Thanks John, Being also put in a grumpy state of mind by this issue, I could probably go on about it, but I think that Anthony Tommasini's Op-Ed piece that appeared earlier this week in the times lays the unfortunate truth about the nearly complete disappearance of unadulterated "live" music in the theater out pretty coherently.
Go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/arts/theater/11PURI.html I think that he says it as well as I could. I don't really think that live music on Broadway was the issue, but rather, job security. This is incredibly important and I believe that a return of unamplifed full-sized pit orchestras would be wonderful, but I think that the audiences of today could be presented with a hologram of a band in the pit and a synthesized soundtrack blasting out of mega-stacks of speakers there would be less than 10% that would have any idea that something was "wrong with this picture". My thesis: It is a fact of life that the Broadway musical theater is overwhelmingly a tourist attraction and not a particularly relevant part of the cultural life of New York theatergoers. This is not a criticism, just a fact. There is no way Les Miz, Chorus Line, Cats and so on can run for a decade or more without selling most of its tickets to groups from out of town. Now, the only other way most of these people hear these shows is either on CD at home or by way of a bus and truck production. In my days of halcyon youth (ah, the memories... don't worry, I'll spare you.....) I played numerous of these and the typical venue was a civic auditorium or arena so much more vast than a Broadway theater, that there was pretty much no choice but to boost the sound somehow. My guess is that the shows nowadays are playing in as large or larger locations and that these amplified shows and the earsplitting adrenaline and testosterone-drenched soundtracks experienced (endured?) at the local megaplex are the auditory benchmark. If they come to the Big Apple and plop down their $75 - 100 for a good ticket and hear (gasp) strings, winds, rhythm au naturel, you can bet they will be wondering "what happened - where is the rest of it?" I am not saying that loud is bad. I can listen to Mahler's 8th, Jimi Hendrix, Mossolov's "Iron Foundry", most of the opus of Jon Leifs, old Cleveland Orchestra recordings from the Mike Bloom era all at full blast with enjoyment. I am just convinced that what makes for effective theater (opera, film, etc.) is the ability to be drawn into what is in front of you and, in my case at least, electronics just serve to push me further away and hamper my willing suspension of disbelief. Until this disbelief is disengaged, I remain a spectator rather than a participant. Well, I guess that I've just presented the case that the battle is lost and nothing can be done about it. I hope that I am totally wrong about this. I did say I wasn't going to go on, didn't I? Well, so much for my credibility. Peter Hirsch John Mason <[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], com> [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: 03/12/2003 02:11 Subject: Re: Houston Symphony Strike/Broadway Strike PM About the state of the orchestra, Bruce wrote: <big snip> >Orchestras such as the Dallas Symphony that have >committed, hard-working boards are managing just fine. >The Dallas Symphony just added $20 million to its >endowment. The Columbus Symphony, a former peer of my >orchestra in Tulsa, signed a new contract last year >taking the orchestra to a 52-week season. The Fort >Worth Symphony has gone completely full-time with a >51-week contract. So the system works, sometimes. <another big snip> Hi, Bruce. Thanks for the post. Nice to see what things look like from the perspective of someone who's so close to the action, as a performer and union official. Thanks also for reminding us that there's good news to go along with the bad. I still worry about long-term trends--shrinking audiences (seen also in declining classical CD sales), the increasing marginality of classical music in our culture, the relative absence of new music in most orchestra's programming... Peter wrote, concerning the end of the Broadway strike and the reduction of theater minimums: <snip> >things are already so amplified on stage and in the >pit, it probably wouldn't be noticed if "orchestras" >were reduced to a handful of "players" and >"synthesizers", but I get off on another thread here. Good thread to get off on, Peter. We're often hearing amplified, recorded, and synthesized music without knowing it. Sad to say that amplification is now common in opera houses and is quickly entering concert halls. Amplification isn't half of it. Even the local pit orchestras that I play in often use a synth to thicken and sweeten the sound. Rock/pop concerts? Much of the music is prerecorded--and not just the vocals. Any guesses on what proportion of the population has never heard purely accoustic music? --John, grumpy in sunny Charlottesville __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] set your options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
