Have you ever done a YouTube binge? I'm not sure I qualify as a YouTube binger, I lack the time necessary for hours long binging but I often do go through tangents. A tangent may last weeks while I view and listen to the music of a particular artist or composer. Lately it's been the violinist Hilary Hahn. She's young, beautiful, and plays with unusual power and virtuosity. My favorite video is of her playing Bruch's first violin concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. I recommend you watch it too if you're into this sort of thing. I love the way she smiles and sways during the orchestral passages when she's not playing herself. When she is playing her expression becomes serious. She throws herself into her playing with tremendous intensity. That's the part that has me smiling ; the part where she's playing. The music fills her as a sail fills with wind, and she, in turn fills the theater with it. When Hillary puts her bow to the strings you know something wonderful is happening.
Bruch wrote this piece in 1866. Beethoven was long dead but his influence is still apparent in this concerto. It's still with us. In Bruch's time ,as in Beethoven's, if you wanted to hear the great orchestral work of the period, or of earlier periods, you had to live near a cultural capital such as Frankfurt. If you lived in the hinterlands you were out of luck. The invention of the phonograph in the early 20 th century changed all that. Then came radio, then came television, then came the internet and it's stepchild, YouTube. Put it on the long, long list of things we often enjoy ,that are drop dead wonderful, but which we all typically take for granted. Watching a performance on YouTube may be slightly inferior to having attended the actual concert yourself, but it's not far off. As far as convenience ,YouTube wins hands down. In the past if you enjoyed something the orchestra just played you might be able to convince the players to saw away at it again by clapping, stomping your feet, and shouting " encore". With an internet streaming service you only have to press play. You can have them repeat it as often as you like.
I wish it were all good news on the cultural front. It's my impression that as fast as improvements occur in the ways we access art in all it's many forms, the faster we become the kind of society that is no longer capable of producing it. We still produce art, it's just not as good as it once was. If you haven't tuned into a top forty, popular music station lately, just try it. If after an hour of that you think you're still up for more punishment, put on a country station. It's no fair if it's a country station that throws in a little Wily or Garth, or Dwight. I mean a country station that just plays current billboard of hits. If you haven't tried this lately you're in for a shock . Classical music has not been spared. The debasement just happened there much earlier. It's been fifty years since most of us expected to hear anything listenable in the " contemporary " category. Classical music stations, and performers have long ago turned their attention to playing the oldies. Audiences are understandably reluctant to hear anything post Bernstein or Barber.
If history is a guide, slumps like this are not necessarily permanent. There may be a great flowering of creativity ahead of us. Even during a slump ,such as this, there is great music being produced. There are still great performers such as Hilary. What has changed is not entirely a matter of artistic excellence. What has changed is the level of the culture itself. It goes much further than music. I'd include the plays being written, the novels, and movies. I'm always proud when a movie showcased at our own film festival , often first seen here ,goes on to achieve special recognition from the Academy of Motion Pictures. We've had quite a good streak lately scoring top picture in ten of the last eleven years. At the same time I can't help feeling a little let down when this honor goes to films that are not really great but only good. I'd put the last two winners in this category. Both pictures did a great job of highlighting people who live outside the mainstream. Bravo for that, but what else have you got? No recent winner comes even close to matching the greatness of past best pictures such as Copalla's Godfather movies, or Apocalypse Now, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by the late Milos Forman. Do I really have to think back forty years to remember when motion pictures were at their best?
Bruch wrote this piece in 1866. Beethoven was long dead but his influence is still apparent in this concerto. It's still with us. In Bruch's time ,as in Beethoven's, if you wanted to hear the great orchestral work of the period, or of earlier periods, you had to live near a cultural capital such as Frankfurt. If you lived in the hinterlands you were out of luck. The invention of the phonograph in the early 20 th century changed all that. Then came radio, then came television, then came the internet and it's stepchild, YouTube. Put it on the long, long list of things we often enjoy ,that are drop dead wonderful, but which we all typically take for granted. Watching a performance on YouTube may be slightly inferior to having attended the actual concert yourself, but it's not far off. As far as convenience ,YouTube wins hands down. In the past if you enjoyed something the orchestra just played you might be able to convince the players to saw away at it again by clapping, stomping your feet, and shouting " encore". With an internet streaming service you only have to press play. You can have them repeat it as often as you like.
I wish it were all good news on the cultural front. It's my impression that as fast as improvements occur in the ways we access art in all it's many forms, the faster we become the kind of society that is no longer capable of producing it. We still produce art, it's just not as good as it once was. If you haven't tuned into a top forty, popular music station lately, just try it. If after an hour of that you think you're still up for more punishment, put on a country station. It's no fair if it's a country station that throws in a little Wily or Garth, or Dwight. I mean a country station that just plays current billboard of hits. If you haven't tried this lately you're in for a shock . Classical music has not been spared. The debasement just happened there much earlier. It's been fifty years since most of us expected to hear anything listenable in the " contemporary " category. Classical music stations, and performers have long ago turned their attention to playing the oldies. Audiences are understandably reluctant to hear anything post Bernstein or Barber.
If history is a guide, slumps like this are not necessarily permanent. There may be a great flowering of creativity ahead of us. Even during a slump ,such as this, there is great music being produced. There are still great performers such as Hilary. What has changed is not entirely a matter of artistic excellence. What has changed is the level of the culture itself. It goes much further than music. I'd include the plays being written, the novels, and movies. I'm always proud when a movie showcased at our own film festival , often first seen here ,goes on to achieve special recognition from the Academy of Motion Pictures. We've had quite a good streak lately scoring top picture in ten of the last eleven years. At the same time I can't help feeling a little let down when this honor goes to films that are not really great but only good. I'd put the last two winners in this category. Both pictures did a great job of highlighting people who live outside the mainstream. Bravo for that, but what else have you got? No recent winner comes even close to matching the greatness of past best pictures such as Copalla's Godfather movies, or Apocalypse Now, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by the late Milos Forman. Do I really have to think back forty years to remember when motion pictures were at their best?
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