Listening seriously (Stephen Duffy)
I was recording a feature for one of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO's seasonal broadcasts last week, and spent an hour talking with Allison Gardener, Head of Cinemas at the Glasgow Film Theatre. We were discussing 'Classics in the Movies' the use of existing classical music in a film as opposed to an original score. During this fascinating conversation, Allison made the point that watching a film is the first time that many people are exposed to the sound of a symphony orchestra. She's dead right, of course. But it surprises and upsets me that film music is held up by much of the musical establishment as an inferior kind of composition. For more thoughts on that, you'll need to tune in to the 'Christmas at the Movies' broadcast on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Scotland on the evening of Sunday 21st December...
Anyway, this reminded me of an aspect of classical music culture that I've always been dead against. It has an all too familiar aroma that you can detect at certain concerts... that nasty streak of snobbery that runs through most discussion about orchestras, composers and compositions. What's more, it's a snobbery that looks down its nose at the paraphernalia of popular culture - movies, computer games, MP3 players, downloads and samples - as well as the kind of folk who enjoy it. This snobbery has tried to claim that classical music is in some way more "serious" than other more "trivial" musical forms - jazz, hip hop, pop, folk, musical theatre, etc. As a time-served jazz musician, I can tell you that not only is this an insult to the incredibly skilled and committed musicians in all of those other genres, but it also damages classical music's own reputation, since it just confirms the prejudices of many: that it's an exclusive, lah-di-dah, members-only club, that decides what is "serious" music and what isn't. It makes me seethe that the works of Sergei Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky are tarred with this stupid hoity-toity attitude. As the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO's recent Russian Winter concert series has just proved, those two composers are more than capable of standing on their own two feet; they don't need to be granted some badge of seriousness by anyone else.
When the art world, cinema, theatre, even opera, can get with the 21st century programme, it seems ludicrous that the weight of history should hang so heavily upon classical music's shoulders... from the music played, to what musicians wear on stage, or knowing when it's appropriate to clap. In the more carefree world of jazz, Jamie Cullum - a lad barely out of his teens - can sing You Make Me Feel So Young, and no-one bats an eyelid at the absurdity or the historical inaccuracy of the statement. But if Katherine Jenkins sings a Mozart aria, Russell Watson belts out Nessun Dorma or Il Divo have a bash at Il Trovatore, then there's a furore! The intelligentsia chuck their harpsichords out their prams and another pointless discourse on the dumbing down of music begins. You see, it turns out there's no easy forgiveness in the classical world, where opus numbers, arcane Italian terms, obscure jargon and - let's face it - sheer bloody pedantry forever interferes with the enjoyment of the actual music. Which is why I feel it is partly my job - as presenter or publicist - to blur these boundaries and help demystify the elements that can prevent a normal listener from surrendering to great music.
In my youth, I played in loads of classical concerts with excellent youth orchestras. There were hundreds of young musicians playing and hearing pieces of incredible variety, back to back, without any historical or intellectual context. All of us in the orchestra or audience experienced the music without its programme note-like baggage, its opus numbers, its "schools of" and its "isms". Because those concerts were a deliberate mishmash of classical and non-classical, the boundaries between styles lost their meaning and all we were left exposed to was great music, and that surely is what it's all about.
People who are unfamiliar with classical music often have prejudices and preconceptions about it, and the only way to get the music into their hearts is to first get it into their ears. And it doesn't matter if that's via the cinema, an iPod or even a video game... just as long as through these media it can draw the listener into the heart of the action - on the concert platform.
Stephen Duffy
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