Listening to the Now - Recherche en IA spécialisée au MIT

Listening to the Now

David Robertson

Abstrait: The future of classical music is almost universally thought bleak. Attendance ½gures are drop-
ping, and some even question whether it is possible to write new classical music that concertgoers will be
able to appreciate. This essay locates the origins of such doomsday prophecy in unquestioned assumptions
and seeks to establish just the opposite: that classical music is alive and vibrant, that new creative hori-
zons are constantly opening up, and that audiences will actually enjoy many contemporary classical com-
positions. The key is to present these unfamiliar works as they are understood by their composers: in a
context that allows listeners to make connections between the familiar and unfamiliar, opening their
minds to a wealth of new human experience.

This essay had its genesis in a conversation several

years ago during a post-concert dinner, classical
music’s version of a valedictory celebration. Le
American composer John Adams spoke of a comment
he had come across in Stephen Jay Gould’s book
Full House (published in Britain as Life’s Grandeur).
The book deals with the limits of possibility in biol-
ogy, abilities in baseball, and near the end, a few
asides regarding general performance in athletics,
the arts, and creativity. For Gould, there is a point
after which one can no longer create classical music
in a way that would be intelligible for listeners. Il
lists a golden era beginning with Bach and ending
with Mahler and wonders if, in this area, human
creativity has reached a wall beyond which possi-
bilities are no longer available.

For Adams, whose work consists of imagining just
such possibilities, this seemed a surprising idea to
advance because it shows a misunderstanding of
how composers actually work and think. It also indi-
cates acceptance of a progression from simplicity
to ever-greater complexity as the narrative for clas-
sical music’s development over time. Plus loin, it dis-
plays a lack of awareness of the place contemporary
composition ought to occupy in our concert life.
Most of us would agree that, presently, it sits in

DAVID ROBERTSON, a Fellow of
the American Academy since 2010,
has been Music Director and Con-
ductor of the St. Louis Symphony
Orchestra since 2005; in January
2014, he will also become Chief
Conductor and Artistic Advisor
of the Sydney Symphony in Aus-
tralia. He has served as a guest
conductor for many of the world’s
most prestigious orchestras and
opera companies, including the
bbc Symphony Orchestra in Lon-
don and The Metropolitan Opera
in New York City. His recent re-
cordings include the Doctor Atomic
Symphony, released in 2009.

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most concert programs as an uninvited
guest who didn’t get the memo about the
dress code.

That post-concert discussion with one
of my favorite composers got me thinking
about how certain cultural ideas can take
root and impede meaningful debate and
understanding. We often try to reduce
complex ideas into more manageable
ones in order to deal with them, even if
in the end the subject has lost so many
important nuances that any conclusions
will be false and unhelpful. What amazed
me was that if someone as thoughtful as
Stephen Jay Gould was thinking this way,
then we really did have a problem.

Gould was writing as someone who
deeply loves classical music, particularly
a kind of classical music that obtained for
close to three hundred years. The music
he refers to is largely independent of the-
ater; a repertoire that can be called con-
cert music, both vocal and instrumental,
chamber and orchestral. It was conceived
and supported in the relatively homoge-
neous cultural climate of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire and present-day Ger-
many. While this category is drawn very
broadly, it is true that the music of this
period shows remarkable richness as
demonstrated by its status as the bedrock
of most classical programming today.
Other strains have been added to this
canon according to varying tastes and
shifting cultural opinions. We might add
to the list Russians and Slavs from the
late nineteenth century, or French from
the same period and into the early twen-
dixième siècle. For those with even broader
tastes, there are British, Scandinavian,
Spanish, Italian, Latin American, and even
North American musics that could be
included.

The result at this point in the twenty-
½rst century is what is generally regarded
as “classical music.” I happen to occupy a
position professionally–conductor–that

arouses suspicion in most people: what
does he actually do? Aside from my aero-
bic duties during a concert performance,
in my role as leader I am also frequently
responsible for the selection and sequence
of pieces that constitute one of classical
music’s products, the concert program.

You have probably read or heard about

the death of classical music; the reports
have been around for quite a while now.
If this is news to you, just search Google
for “death of classical music” and watch
with delight as 46,700,000 results return
dans 0.18 seconds! One of the reasons this
discourse is so frequently unproductive is
that it is often begun without realizing
how many key assumptions are made at
the outset. Par exemple, referring to clas-
sical music as a “product” already brings
in the language and expectations of mar-
ket economics, skewing any discussion in
the direction of music as a commodity to
purchase and consume rather than as an
activity to experience.

