do is say: "Here’s the integrity. Here’s the depth. Here’s truth. Here’s what’s in our consciousness. Here’s what’s in our soul."

We know, it’s wrong to kill other people. We know "alle Menschen werden Brüder" has a reason, has a purpose. Why does it resonate? It’s not just an enlightenment idea of the 18th century, it’s not just a 19th century poet who’s coming up with this material, not just a composer who adopts this material. It really reflects values that are central to human civilization. And art is generally consistent with reflecting those values. The same values I try to express through my work. Ideas of tolerance and reconciliation and acceptance and brotherhood and fraternity and the truth and all these kind of things we see repeatedly over and over and over again in music.

One of the things in music that we’re always talking about is the integrity, the depth, the seriousness of the music. So it’s just about how seriously musicians and the public take what they do. You can’t say that classical music is serious and other music is not. People use this misnomer. You ask "Metallica", if they’re serious about their music. "Oh yes!" And their fans say: "These are the classical musicians of heavy metal." They’re very serious! You ask Jay-Z if he’s serious about his rap. Of course he is serious! So you can’t say what’s serious or non serious, because it’s a subjective thing. But you can say that what the artists are trying to do is tell the truth. They’re really trying to hold up these values of integrity, of depth, of humanity, those subjects that are greater than ourselves.

Because politicians have throughout history made themselves greater than the truth. And religion also has historically made itself greater than the truth. But art I think has the responsibility to be humble before the truth and say: "Here we are and this is the truth." Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten to 1989 here in Germany in Berlin if the truth wasn’t exposed through the graffiti on the wall. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten to 1945 if the truth wasn’t told about what was going on in the camps. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten to the death of Stalin and things like this if the truth wasn’t told through the music of Shostakovich. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten there. Or maybe we would have gotten there in a different way.

Past, presence and future

I think today, the world is not that much different than it was a hundred years ago in terms of war, in terms of conflict, in terms of compromise, in terms of terror. You can even go back to the time of the Medicis and the Borgias in Florence. There was terror and violence and war and famine and plague and everything else. But there was also the Renaissance. And the renaissance in Michelangelo and Leonardo came about because Lorenzo de Medici – despite all of the war and violence and terror and everything else going on in the world just like we have today – said: "As the king, as the leader, as the patron, I’m going to support the truth. Even if they’re serving me because Michelangelo and Leonardo and Rafael, their art represents the truth." And hence we have the Renaissance. Likewise, we have art and literature and music of the 19th century in Germany thanks to Carl-Augustus of Weimar. We have Greek culture thanks to Pericles. We have the Song-Dynasty in China, which was one of the golden ages of Chinese creativity. When the patrons, the politicians said, "We’re not so good in telling the truth, we’re going to sponsor the artists who do tell the truth," usually we have very important moments in human history that define human civilization. I think we need to keep returning back to those times where the artists had something to say and people actually listened to what the artists had to say.

It’s a very telling concept, the truth in art. Daniel Barenboim is the one who really put it clearly when he says: "Politics is about compromise. Music should never be about compromise." And I think he’s right about that. Because we’re always being judged in terms of quality and perfection. Bernstein said: "If you make a note and miss it – we’re human! People make mistakes.” But if we don’t catch the temperament of the piece of music, the character of the piece of music, than we’re not telling the truth. Because that’s what the intention of the composer was. And I think that’s our goal: What is the intention of the composer? What is the temperament? What is the truth?

John Axelrod (Foto: © Marc Roger/ONPL)

Some people don’t like to see music performed. But because Bernstein was my teacher, seeing the music was as important as hearing the music. We’re a performing art. We need public! When the public sits there and only closes their eyes, then why are they in the concert hall? You could just listen to a CD. So we want to give them that creative moment from beginning to end. And what happens in between is a process of time. We’re governed by mathematics and time. But we’re actually out of time, we’re in the present moment. With every note that we play we’re in the present moment. That’s why I can do the 9th symphony of Mahler and by the end of it, 90 minutes later, I say: "It’s over? Already?" Just you’re in the present moment, it’s a thing of flow. And time goes like this…

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