ARTS
Mind the gap
Peter Phillips investigates the waning influence of the central European musical tradition
The public no longer as reliably flocks to hear the music of composers based in Austria between 1750 and 1910 (apart from Mozart) as it once did. Nor does it so regu- larly buy recordings of their music. It is true that there has been a general falling off in the sales of serious music recordings altogether, but the essence of that fall, given that the repertoire in question formed the core of it, is that the numbers here are more calamitously down than across the board. Not long ago the idea of a major symphonic cycle being cancelled mid-stream was akin to cross-questioning a judge in open court. Recently, Bernard Haitink's Mahler cycle with the Berlin Phil- harmonic Orchestra suffered this indignity (largely because he'd already done it, some years earlier and more cheaply, with the Concertgebouw).
There are two ways of looking at the waning influence of the central European musical tradition: either that the message it conveys is no longer as attractive as it was, or it now has to share the stage with other styles which seem just as vital. The two are no doubt linked, but the interaction between them is not always appreciated.
But it's the concert scene which attracts the attention, for all that perceptible changes occur in it more slowly than in the more commercial recording world. Promot- ers may still be able to programme Beethoven's symphonies with a fair certain- ty of success, but much of the supporting cast has fallen away, especially in the English-speaking countries. Symphonies by Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms; string quartets by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; piano trios, quartets and quin- tets by all of the above no longer standard- ly yield larger crowds than madrigals by Monteverdi, masses by Palestrina, oratorios by Messiaen and Tippett or almost any- thing by Philip Glass and John Taverner. Concert-giving organisations and festivals, even in places like Lucerne and Salzburg, have recently felt the need to tap these alternative repertoires.
Three explanations for this shift in pref- erences come to mind: musical education is not what it used to be, or is more diverse, which has led to a fundamental ignorance of the workings of sonata form (by far the most important single compositional form which relied on developing two themes in a formalised structure); this kind of concert has come to be associated too closely with now elderly people who came to dominate the official view of classical music after the second world war; symphony halls and their derivatives are too like museums for the modern taste.
The argument about sonata form is par- Changing fashions: Johannes Brahms ticularly intriguing because, despite many changes in recent years, our conservatoires are still in hock to the Germano-Austrian symphonic tradition. Perhaps analysis of fugue and sonata form is not the prime concern it once was, but the heart of the training has not really changed in many decades. Early music departments do not flourish, the study of music being written today is reluctant, ethnomusicology as per- formance practice is more or less unheard of, the opera departments are antediluvian in their attitudes to singing technique and its wider application.
All this might give some grounds for thinking that the old view is generally still prevailing, but in fact the reality is harsher than that: it is that young professional musicians are, as ever, being trained to do what their teachers know about while the public has slowly moved elsewhere. No wonder our symphony orchestras are in financial trouble; and not only ours. As for sonata form, with the most committedly old-fashioned training that there was, I could never follow it in all its myriad com- plexities, and it didn't matter. For a few minutes, until I lost the plot trying to find the beginning of the development section, lf was content to try; but expected soon to sit back and have a good time. The problem now may be that people are intimidated by their lack of knowledge and give up with- out trying. In doing so, of course, they know they have more alternatives to turn to than their predecessors 30 years ago.
The question of image is more con- tentious, and the conclusion is probably not the same in all the countries of the West- ern world. But put it like this: the massive displacement of German-speaking Jews before and during the last war affected most Western countries. Many of these people were highly talented musicians and had an almost nostalgic interest in keeping alive the repertory under discussion. Once the war was over, they duly founded con- cert societies for the promotion of this music, most influentially in the new world. It is true that this was not at the time a dif- ficult task in one sense — the central Euro- pean tradition and its derivatives were `classical music' tout court to most educated people; but I believe that without this injec- tion of life fairly late in the day, the tradi- tion would not have had the run it has had into recent years. Now that these emigres are old, the concert societies they founded are having to reinvent themselves. Musica Viva in Australia, probably the largest of these creations, is a good case in point. For years their subscriber base has been declin- ing, partly because young people, usually not mid-European emigres, are not coming forward to replace those who die, and part- ly because young people don't feel at ease in concert halls surrounded by elderly over- dressed ones. Musica Viva reckons its best bet is to put on a wide variety of quality acts — the emphasis being on quality because they've discovered that dumbing down doesn't work either.
Perhaps the really surprising aspect of all this is that a tradition which embodies out- of-date, defunct and even discredited pre- cepts should still have any influence at all. As the obituaries of Solti and Tennstedt and the story of Haitink's Mahler cycle proved so articulately, the day of the tyrant/romantic hero conductor seems to be over, just as the day of the subservient rank-and-file orchestral player seems to be over. As for the music itself, who was the last composer to contribute to the corpus of writing which lies at the heart of this dis- cussion? Schoenberg (died 1951)? I would say he is not and never has been popular enough. Richard Strauss (died 1949) is probably the answer, though he was out on his own for most of the second half of his long life.
The truth is that for 80 years and more what core the central European tradition was providing has slowly become so diversi- fied that it has effectively ceased to exist. To rely on it as so many people still do is very odd. It is as if the Italians of the 17th centu- ry had decided to commission Monteverdi and his seconda prattica while continuing to listen to Flemish polyphony. Fortunately for everyone, Monteverdi won the day, even with the authorities. My contention is that if the gap between what some administrators and teachers expect us to hear, and what people are increasingly wanting to hear, is not narrowed there are going to be many more stories like the one we've been hearing from the Halle. With the 21st century upon us, relying on the products of the 19th can hardly be described as being healthy.
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