The economic realities involved in mak-
ing music are certainly a pertinent and
valid subject. Questions regarding the ½-
nances required to reproduce, at a high
level of quality, musical works of the past
(especially when the forces required might
include more than a hundred instrumen-
talists, vocal soloists, and a large chorus)
are paramount. Plus loin, whom is this form
of art/entertainment addressing? Why
should we go to all the trouble of playing
these works live when there are so many
technological options for accessing them?
Cependant, these different questions are
often discussed simultaneously, resulting
in the conclusion that there is no creativ-
ity left (or pace Gould, possible) in classi-
cal music–that, at best, we are witnessing
its painfully slow demise and fossilization.

I beg to differ.
For nine years, I was music director of a
group whose mission was to play the music

David
Robertson

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142 (4) Fall 2013

Listening to
the Now

of our time. The largest proportion of
½nances for the group came from the
French Ministry of Culture. The assump-
tions about repertoire were clear enough
that no one had to specify that we were
not to play rock, or hip-hop, or any other
form of “popular” music. We were in the
cultural business of playing the most con-
temporary strain of “classical” music.
Aesthetic discussions aside, I was privi-
leged in this position to work with and get
to know dozens of composers personally,
gaining insight into their wide-ranging
poetic ideas and inspirations. What I
learned from these interactions was an
appreciation of the enormous diversity
of styles that present-day composers are
en utilisant. I also realized that none of the com-
posers saw themselves as working apart
from pre-established musical traditions.
Each had a different position to the past,
but they could not ignore it anymore than
any of us can.

When a composer imagines a sound

and then notates it for someone else there
are lots of common beliefs in play. Le
pitch will probably be standard: it will
relate to existing instruments and there-
fore to habits of tone production and lis-
tening that have been established for quite
a while. The composer’s way of dealing
with musical time will be influenced by
what has been heard and experienced in
previous music, as well as what has had
the best success in past practice. The cul-
ture informing the society in which the
composer grew up also plays an enormous
role. And there is consideration of the
environment in which the music will be
performed: on its own in a concert, as part
of a school activity, in connection with
dance, or as an accompaniment to visual
imagery of some kind.

What interests me is the part these
composing musicians bring to the human
experience: the wonder. Music is created

out of thin air. Where before there was
nothing at all, suddenly there is something
so enjoyable and delightful, so rich in layers
of meaning that we often refer to this some-
thing as a work of art. There is invention
and surprise, but there are also core be-
liefs very much held in common. We make
music based on these shared ideas about
the de½nition of music and its presentation.
My profession consists of trying to use
creatively what already exists (institutions,
repertoire, audience curiosity) pour
represent the vast wealth of human ex-
pression found in “classical” music, in my
case a tradition beginning around the sev-
enteenth century and continuing today. If
we play only the music of the past, what
meaning does its beauty (or the contrary)
have for us today without a musical context
that relates it to our present experience?
The connection to the human condition
that classical music provides is singular.
It happens in time and can collapse cen-
turies into a few minutes. We can suddenly
inhabit areas of feeling that traverse gen-
erations, opening us up to unexpected parts
of ourselves. This is not only found in the
notion of “a distant mirror,” as when we
see our own sentiments reflected in, say,
a Schubert song; it is also to be discov-
ered in the musical conversation across
temps. That is when things really get inter-
esting.

Quand, dans 1910, Ralph Vaughn Williams
writes a work based on music from the
1500s by Thomas Tallis, he is reaching
through time to grasp hold of something
ephemeral and fleeting but which lives on
in something as ephemeral and fleeting
as the human capacity for feeling and em-
pathy. When I put that work on a program
with Thomas Adès’s 2005 Violin Concerto
“Concentric Paths,” there is a point in
the second movement (itself in the anti-
quated form of a passacaglia) when every-
one in the audience (I believe) has an
epiphany that is entirely musical. It is a

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feeling dif½cult to put into words and one
que, most important, cannot be achieved
any other way. The elation of this moment
is awe-inspiring. Without all three com-
posers’ involvement–without the perspec-
tives of all three–we would not have that
wondrous musical revelation.

Most composers do not quote other com-
posers consciously. There are indeed works
that consist of quotations (Luciano Berio’s
Sinfonia or Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s
Musique pour les soupers de Roi Ubu), mais
most composers work at creating “new”
musique. They are of course aware of a great
deal of different music by the time they
are writing, and their personal choices
reflect the kinds of music that they are
drawn to. This tendency gives the pro-
grammer an amazing opportunity to
have musical dialogue across any given
concert. At ½rst glance this might seem a
bit illogical. When author David Lodge
writes in Small World of the influence of
T. S. Eliot on Shakespeare, initially we
read it as a joke. As the novel progresses,
it becomes clear that once you have ex-
perienced The Waste Land, King Lear will
never be the same. Music is no different.
How we receive history is never ½xed,
and composers are not immune to this
situation any more than are listeners.
Inévitablement, we realize that our apprecia-
tion for those two immense columns of
sound that are the opening chords of
Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony has changed
after we hear Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du
Printemps, Iannis Xenakis’s Jonchaies, ou
even the power chords of AC/DC. En effet,
many of Stravinsky’s rhythms have been
influenced in our mind’s ear retroactively
by the rhythmic intricacies and drive of
funk or techno music. There is no way to
get around this, and it might be experi-
enced by many as negative; but I see it as
a source of excitement. In this way espe-
cially, today’s composers are living with
us in our time, and their take on our expe-

riences should be, at the very least, inter-
esting to us.

