- No Recommendations yet - go add some!
- Weiner is guilty of bad judgement, to be sure. But the cover-up, as always, is worse than the original acts. The observant Jews and devout Catholics among his constituents -- they are numerous -- will punish him for his indiscretions, even if they were only digital fantasies. More secular voters will be disturbed less by his marital variations then his public prevarications. Let's put it this way: when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert get laughs night after night with pictures of your ultra-tight tightie-whitie, you are in what Republicans call "deep do-do" with people who never vote Republican.
- Apparently, it is time to review the process by which WQXR was saved from extinction. The old station at 96.3 was a commercial enterprise, dependent on advertising sales for its existence. As ratings shrank and surveys showed the audience growing older, the station's revenues dwindled. The station's owner, The New York Times Company, was facing other business pressures and could not afford to underwrite WQXR's losses.
Enter Universal NBC, which offered a massive sum for the 96.3 frequency for one of its Latino stations. The TIMES could have simply sold the frequency outright and consigned classical music radio to oblivion.
Instead, they called WNYC president Laura Walker and negotiated an elaborate swap. WQXR would move to the frequency NBC was giving up, 105.9. All of WQXR's library and much of its talent and programming would continue at the new address. New York Public Radio and its supporters have ponied up some $4-million to make this happen, and other costs lie ahead.
It is regrettable that listeners north of the city are experiencing difficulties, but there is no reason the expect a change in this situation. The internet does offer WQXR in high def.
- The whole process is essentially ridiculous, since I can name either 1 or 100 favorites. But since you insist:
Mozart/Bach/Beethoven/Brahms/Tchaikovsky
Stravinsky/Copland/Gershwin/John Adams/ Rameau
Go figure.
- A note to alan --
If you closely observe the patrons who walked out on Hindemith, you will note that most of them are unlikely to be deterred from many subscription renewals by the grim reaper. If you trek to Bleecker Street to visit Le Poisson Rouge, you will find an audience 30 years younger. The Philharmonic, among many classical artists, is presenting new music -- often in unconventional sites -- in hopes of attracting patrons who will outlive you and me (age 65).
Opera and dance companies have shown that there is a significant audience for new music -- the Metropolitan Opera drew huge houses for John Adams' magnificent DOCTOR ATOMIC, for example, and the New York City Ballet has fared well for years with Stravinsky, Hindemith, and commissioned scores. Why should Fischer Hall look like a Medicare office?
More to the point, who said classical music died with Puccini?
- For better or worse, the tunes I wind up humming are those I heard on WQXR. Thank god for the music log!
- There are two distinct meanings of "classical music." First, as other posters have noted, it describes the dominant style in Western music between the Baroque and Romantic periods -- roughly, from Haydn to Mozart to Beethoven.
Second, it describes a type of music, based on the styles, conventions, and repertory that have dominated, for the past 175 years, the concert halls of Europe and America and WQXR's airways. The alternative terms I would suggest are "concert music," "concert hall music," "traditional concert music," or, more judgmentally, "old music."
Concert music now faces a crisis. Anyone who attends a concert in Carnegie Hall's main auditorium or the 92nd Street Y or Philharmonic Hall can easily assume that he or she has wandered into an AARP convention. (As a member of AARP, I know what these living fossils look like!) The audience for a repertory limited to the 18th and 19th centuries is dying out, and resisting efforts to learn about the 20th (let alone the 21st) century.
At the same time, there are lots of talented composers and musicians who are exploring the possibilities that new forms and new media offer. You can hear them at Symphony Space, Merkel Hall, or Carnegie's subterranean Zankel Hall, among many other sites, including your sister web stream, Q2. They draw substantial audiences, including mostly young people. While these performances are usually billed as "new music," the audiences do not rebel if the artists include a more traditional work related to the program.
So can we merge these two audiences for serious music, or do we just wait for one generation to succeed another?
- The oddest electronic instrument I have heard of is an app for the I-Phone that turns the phone into an ocarina. The screen displays circles that represent holes in the instrument; the "player" blows into the microphone and fingers the "holes" to play a tune. Entire concerts can be found on You-Tube.
- If you can't devote all your attention to the artist, why did you come to the concert? I am in favor of forbidding ALL electronic devices during the performance. A complicating factor is the rise of informal venues -- half cabaret, half concert hall -- for new music. It's one thing to switch seats or buy drinks during program pauses, but texting DURING A PERFORMANCE is an insult to the musicians.
Also, pictures, video, and audio recordings raise major copyright issues. Read the fine print on your ticket.
