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发帖数: 21010 | 1 http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/01/classical
When it comes to classical music and American culture, the fat lady hasn’t
just sung. Brünnhilde has packed her bags and moved to Boca Raton.
Classical music has been circling the drain for years, of course. There’s
little doubt as to the causes: the fingernail grip of old music in a culture
that venerates the new; new classical music that, in the words of Kingsley
Amis, has about as much chance of public acceptance as pedophilia; formats
like opera that are extraordinarily expensive to stage; and an audience that
remains overwhelmingly old and white in an America that’s increasingly
neither. Don’t forget the attacks on arts education, the Internet-driven
democratization of cultural opinion, and the classical trappings—fancy
clothes, incomprehensible program notes, an omerta-caliber code of audience
silence—that never sit quite right in the homeland of popular culture.
Even if every seat were filled, the vast majority of U.S. symphony
orchestras still would face significant performance deficits.
The holiday season typically provides a much-needed transfusion. But the
most recent holidays came after an autumn that The New Yorker called the art
form’s “most significant crisis” since the Great Recession. Looking at
the trend lines, it’s hard to hear anything other than a Requiem.
Let’s start by following the money. In 2013, total classical album sales
actually rose by 5 percent, according to Nielsen. But that's hardly a robust
recovery from the 21 percent decline the previous year. And consider the
relative standing of classical music. Just 2.8 percent of albums sold in
2013 were categorized as classical. By comparison, rock took 35 percent; R&B
18 percent; soundtracks 4 percent. Only jazz, at 2.3 percent, is more
incidental to the business of American music.
What about the airwaves? There are only a handful of commercial classical
music stations left in America. One of the last, KDB in Santa Barbara, Calif
., was put up for sale in October after years of “six-figure losses.” Even
public classical radio is in trouble. The number of noncommercial classical
radio stations—on the air and online—has risen. But much of that growth
is due to commercial stations switching to a public format. Actual
listenership continues to decline.
And some public classical stations have ditched the music. One such station,
WUIS in Illinois, added an online classical channel after switching the
main station to talk and news. As the station’s manager put it, “[C]
lassical radio is one of those things that's slowly going away.” Sirius XM,
the satellite and online radio provider, has nine jazz channels, 20 Latino
channels, and eight Canada-themed channels—but only two traditionally
classical stations. One, called Symphony Hall, has 3,500 Facebook likes.
Sirius’ all–Pearl Jam channel has 11,000; their D.J. Tiesto-curated
channel has 89,000.
Now let’s look at classical concerts. Live classical music is less
commercially viable than ever. Attendance per concert has fallen, according
to Robert Flanagan, an emeritus professor at Stanford. But “even if every
seat were filled, the vast majority of U.S. symphony orchestras still would
face significant performance deficits.” Live orchestral music is
essentially a charity case. A Bloomberg story on the recent wave of
orchestra bankruptcies (an unheard-of phenomenon outside of the U.S., says
Flanagan) notes that by 2005, orchestras got more money from donations than
from ticket sales. The New York City Opera, once hailed as the “people’s
opera,” filed for bankruptcy in October. If the “people” want opera, they
’ve got a funny way of showing it.
In 1937, the median age at orchestra concerts in Los Angeles was 28. Think
of that!
Non-orchestral performances are harder to track. But Greg Sandow, a musician
and writer, reports anecdotal evidence for a decline in chamber music.
There’s also grim data from the NEA that shows the percentage of adults who
attended a classical concert (even one per year) declined from 13 percent
in 1982 to 11.6 percent in 2002, and 9.3 percent in 2008. A further decline
to 8.8 percent in 2012 was not considered statistically significant, though
significant declines in those years occurred in the 35–44 and 45–54 age
bands.
Which brings us to demographics. Sandow notes that back in 1937, the median
age at orchestra concerts in Los Angeles was 28. Think of that! That was the
year, by the way, that Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony’s summer festival,
was founded. I grew up near Tanglewood and had various summer jobs there in
the 1990s. When I worked at the beer and wine stand, I almost never carded
anyone.
Sandow and NEA data largely back up what I saw on Tanglewood’s fabled lawns
two decades ago. Between 1982 and 2002, the portion of concertgoers under
30 fell from 27 percent to 9 percent; the share over age 60 rose from 16
percent to 30 percent. In 1982 the median age of a classical concertgoer was
40; by 2008 it was 49.
If classical music was merely becoming the realm of the old—an art form
that many of us might grow into appreciating—that might be manageable. But
Sandow’s data on the demographics of classical audiences suggest something
worse. Younger fans are not converting to classical music as they age. The
last generation to broadly love classical music may simply be aging, like
World War I veterans, out of existence.
What about making music? In 1992, 4.2 percent of American adults reported
performing or practicing classical music at least once in the previous year.
By 2012, the number had dropped to 2 percent (compared with, say, the 5
percent of Americans who reported they created “pottery, ceramics or
jewelry.”)
What about music education? The story of how the ax of school funding cuts
falls first on arts education, especially in poorer school districts, is an
old one now. Yet despite all the studies that show the broad benefits of
music education, many school systems will now have “no music specialists
serving elementary schools,” notes James Catterall, a professor at UCLA. As
for adult education, when the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.,
decided to shutter its amateur education program, an outraged citizenry
compared its importance to that of a hospital emergency room. But even the
picketing, petition-signing populace of the People’s Republic couldn’t
stop the program from closing.
Finally let’s look at the general cultural positioning of classical music.
This is harder to quantify, but there’s some useful data. Many publications
no longer retain full-time classical music critics. Yvonne Frindle, a music
blogger, notes that Time has featured 64 classical figures on its cover—
but the vast majority before 1956 (though Bach made the cover in 1968). The
last, featuring Vladimir Horowitz, came in 1986. Today the notion that a
pianist could culturally sideline a story about aircraft carriers sounds
nothing short of quaint.
Classical music does retains overtones of, well, classiness. But in
contemporary America, that’s arguably its biggest problem. Take the popular
sitcom Modern Family. In one episode, Phil and Claire are mortified at the
thought of attending a cello performance by Alex, their nerdy daughter. They
panic and invent dinner plans with fictitious friends, “the Flendersons.”
It turns out Alex is in fact playing cello for a rock band. Her mom and
sister are pleasantly surprised.
Or take Manny—the show’s old-beyond-his-years kid who composes poetry and
writes novels. Naturally, he loves classical music. It’s the perfect
American shorthand for peer alienation. And note the joke. Classical music
isn’t like broccoli—something Manny’s too young to love. He’s listening
to something even “regular” adults don’t like. “Oh, crap!” says Jay,
Manny’s stepdad, when he finds out a concert is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (
one of classical’s rare actual hits) not Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
. Then he walks “like a man” to the nearest bar.
Jay, and America, are unlikely to back proposals to tax the NFL in order to
fund symphonies. But are there any bright spots at all? Despite the worries
over music education, instrument purchases for schools have remained fairly
constant at just under one instrument for every 50 kids, each year. That’s
not a lot, and instruction time and quality is another question. But at
least instruments are physically in the classrooms. |
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