David
Robertson

But what about audience curiosity?

This may come as a surprise, but reports
from the ½eld are not rosy. If one looks at
the concert attendance surveys done by
reputable ½rms, it is obvious that the drop-
off in audience enjoyment for “modern”
music is colossal.

Allow me this experiment: name ½ve
visual artists from before the twentieth
century that you love; now name ½ve
from after 1900. Chances are good that
we share some favorites in that list. Now
think of ½ve visual artists who you are cer-
tain are alive. Usually the non-specialist,
like me, can do pretty well with the ½rst
ten, but that last group is considerably
harder. Obviously, our contemporaries
have had less time to become established
in common cultural heritage. You will hear
this cliché used as a rallying cry in new
music circles–something along the lines
de, “They complained about Beethoven
aussi!” While there is a natural process
of elimination throughout history, que
line of argument is too facile and misses
the point.

When a survey asks, how do you like
Russian symphonic repertoire, even the
casual music lover can think of at least one
piece by name (Tchaikovsky anyone?). If
you ask the same question about a com-
poser post-1950, our casual music lover
will probably think of some horrid expe-
rience that she had and hopes never to
have again. My hunch has always been
that these listeners will not be able to
attribute a name to the unpleasant piece
(although Schoenberg will probably be
invoked as a catchall), but the answer for
the survey is the same. So let’s imagine a
different option. Listeners–all of us–try
to understand an unfamiliar work in terms
of the repertoire we already know, and this
fact needs to be taken into account when

142 (4) Fall 2013

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Listening to
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trying to ½nd the right context for a
“new” work. If you were to ask the audi-
ence members at a recent concert of mine
that began with Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7
and closed with Strauss’s Four Last Songs
how they liked the piece in the middle
(George Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape
depuis 1984, which they were hearing for
the ½rst time) the response would proba-
bly be very favorable. This is because the
Dvorak symphony contains music that sets
up the ideas of atmosphere that Crumb is
evoking, and the tensions in his musical
landscape are beautifully grounded by
Strauss’s lyricism, both pieces working
perfectly as a frame for the new work. My
assumption is based on anecdotal evidence
garnered from several weeks of conversa-
tions with diverse patrons after the con-
cert, and it demonstrates why I do not
work for a survey ½rm.

The problem has to do with generaliza-

tion. In an age where iTunes refers to
everything–regardless of length, style, ou
genre–as a “song,” I realize that making
this point is akin to jousting with wind-
mills. We generalize to simplify discussion
and make decisions. We generalize about
repertoire, taste, and audiences. We base
ideas of success on attendance ½gures,
which contain unnoticed generalizations
about the appropriate size of the hall in
which the music is presented. C'est, comment-
jamais, much harder to generalize about the
quality of an individual’s personal expe-
rience of a program, because that means
we are talking about a speci½c person. Donc
we rarely ask what an individual got out
of the experience, because it is simply too
dif½cult to measure. Yet the quality of the
individual experience is the reason for the
whole thing in the ½rst place!

The fascinating parts of music are the
details in a particular work that evoke
unique changes in each of us. Our thoughts
and feelings interact with music in ways

that can indeed be generalized, but they
are of interest to us individually for what
they bring out in our own experience. je
am aware of this every time I ½nish con-
ducting a piece and turn around, making
eye contact with those who have just been
sharing the music with me. We can gen-
eralize to our heart’s content about the
public and its tastes, but I look around
and see the faces of individual beings all
with slightly different expressions–beings
who all have just entered into a series of
personal connections that only they can
know, that only they can have with what
was played. Every listener is important,
and from their individual points of view,
we really only play the concert for them.
It is impractical to play one concert two
thousand times, so we collect that number
of individuals at one event. This is where
generalizations make their necessary
entrance.

