I recently read an intriguing article in the August 1997 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, “Classical Appeal,” written by musician David Schiff. The article, which describes the plight of our symphony orchestras, is of interest to those who care about classical music. “Classical Appeal” is also instructive to those who care about classical psychoanalysis in its various contemporary iterations, all of which share a core methodology involving the use of free association, the concept of a dynamic unconscious, the interpretation of transference and resistance, and a schedule of four or five sessions a week.
The music article reminded me that psychoanalysts are not the only ones being buffeted by powerful social and economic trends. We are not the only ones who are struggling to find solutions that may themselves turn out to be highly problematic. Here is my summary and understanding of a story without heroes, villains, or easy answers, which can be read as a metaphor to help us understand the relationship between psychoanalysis and contemporary culture. And, as is the case for the best metaphors, we may all find different meanings in this tale.
We learn from Schiff that in the “sensitive world of classical music, a lot of people are convinced that the sky is falling. Newspaper articles describe the classical music business in apocalyptic terms. Sales of classical CDs have slowed, strikes have closed down orchestras, and the number of music critics has declined.”
This crisis is said to be based on “convergence of several trends: the supplanting of the old mom-and-pop music managers by big entertainment multinationals; the saturation of the recording market; the anti-high-culture stance affected by younger academics and journalists; and the collapse of music education in the public schools.” In Portland, the area upon which the article focuses, one low-budget station carries the classical music banner. “Our brave little station might be celebrated as a sign of the tenacity of classical music at the grassroots level. But these days it reminds me more of the pauper's grave where they dumped the body of Mozart.” In addition, it is “difficult to create demand for an invisible product. Newspaper coverage of classical music is rapidly disappearing.” There is no classical music on commercial TV, few commercial classical stations, and an increasing shift in National Public Radio stations to news and music other than classical.
The various trends and pressures facing classical music particularly affect the lives of the musicians who perform in symphony orchestras. “[Musicians] view themselves as highly skilled professionals who have put in as many years of training as a lawyer or doctor. The players devote considerable time to practicing their parts and maintaining their instruments.” Musicians train in a specialized institute called a conservatory. In the conservatory, “players go far beyond mastering the mechanics of their instruments and learning to play the notes on the page. They learn to find the music in those notes — to shape a phrase, to color a tone.” They learn to deliver the music in a range of classical paradigms called musical styles.
Except for that rare performer who can achieve a solo career, the conservatory-trained musician aspires to one of the fewer than 3,000 coveted positions in major orchestras. Because orchestras have unionized, and because of the influence of the National Endowment of the Arts, these musicians have a comfortable salary, tenure after several years, and a 40-week season, which allows a period each year for other artistic activities. The attainment of comfortable working conditions has guaranteed musicians the peace of mind they feel is necessary to practice their craft, but it has led to the orchestral musicians becoming dependent upon the success of the orchestra.
Paradoxically, this attainment of individual economic security has undermined the economic well-being of the orchestra upon which the individual musician depends. “Financial security seemed insidiously to become a higher priority for the musicians than either artistic accomplishment or the orchestra's fiscal balance. The idea that every middle-sized American city deserves a ‘major’ orchestra has proved as seductive — and as untenable — as the dream that every American city should support a major-league baseball team.”
The challenge for the orchestras is straightforward: They need to sell tickets for the performances. However, “[t]he core audience for classical music is small and aging [sic]. The orchestra has to compete with other cultural institutions for the younger and more marginal audience, and it's a hard sell.” Orchestras' business managers have decided that either the orchestra is giving too many classical concerts or it must do a better job of marketing them.
Orchestras and individuals have responded to the fiscal crisis by attempting to adapt their classical craft to other forms of music, such as that performed in “pops” concerts. “Opera stars like Dawn Upshaw are recording Broadway ballads, Yo-Yo Ma is playing country fiddle, and orchestras are turning to jazz musicians like Bobby McFerrin to put new life into classical repertory. … The idea of diversification has been a long-standing issue. Paul Whiteman's 1924 ‘Experiment in Modern Music’ launched George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.”
