Kramer says 'Music does not become “classical” until its performance becomes an event addressed to a general public.' But what constitutes a 'general public'? How large does it need to be (and how broadly drawn from society - and which societies)? A lot of music termed 'classical' is listened to by a very narrow constituency - does that constitute a 'general public'?

Elsewhere he reiterates typical New Musicological doctrine in presenting 19th century music almost exclusively as entertainment, when saying that in that period 'Concerts roused passions and helped create the fan culture of modern life'. In his book Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge, Kramer goes into more detail about this:

When electrifying performances cause defensive practices to “fail” or their simulated failure to become “real,” audiences respond with a frenzy that both reflects and re-enacts the positions of music as the other. Institutionalized, such frenzy becomes cult-level fandom, the outer limit of which is the kind of superstar craze that begins in the nineteenth century with figures such as Liszt and Gottschalk. With the progress of mass culture, the character of the superstar evolves; figures such as Jenny Lind, Enrico Caruso, and Leopold Stokowski, who straddle high and popular art, are replaced by purely popular figures such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. But one need only mention Arturo Toscanini, Maria Callas, Van Cliburn, and Glenn Gould to mark the persistence of the superstar role among “classical” performers. Performer cults can even be understood in Dahlhaus’s terms as the specific other of composer cults, the social vehicle for posing the ex-centric energies of the event against the concentric monumentality of the work. (p. 61)

But Liszt for one was more than a little sceptical about this phenomenon (one reason why he essentially retired from his superstar career in 1847, to take up a position in Weimar). And there are numerous tendencies in nineteenth-century music in opposition to this trend, to be found in the music and thought of Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, and later Debussy, Schoenberg and others. Also, is Kramer not aware of how superstar cults arise around composers as well? As far as superstar cults around performers are concerned, the paragraph here beginning 'The emphasis on the individual performer...' still rings true to an extent. Anyhow, the idea that music might be illuminating and searching as well as simply entertaining is one that both Kramer and others seem to want erase, in their infatuation with the type of total commercialisation of music that is such a feature of their home country.

According to the view presented by Kramer in this article, music from the past should be presented as the exotic curios of bygone eras, rather than as work which retains contemporary significance, despite implications to the contrary. He also presents a caricature of how supposedly one listens to, or is meant to listen to, classical music, when saying:

Despite the changes that performance can bring, our musical perception is supposed to be consistent and disciplined. The concert manners of the performers say so; the demeanor of the audience says so; the program notes say so; the mystique of the great composer says so. We are supposed to hear precisely the same old thing. We are supposed to hold our thoughts still.

How many people hear find that accords with their own experience of listening to music? Hearing 'precisely the same old thing' or 'holding one's thoughts still' to me seem much more like characteristics of mass entertainment.

He says 'Movies last longer than string quartets'. Yes, but many operas last longer than the average movie (and movie producers put great pressure upon directors not to exceed what is seen as a comfortable length). The visual arts do not necessarily need any great investment of time from the spectator in order to be popular, so cannot really be compared with music in this respect in the way that Kramer does. One can skim through a gallery or exhibition in a way that is impossible with a classical concert; movies may have a greater length than some concerts, but only if they are predicated upon fast-moving action and drama do they achieve a high commercial success.

When he says 'It might even be nice to have a gift shop in which to linger after the concert', has he really been to many concert halls? Not seen Mozart mugs, Mozart chocolates, Mozart T-shirts, and so on (as well as books and CDs on sale in shops in concert halls as well)?

Kramer says 'In the right circumstances even a work as overfamiliar as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony can become a relentless assault on complacency'. Absolutely, but the demands that music aspire to the condition of entertainment is one of the most palpable forms of complacency. Gardiner or Harnoncourt's Beethoven Fifth to me present, if not a full-frontal 'assault' upon complacent, passive, merely diverting forms of listening experience, then certainly an alternative to them, but I suspect this is not what Kramer has in mind.He then says 'But for classical music to be taken to heart in an era when its expressive vocabulary is no longer seamlessly integrated with the rhythms and routines of everyday life, the concert must become a virtual museum'. That is a false dichotomy and indicative of the paucity of thinking he brings to bear upon the matter. There are many other alternatives for music than those available to the type of high-capitalist-suffused-consciousness he exhibits.

[ He also presents a caricature of how supposedly one listens to, or is meant to listen to, classical music, when saying:

Despite the changes that performance can bring, our musical perception is supposed to be consistent and disciplined. The concert manners of the performers say so; the demeanor of the audience says so; the program notes say so; the mystique of the great composer says so. We are supposed to hear precisely the same old thing. We are supposed to hold our thoughts still.

How many people hear find that accords with their own experience of listening to music? Hearing 'precisely the same old thing' or 'holding one's thoughts still' to me seem much more like characteristics of mass entertainment.
[/quote]

Spot on, Ian.

I think this is a fundamental failure in Kramer's argument.  My own experience is that over decades of listening to music, my own relationship to individual composers and works has changed and continues to change; and that part of this reflects performance practice (to give an example, I recently listened to Barenboim's early 1970's performance of the Bach Magnificat for the first time in years; what struck me forcibly was how archaic the performance sounded, with its large choir and full string section, in a way that simply would not have been the case when I first heard the recording two decades or more ago).  But the point is more general; appreciating music, it seems to me, is precisely that one does not hear the same old thing each time.

I'm not sure it is; epics (Lord of the Rings, say) can edge up to four hours. I'm pretty confident (based on personal experience) that the mean time for a Hollywood film is at least 30 minutes more than it used to be in the 80s.


No, but I'd prefer it if editors are to be paid (and here the comparison I'm making between compositions and films/books breaks down because there isn't really the equivalent figure in music), they felt free to confront an author/director and say such things as 'this has got self-indulgent, cut some of it'. At the moment although such a steadying hand exists within the industry, it's becoming increasingly superfluous. From the way I see it, successful authors and filmmakers are indulged too much by industries that are scared to rock the boat and question anything they might produce. However, as I say this point has less to music since the mediating figure of an editor/producer is much less part of the process.


I think stories that are allowed to develop over time and become more complex - thus demanding more from their audiences - is progress of a sort, yes. Certainly there are episodic subsections (that's simply part of the medium), but as DVD boxset sales come to account for more of the revenue, writers appear to be happier working across those imposed divisions as much as possible. (Something like The Wire would be the best example here.)

I'm straying off the musical question somewhat here, though, so I'll take a back seat for a moment while I thnk about that...

I wonder how Proust or Joyce would have fared under such editors? Or Tarkovsky or Godard or Rivette?


I wouldn't call it a 'steadying hand' so much as a commercially-driven hand.


I'm really quite amazed you say that; if anything, the reverse seems to me to be true, with the demands for instant popularity more all-pervasive than ever.


But do you really think these stories are all that 'complex', though? I haven't seen The Wire, but I've watched things like 24, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives and so on, and I'm not at all convinced they are. Not compared to older British series such as Boys from the Blackstuff or Edge of Darkness.