Two massive major concerts recently hit Chicago, both of which left thousands of people awestruck and clapping and not wanting to let the musicians leave the stage. One was a free outdoor concert by She & Him, the retro-pop duo of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel in Millennium Park on June 13, which pulled in well over 10,000 people. The other was the Chicago Symphony’s final concert of the season on Sunday afternoon in Orchestra Hall, which had 2,500 in attendance, plus an additional 2,500 Friday and Saturday. She & Him incited an audience of NPR dads to such feats as throwing their infants in the air; the CSO and conductor Bernard Haitink got an audience to stay darn quiet for 80 minutes worth of Beethoven. Both were impressive in their own ways.
She & Him
And they got me thinking on the different expectations we have for these shows, pop/rock concerts and classical concerts. Classical devotees are constantly, publicly bemoaning some sort of superiority complex on the part of classical music, which Must Be Overcome. I’ve never actually met someone who holds this view, but just as there are beings with free will who believe in the Tooth Fairy, I suppose we should grant that maybe someone, somewhere, who probably hasn’t been out very much, believes that popular music and probably pop culture are dens of awfulness does exist. And gets questioned by people who want to know this.
The League of American Orchestras just had its annual conference, and while I didn’t attend, from the blog posts that went up on the conference blog, it seemed that the issue of the day was relevance, and how to get more of it. This is tangentially related to the Faux-Superiority Complex mentioned above, because the theory is that we want people at our orchestra concerts who are snazzy and who dig pop culture. And we do; such people wear nice clothes, usually smell ok, and are physically attractive, occasionally. Pop culture holds a great attraction for fine arts types, because there are a lot of people there, and because it would be great to have them part of the supply and demand for what we’re offering. The 18-34 year-old demographic isn’t desirable only among TV stations.
Bernard Haitink
But something doesn’t click with them very quickly, and that something has to do with time, and how we go about absorbing classical music. Classical music repays repeated listenings. So does popular music, and I’ll come back to it. But the way that classical music exists and is transmitted to the culture at large is in a means that it can be reproduced. Whether that is as sheet music, or a recording, or a live concert, embedded in the very listening of it is that this music is something you will come back to. You will be a different person by then, with different experiences, and the music will sound different to you then, too. Classical music invites you to pay attention closely, hanging on to every note, so that the next time you hear that piece, there will be a recognition that you’ve heard it before, you will either hear something differently and like it more or less than when you first heard it.
I’m not saying that this is the only way to hear classical music. Plenty of people derive enormous satisfaction out of going to concerts or hearing the music on the radio, and losing themselves in their thoughts and mentally multitasking. Or doing the dishes. Or walking the dog, or simply forgetting about how hard life is and letting the music wash over them. If that is how they enjoy it, then that’s how they enjoy it and what it brings into their lives.
Take this couple at last Friday’s concert of the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. That concert was also in Millennium Park, and didn’t pull in anywhere close to 10,000 people. But on the steps at the back of the seating pavilion were two people, a couple, engrossed in the score to Beethoven’s Mass in C. The Fifth Symphony, the Ninth, maybe even the Missa Solemnis, I wouldn’t have been terribly surprised. But the Mass in C? It’s never been on any concert program I’ve attended, I don’t think I’ve even read a concert review that included it, and yet here were two people who were there, man, and they were going to love and think about every second of it.
Bonding over Beethoven
This didn’t happen at the She & Him concert. I’m sure there were people there who were listening to the intricate soul charts they were playing, and were playing their cover of “Roll Over, Beethoven” against any number of singers’ versions as M. Ward sang it. (Honest, they did sing that; I’m not taking poetic license here.) What I remember from the audience was people having an awesome time, and women in their 20s asking me what Zooey Deschanel was wearing, and I could see over the crowd. (Leggings and a blue-and-white polka-dotted dress.) But they weren’t fussing over the details. Some were, surely, but I think the appeal of this was purely its in-the-moment-ness, and not for any potential future enjoyment to be had seeing them again, or to hear their songs sung by them or someone else. Still, Deschanel’s performance of “I Put a Spell on You” sent chills all up and down my back, and I’d love to hear that again.
So what would I want to see? An end to foolish attempt to fix problems that aren’t all that bad. We have a reasonable grasp on what people come to classical music for. Pushing those things forward, and standing up for them, will resonate so much more strongly with people than trying to be something we’re not. Classical music has existed in some form for 1,000 years. Beethoven’s been heard for more than 200 of them. I doubt he’s ready to roll over just quite yet. In fact, it was just proved, again, that he isn’t.