By Alf Bishai

An Open Letter to Alan Gilbert, Music Director, New York Philharmonic

Dear Maestro,

I write to you about an absurdity: that classical music audiences continue to shun new classical music.

Many applaud your obvious commitment to ongoing creation; however, the New York Philharmonic will play seven or more works by dead composers this season for every work by a living composer. Some months, such as last November, no living composers were heard.

The relationship between the audience and composers has gone cold. How they used to be in love! But they have broken up, and now whenever they’re in the same room it’s very awkward. (I didn’t know he was going to be here.) I don’t believe we need to hash out tired aesthetic arguments anymore. Like every struggling couple, what we really need are some basic relationship tools.

Consider this typical scene: A man takes his seat in Avery Fisher Hall. The distinguished conductor walks on, and the music begins. It’s a new composition. For the next 20 minutes, the man in the audience is in pain. He squirms. He’s not merely bored, he’s miserable. Finally, it ends. Now what does he do? He does what everybody else is doing. He applauds. Reluctantly. Feebly. Briefly. Obediently.

Many will say it’s polite, but this politeness comes at a price. If we feel obliged to applaud what we have hated, then it is obvious we will avoid putting ourselves in the same position again.

What else are we to do? Loved it? Applaud loudly. Hated it? Applaud feebly
and falsely.

It sounds absurd to say this: We need an alternative to applause. The culture isn’t functioning properly. We need the full repertoire of honest, engaged feedback. And so, Mr. Gilbert, would you not personally, verbally, clearly and consistently urge your patrons to boo or say no, no, no when a new composition has made them miserable?

Outrageous!

Booing is considered irredeemably rude. But this only demonstrates that the culture is upside down. Why is it not considered rude of the presenters to make patrons sit obediently through a piece they may hate?

Another absurd inversion: Though we are careful to call them “patrons,” in practice conductors and performers patronize the audience by continuing, decade after decade, to insist on a rejected conception of music. The message: If you only hear this music enough (100 years is apparently not enough), you will one day understand how good it is.

But no one functionally cares if the music is good or not. What we are all after, simply and finally is music that, for whatever reason, we want to hear again, and again, and again.

How is it that Beethoven’s music has been passed down to us? When it was first played, enough people said, “I want to hear it again.” And so it was played again. And then other people said, “I want to hear it again.” And so on.

We have a word that embodies this delightful concept: encore. It now means play something else, but its plain meaning is repeat.

The determination of an audience to hear something played again provides a filter that is both powerful and subtle. Powerful, because it makes sure only great music gets through. (The proof of this is the repertoire. Who do we think chose it?) And subtle because it selects works—not composers. (We play a small fraction of Stravinsky’s output.)

Encore and boo: positive and negative. And unlike applause and standing ovations, these are two feedback tools that actually mean something, for they cannot be false. They require action. Encore and boo mean pick up or put down your instruments. (It’s comical to imagine someone grudgingly moaning encore.)

Here now is a proposal: Invite New York to a Risky Venture—an attempt to set composition back on its feet. Create a 20-minute segment for each and every concert in which five or six short pieces by living composers will be played. Personally invite the audience to boo if they are miserable and to yell encore if they want to hear it again. And then play those pieces again right away. Repeat them on the next concert as well. When you have 45 minutes of encored pieces, record them. Keep doing this until something catches on in the composition community.

People would come for such an experiment. They would come because it is an invitation to re-engage. They would come because the New York classical music audience is passionate and eternally hopeful. And they would come because something innovative was finally being attempted.

There would be some disastrous evenings, of course, but what marvelous fun! Our grandchildren will read about them in the history books. Would doing this solve the composition problem right away? No. That will take some time. But it would call forth the old spirit of composers: thick-skinned, energized and connected to the audience. (May it be so once again.)

We are in an entrenched absurdity. And it will remain entrenched until a cultural architect acts to restructure the culture’s values and practices. The Greeks wrote of Hercules, who looked upon stables that hadn’t been shoveled out in fifty years and instantly understood that the task was beyond any single shoveler. And so instead of Hercules the Hero, he became Hercules the Cultural Architect, laying his shovel to the ground and redirecting the unstoppable current of the river.

The river is waiting for a man with a shovel. We’re waiting for Alan Gilbert, the premier cultural architect in the classical music world by virtue of his position, the ensemble he helms, the city of his influence—and his dashing good looks.

You have said that the one thing people overwhelmingly ask you to do is not to play more Beethoven, but to speak to them. They are explicitly asking to hear from you. Lead us out of absurdity. We will follow.

Yours truly,
Alf Bishai

–
Mr. Bishai teaches music theory at NYU. He is a classical and film composer, the music director of Trinity Grace Church and is currently working on a book about the future of classical music, which provides insight and action steps to solve the dysfunction of classical music culture.