An American Composers Orchestra concert gets criticised for over-explanation...

(Philadelphia Inquirer article)
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20071023_Like_exegesis_with_that_.html

I agree with you, t-p!   In the concert itself,  I really only want to hear the music.  There are exceptions...  Kronos 4tet introduce their programs with brief information that explains why they want to play this music...  I find that valuable and convincing.

There is a place for longer explanations, but it's in the form of the Pre-Performance Talk, at which attendance is voluntary

Very few indeed - and what was it that another British composer once said about distrusting music that required verbal explanation to support it (only the time was the early 1920s and the complaining composer was Delius - I have the exact quote here but haven't time to go find it right now)...

Best,

Alistair

I can think of lots of examples - for example, the first time I heard HYMNEN I got a lot more out of it because of the pre-performance talk by Greg Rose but there is a big difference between choosing to go to a pre-performance talk an hour or so before the concert,  and still have 15 minutes to take your seat, buy a program etc...  or being hectored by self-important performers within the framework of the concert itself,  as though you are too stupid (or rather, they are far too clever for you) to understand what they are doing without a For-Dummies foreword  

However, I do make an exception for singers performing material which isn't in the audience's language,  who want to explain briefly what the text of the song/cantata/etc is about - that is legitimate, I feel.

I ought to mention that I have strong feelings on this because because in Russia all concerts have each item announced by a "compere",  and I keep a notebook of the utter rubbish I've had to sit and hear in this nature.  The worst ever was a stout matron of the "classical-music-is-morally-improving" school, introducting a Bach organ recital in Ekaterinburg...

• "Johann Sebastian Bach was an extremely genial man."
• "As a devout Catholic, Bach produced much music for the Church..."
• "... this demonstrates the moral superiority of Bach's music over the witless piffle written by modern composers..."

I'm going to the opening concert of  Moscow Autumn tonight (a yearly festival of entirely new music) - regrettably an event whose appeal is usual deadened by the leaden approach of the announcers    Maybe tonight will be better - but I doubt it...

Absolutely so.  I used to run the Pre-Performance Talks at ENO for a while (in fact Opilec here helped me with them!) and we offered them on both new works (MASK OF ORPHEUS, AKHNATEN) and mainstream pieces too (RIGOLETTO, AIDA), as well as "neglected classics" like MAZEPPA and RUSALKA.  I still remember Roderick Swanston on TRISTAN... I think it was the first time I ever understood the piece?

I recall the most miraculous concert experience I have had to date, which involved an almost unbearably frustrating first half consisting of a performance Ives' sonata, which I was completely ignorant of at the time, was prefaced by the helpful (not) comment 'Well, I'm sure you've all read the essay by the composer on this piece, so I don't have to say anything about it'.  HAH.