Crossing over was once evaluated on an artistic and philosophical basis; it is now considered purely on an economic basis. Even the language is being subtly changed so that the meaning of “classical” is being corrupted. “Lincoln Center, following the success of its jazz program, has launched a program featuring popular song, a genre [they are referring to] as ‘American classical music.’ These days nearly everything is ‘classical music’ except classical music.” Although it is not mentioned in “Classical Appeal,” the cross-over movement has extended to training. The renowned Rochester Conservatory now requires that its students learn one of the crossover genres. Critics point out that students will have less opportunity to master the range of techniques necessary to perform the classical repertoire, but the conservatory argues that the change is necessary to help its graduates to earn a reasonable income.
With the dependence of orchestral musicians upon the survival of the orchestra, an unholy alliance has developed between many orchestras' financial managers and the musicians. Musicians are accepting the so-called reality that they are living in a show-business marketplace. They are accepting the need for cross-over concerts, which in Portland is the structure for half of the orchestral performances. There is “little trace of snobbery in the players' view of these concerts; they respect many of the pop performers. But backing up a Broadway tunesmith or sight-reading arrangements of
golden oldies does little to sustain the skills they mastered in the conservatory. Less qualified musicians and, even worse, synthesizers and computers could do the job just as well.“ Music with a hook is replacing music with a soul.
“Classical Appeal” focuses on one particular crossover concert. The concert was advertised on the radio as a blues event, without mention of the classical works. “The marketing strategy reflected the conventional wisdom about how to sell crossover: The orchestra crosses down, and the audience crosses up. It's an attitude that insults both players and listeners. The orchestra is made to feel that the kind of music it plays best is unsellable, and the audience soon figures out that the ads are a bait-and-switch ploy.”
Schiff goes on to say, “Crossover may be a dangerous double fantasy. For populists it proves that classical music is dead; for orchestras it feeds the self-defeating notion that they can compete with popular music only by disguising the differences that separate the wodds of classical and popular music.” The orchestral musicians have been coerced into participating in the transformation and redefinition of the meaning and form of classical music. Sometimes the transformation is evident to musicians, and sometimes it is so subtle and covert that some musicians may not recognize the process and their complicity in it. The musicians are relinquishing the practice of their chosen profession, the development of their knowledge and skills, and the public esteem of classical music in order to accommodate the pragmatics of economic realities and of public perceptions and demands.
Some orchestral managers have argued that the old symphony is an anachronism, suggesting that the orchestra should go beyond its old identity and embrace a new identity in which the performance of classical music would only be a small part of its activities. It would become transformed into an “ ‘extended orchestral community’ which would include chamber ensembles, contemporary-music specialists, and educational activities.” Schiff feels that such an approach is misguided, implying a “view of the symphony orchestra as a cross between a public utility and a social-welfare agency.”
He writes that “a smaller and less certain future might remind the classical-music world of its first principles. A few years ago I saw a movie of Nadia Boulanger teaching a class. It wasn't a real class but a simulation for some American cultural TV of the fifties. In her terrifying, gaunt way Boulanger looked into her students' very souls and said, ‘You must take risks! If you don't take risks, you should just stay in your room. You should stay in your bed. You should die!‘ In the world of classical orchestras, taking risks would mean letting go of the security-blanket mentality that constrains negotiations over contracts, rehearsals, and concerts. The riskiest move of all, though, would be the proud defense of the orchestra's own traditions and repertory against forces that view symphony orchestras with neither respect nor understanding. If orchestras do not take that risk, perhaps they deserve to die.”
Food for thought. Meanwhile, I am enjoying a new recording of Yo-Yo Ma playing the Brahms double concerto, even though I hear that he does play a heck of a country fiddle.