Current Events > I love classical music but the culture surrounding it is weird

(+) Yeah! (+)

There's a constant trend of people doing endless comparisons between who played it best. The performers are put down for the most minor of mistakes. People will say - without even a hint of irony - something along the lines of "I'm not particularly impressed. Heifetz played the cadenza more confidently. To me, his interpretation is superior bar none." This isn't even an unusual comment. You'll see like it everywhere. Imagine playing your heart out with everything you have, with the culmination of all your skill and experience and hard work - and someone's response is simply to say that they prefer how someone else did it.

Imagine if people reacted that way at radiohead concerts? Someone without any hint of a joke saying "well it was fine, however Thom Yorke was a touch sharp on the G4 on the second chorus of the third song. Not my favourite interpretation I must say, it all moved a touch quickly."

And then there's the need for total silence at all times. Not even just during the performance, but even between the movements. It's weird to me that you expect an audience of hundreds of people to maintain total pindrop noiselessness after the conclusion of a 20 minute performance, simply because the next movement is about to begin. It's not unusual for conductors and performers to be outright angry at someone coughing. Even weirder still, that's a relatively recent phenomena. In Paganini's day, people were whooping and hollering in the audience.

Then there's the obsession with how emotive, or unemotive the performers are. There's a weird bipolar obsession with soloists either being too dramatic or not dramatic enough. Like you can't just play the damn piano without people questioning the way your body sways.

Maybe its an inherent problem with an art form that is so predominately about preserving ancient music. I suppose if Radiohead wrote music and other artists endlessly covered it, maybe there'd be that weird rivalry too. Either way I find this side of it pretty unpleasant.

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Its like taking wine snobbery and upping it by a factor of ten.

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Yeah, it's dumb. If you're good enough to follow the sheet music correctly, it will literally sound the exact same regardless of who plays it.
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lilORANG posted...

Yeah, it's dumb. If you're good enough to follow the sheet music correctly, it will literally sound the exact same regardless of who plays it.

Depends on the instrument. Violin sounds wildly different depending on skill-level.

That said, snobs usually don't talk about bowing or anything to do with actual technique. It would be some unquantifiable bullshit. His play had the grace of a true master!

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lilORANG posted...

Yeah, it's dumb. If you're good enough to follow the sheet music correctly, it will literally sound the exact same regardless of who plays it.

I dunno about that (sheet music doesn't cover every decision entirely), but in either case it's just odd that a musician will make that decision, and then the audience is encouraged to compare that decision to what another performer did, and then rank them. Often to ones that aren't even alive anymore.

That's another thing I meant to mention. Classical music has this culture where the older and deader something is, the better and more untouchable it is. The performers of today are often compared (badly) to the performers of the early 1900s, as an example.

Must be depressing to be a classical musician dealing with audiences who are entirely confident that nothing you ever do will be as good as the guy who played your instrument 50 or a 100 years ago.


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Squall28 posted...

Depends on the instrument. Violin sounds wildly different depending on skill-level.

That said, snobs usually don't talk about bowing or anything to do with actual technique. It would be some unquantifiable bullshit. His play had the grace of a true master!

You know there's a violinist called Hilary Hahn who is often criticised for being too perfect. Fucking imagine that. You practise 40 hours a day to achieve complete mastery of an instrument, and now reviewers and audiences alike are saying your playing is too mechanically correct all the time. Christ.

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The culture maintains and passes down some plainly elitist stuff, and I mean this in the actual sense, as opposed to people on gamefaqs defending game design flaws.

If classical music could just be music, if that Old Master respect was allowed to appreciated without needing to take a class and impress your peers with verbiage, more people would get why that shit is Good.

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Big classical music fan here

most of the culture is actually a somewhat recent thing

back in, say, Beethovens day, most crowds were rowdy, loud, talkative, and ready to party

its why Early romantic and pre romantic symphonies tend to start with a loud tonal hit. Lets everyone know things are starting

once the new rules were in place, you started to get those softer openings a lot more

as to the who played it best comparisons, I think they are all dumb, but Im more about composition than playing so to me its not about who is playing but what they are playing

so sad. Was supposed to be seeing ravels piano concerto and La Mer this weekend but covid came along

Final thing. There's the comical way that the community likes to talk,. As if they are aristocrats in the 1800s. "One would say.." One what? Sarah you're 21 years old, you don't need to refer to yourself as "one"

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Romes187 posted...

once the new rules were in place

Do you know when exactly this started? Was it one of those post-WWI things?

pinky0926 posted...

Hilary Hahn who is often criticised for being too perfect.

There's an anime called Piano no Mori (Piano Forest). It's about all of the culture, but especially has a secondary protagonist with this exact problem.

I was in the school orchestra from fourth until ten grade and I hated it so much. On the rare occasion we played something spirited like a Hungarian Dance or when we took Bacchanale to Regionals, it was a lot of fun. But there were weird rules about learning: the teacher/conductor forbade us from listening to ANY recordings of the songs we played. I don't mean recordings of us (those were encouraged). I mean dead-ass any rendition of the song other than us, we were not allowed to listen to until after our concerts.

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Yeah the silence during concerts thing is weird. I mean isn't a concert supposed to be a big party?

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Forgettable posted...

lmfao wtf?

Twoset's message is the exact opposite of this topic.

Twoset is a breath of fresh air, really

But even those guys are making constant comparisons. It's all in good fun for the most part, but they love sports comparisons. "She is the Usain Bolt of violin", or "This is basically like, olympic level equivalent".

I respect that there kind of has to be a level of perfectionism and high caliber talent in classical music (hell, just to even play most of the pieces), but I don't like much of the culture it creates

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lilORANG posted...

Yeah, it's dumb. If you're good enough to follow the sheet music correctly, it will literally sound the exact same regardless of who plays it.

Thats like saying if I cover a Rush song on drums my dynamics will sound anything like Neil Peart, which is hysterically wrong.

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

Do you know when exactly this started? Was it one of those post-WWI things?

late 19th early 20th century I believe

it was a thing Mahler introduced (I think Im right in that)

Vermander posted...

Thats like saying if I cover a Rush song on drums my dynamics will sound anything like Neil Peart, which is hysterically wrong.

true but for the most part, if youre playing in a symphony hall Professionally, you can play things pretty well

you do get some pieces that just arent played by anyone but the virtuosos

squarion posted...

Yeah the silence during concerts thing is weird. I mean isn't a concert supposed to be a big party?

I want to hear the music not some damn Chad being an obnoxius prick.

Pindrop silence is a bit much but fuck people who sing along unless the performer openly encourages it.

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I'm glad I haven't met people like that. Sounds like a parody of a typical classical music fans that a tv show would do. I guess that has to come from somewhere.

Romes187 posted...

Big classical music fan here

most of the culture is actually a somewhat recent thing

back in, say, Beethovens day, most crowds were rowdy, loud, talkative, and ready to party

its why Early romantic and pre romantic symphonies tend to start with a loud tonal hit. Lets everyone know things are starting

once the new rules were in place, you started to get those softer openings a lot more

Reminds me of Jazz in a way. It went from loud, lively clubs to quiet, formal like performances later on in many cases.

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Concerto #4 is superior!

*snorts in derision*

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