Those who are not disturbed by the music…
“Those who were not disturbed by the music might have had a good time,” I though time and again, having attended classical concerts and opera performances several times. During the last few decades, the following practice has attracted attention; in many instances the conductor of the concert or the stage manager of the opera thought that the audience is so much bored by the music that he felt obliged to entertain them. The means of those so-called entertainment include elements of the cabaret and the vaudeville, or projection of images while playing music. Furthermore, I have experienced crazy things happening during the overture of operas, like the singers’ coming and going on stage or bombarding the spectator with incongruous visual effects.
An organ player, wished to remain anonymous for now, projects colourful pictures during his concerts because, as he explained in an interview, he is concerned that the music is explained if it is supplemented with visual effects. There is a wildly known and very famous string quartet who use also laser-show during their performances, and doing so, listeners also become spectators. The first violinist pointed out to a journalist that he would like to make classical music more popular among people on the one hand, and on the other hand, he believes that using visual effects brings listeners closer to music and they would understand it better.
Until the end of the 19th century opera overtures served a double function; on the one hand, they gave a summary of the main motifs of the music, thus foreshowing the melodies which will be elaborated later on stage. On the other hand, opera overtures helped people elevate from everyday life to the higher spheres of art so that the spectator have enough time to prepare to perceive the work of art in order that he/she will be able to enjoy the opera with an aesthetic attitude. The meaning of the word “opera” in Latin is “works” as it is based upon several forms of art – the combination of music as well as the theatre which also includes various forms of art. Therefore, the overture focuses upon the music since all other theatrical effects come into action later. In the history of the opera it was the Italian verismo (Italian way of realism), especially the works of late Verdi and Puccini, which extinguished the overture of the opera. This was the era when under the aegis of Modernism, these composers tended to break away from old forms, and art exercised an immediate influence on the spectator, without his/her being well-prepared. The earlier practice makes the spectator prepared for perceiving the opera, and in the meanwhile, he/she is entertained with more and more beautiful tunes of the work. These tunes bombard the spectator in a concentrated form so he/she has the chance to get a kind of “summary” before the action as well as the music blossom out on stage.
It can be pardoned if an opera overture is not played with closed curtains provided one supposes that today’s opera goer is not erudite enough to know what exactly he/she will hear and see, so he/she must be given all the most important clues of the plot in advance. There exist companions, opera guides, and many other books from which one can be informed about the plot of an opera, or if someone lacks the above mentioned sources or is lazy to go to a library to search for any of these, one can still use the Internet in order to reach plenty of sources online. Some think that today’s spectator should be regarded so uneducated or silly that he/she would have no idea at all about the piece; he/she might be going to “accidentally” see it just because he/she goes astray into an opera house. I am not only annoyed while I am entertained during the overture but also, I feel that I am regarded as absolutely fat-witted; these times a question arises in my mind, asking whether today’s young people will really become silly after a while because they are trained in such a way and they gradually get used to not using their minds due to this practice.
When, at an evening concert, the conductor turns back between the movements of an orchestral work and teaches the listeners lessons with wisecracks considered witty by him, it comes to my mind that a classical concert is definitely not Bertold Brecht’s Epic Theatre, of which intentions, among others, is to educate the spectator. It is expressly rebarbative when a conductor turns to the listeners and comments on the following movement. Why do they want to make us believe that music must be explained to adult people and be made “more colourful” with the elements of showbiz? Educational programmes about classical music are very important; these programmes have their own place and time, that is, at morning performances or special performances for children. At evening concerts for adults, however, the above mentioned practice degrades the listener humbling him/her based upon false ideas about his/her supposed intellectual level.
At concerts, the use of other elements than music, such as images, distract the listener, and this is the reason why I do not listen to concert recordings on TV or DVDs. When I tried doing so, the instruments, the reflection of lights on them, the piano, the movement of the fingers of the pianist were so beautiful that I could not concentrate on music itself and could not remember what I had heard. If I am bombarded with images during a symphony or a string quartet, I must close my eyes in order to be able to hear the music, and also, another question is formulated in my mind; does this practice not make the same effect as if we painted marbles in museums claiming that they seem so boring with only one colour? Would such a marble statues become more beautiful and thus attract more people? I would answer with a definite no for my questions since they were unequivocal rhetoric ones. Classical music is not a variety show, neither vaudeville, and the use of kitsch-like or pretentious means do not make classical music more popular; rather, they just take it down to the shallow level of the pop culture of low standard. Let there be no mistake about what I am saying! In my train of thoughts, I would not like to make an oversimplified claim about pop culture saying that pop is always of poor quality generally speaking. The difference between the pop genre of high standards and classical genres lies not in quality but in the difference of their styles. Many pieces of popular music are real masterpieces, like the music by Vangelis or several pieces by Andrew Lloyd Webber, etc.
What distresses me beside the above mentioned practice (that is, that listeners are regarded as silly people who must be entertained with effects which are different from music) is that the use of popular means in order that wider range of people take to classical music might elicit an opposite effect. The effects of pop genres may raise the stimulus-threshold of listeners in such a way that they would not be able to hear the finer shades of the classical genre any longer. How high can stimulus-threshold be raised? As high as without strong or strident effects the listener would not be able to perceive classical music and operas? If we answer these questions with yes, classical music will lose its belonging to a classical genre, it will go through an enormous process of devaluation and then, it will disappear. This process would not mean the same when the mainstream absorbs the artistic attempts which previously had been regarded as ‘alternative’ or belonging to a subculture. Rather, this would mean that the classical genre would dig its own grave. The excessive use of popular elements will not make classical genres more popular among people; rather, the practice above will liquidate the classical genre as such.
Now I am listening to Delilah’s aria “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” (My heart opens to your voice) from Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera Samson and Delilah without any other effect than music, merely for the music itself because the voice of the singer itself offers poor aesthetic entertainment. It might happen that in a few years, for the sake of people of feeble apprehension, a couple kissing should be projected behind the singer on stage; or perhaps, a scene from some soft-porn, in order that everyone could understand what exactly Delilah’s aria is about.
I—and I am concerned that I am not alone—am not disturbed by music since music is an autonomous form of art, and we have learnt its language. Learning is essential for erudition, and without education, the doors of classical genres will not open up. In order to enjoy as well as appreciate classical genres, one must acquire their language in order that they can be comprehended. Replacers offered as bulk goods will not help anyone who wants to enjoy classical forms of art, including classical music. Those who are disturbed by music should not go to classical concerts or the opera; before going, they should acquire the language of high art by learning it. Those who are not disturbed by music can get outstanding aesthetic experience if they are not entertained with the dunderheaded means of low standard popular culture.
My thoughts are not closed down since many other questions have arisen in my mind. I wonder where we will be in twenty years; will erudition be fashionable again or will we be flooded with simp-styled showbiz elements and thus will they become absolutely natural during the performance of classical music? I am not disturbed by music—neither at classical concerts nor at opera performances. I wonder whether I, and the ones who share my views, will die out one day and total idiotism will replace us with the disappearance of classical genres or there will be some demand for erudition and for the attitude of perceiving classical genres.
Ages and styles change. I would like to hope that we will not die out and there will always be young people who will be fed up with the tendency of these days. I also hope that today’s bad practice of performing classical music will become part of a museum for the history of performing arts, as a dead end of some ‘new attempts’ for performing classical music at the turn of the 20th century.