One telling generalization about human
nature and music comes from a wonder-
ful essay in scientist Robert Sapolsky’s
book Monkeyluv. He talks about the way
Homo sapiens’ minds seem to close to
new musical stimuli around the time we
reach 25 years of age. In other words, si
you have been exposed to the rock band
Radiohead by age 25, you’re in luck; si
pas, then it is probably off-limits to you.
While this is largely true, particularly in
popular music, Sapolsky nonetheless joy-
ously discovers some music that he ½nds
wonderful. In the essay, he writes about
the huge social cachet involved, the way
music is often used to de½ne a group, donc
he keeps the name of his newfound music
to himself in order not to drag down its
“hip” quality among younger members
of his research lab. (“Doo-wop and total
serialism are sooo ’50s, dude!») Part of
my challenge as a concert programmer is
to ½gure out the best way to free up lis-
tening habits for many individuals simul-
taneously because today’s composers

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cannot hope to have their music heard by
ten year olds; they must hope that, like
Sapolsky, many old dogs can be taught new
tricks, or at least new listening habits. Comme
a programmer, I have to hope that as well.

Perhaps nowadays we should look at the

combination of works on a program as a
“playlist.” People like to share playlists,
which can be listened to over and over in
various contexts: jogging, achats, riding
the bus, playing in the background when
friends come to visit, or while sur½ng the
Web. The essential difference behind our
classical music concert playlist is that we
are dealing with a one-time, unrepeatable
event. It is a unique form of human com-
munication. It expects a focus on the
music at the exclusion of everything else.
(“Please turn off all cell phones, watch
alarms, and other electronic devices.”)
Given our current electronic interconnect-
edness, this is already a tall order. So when
I consider the public concert, I see it as a
forum where we all accept as our goal the
idea of contemplating and enjoying musi-
cal sound. My one-time-only playlist has
to be chosen and performed with great
care. To balance the familiar with the un-
familiar, many questions need to be asked
at the outset. What else is on the program;
what is its duration; will we have enough
time to prepare it properly; where does it
come in the program; is there a soloist?
How often does the audience get to expe-
rience music related to the unfamiliar
item? What time of day will the concert
take place, and where? Once you have
found a proper musical context for the new
travail, ideally with the right combination
of pieces, are there any supports before or
during the concert that can give listeners
an extra frame of reference to hold onto,
something that helps inform their listen-
ing to make it as active as possible?

I am not alone in thinking this way.
Composers themselves also ask these

questions. Despite polemics to the con-
trary, I have rarely encountered composers
who do not care if you listen. Ce qu'ils
are interested in are sounds–their com-
binations, the meanings and emotions
they convey. The variety that composers
represent as a group is staggering in its
diversity, but luckily has its parallel in the
different possible audience members. Il
is a challenge for composer and listener
alike that there is not one accepted style
they can all be certain of from the begin-
ning. Composers enter into a pact of trust
with listeners. They will attempt to make
you aware of the kind of language they
will be working with from the start. Ils
will have to articulate some sort of form
for their sounds. They will adopt various
propositions regarding the aesthetics and
will work with those ideas consistently.
They are aware that, unlike visual art, ils
bear the responsibility for how much time
you spend contemplating their work.
They only hope you will listen with an
open mind. And there’s the rub!

So why am I so worry-free despite con-
stant reports of gloom from the classical
music world? Because the dna all music
shares allows listeners to make connections
between familiar and unfamiliar works,
opening their minds to a powerful and joy-
ous part of the human experience: simply
put, our universal, innate ability for sur-
prise. How lucky we are that this quality
is a foundation of being alive! The world of
musique, even just the small category of clas-
sical music, is so huge that we can never
know all of it. It tells us things we cannot
imagine before we hear it, and after we have
listened to it we cannot imagine our lives,
ourselves, without it. It is a fundamental
part of the ever-becoming you. Try think-
ing of who you would be without knowing
one of your favorite songs, and you begin
to see the shaping power of music.

I have been fortunate to meet many peo-
ple whose reaction to something new is

David
Robertson

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142 (4) Fall 2013

Listening to
the Now

not rejection but a sense of wonder and
surprise. The gratitude they express would
be reason enough to continue. I have seen
these expressions all around the globe.
These individuals are frequently the ones
who fly in the face of generalizations about
âge, ethnic background, éducation, et
taste in classical music. For them the world
continually opens up in an unexpected
way through musical magic. They discover
something to love, admire, and cherish
that did not exist for them before we played
it. It is a miracle. It’s no wonder that we
wonder. It’s no wonder that musicians
were born to share.

Perhaps many of the new pieces I play
will have a tough time being immediately
embraced by a large number of people.
Classical music’s richness is deep, and lis-
teners may feel that their personal musi-
cal world is established, replete without
the need for anything new. People resist
changement; old habits die hard; generaliza-
tions abide. And yet, if we face the world
with an open mind, we cannot escape our
own capacity for surprise, sometimes when
we least expect it: in the beauty of a sun-
rise, in a child’s sudden smile, in an as yet
unheard musical phrase.

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Dédale, le Journal de l'Académie américaine des arts & les sciences
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