Musical musings
Last week, from 8-16 October, I was travelling for a combination of work and play. I did two 'musical' things during the journey.
The first was that I read Sting's autobiography, Broken Music. It was, as I suspected it would be, a moving and well-written account of his journey from childhood to the brink of stardom with The Police. His lyrics have always been favourites of mine; his prose did not disappoint.
Incidentally, I returned home to the copy of his new Songs from the Labyrinth that I had ordered from Amazon. Songs of John Dowland, the Elizabethan popular songwriter. Lovely stuff--so often, Dowland's music is sung by voices denote people who cannot possibly be mature enough to have suffered love, desire, loss, and still maintain hope. It is a real treat to hear these songs performed by someone who is obviously a grown man with some experience of life. I highly recommend both the book and the disc.
The second musical thing I did was, during a visit to Durham, I heard the local Sinfonia play at the Cathedral. Although it's not the best acoustic setting for orchestral music, it's still magnificent to be in such fine surroundings--the work of great talents and great devotions, both in music and in stone. The programme was Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, Brahms' Violin Concerto, and Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5.
Between Sting and the Sinfonia, though, I'm struck by a paradox. Popular music is generally performed only by an elite few, and appreciated (albeit on various levels) by a vast number of people. Orchestral music, on the other hand, can be performed by a much larger number of people (indeed, demands it); so long as enough people can be assembled to play with good tone, in tune, and in time, in the right combination of instruments, a decent concert can be staged. And yet, somehow, there is a much tighter ratio between the number of performers and that of appreciative listeners.
So, the question I have--which is the 'elite' music, and which is the music 'of the people'?
The first was that I read Sting's autobiography, Broken Music. It was, as I suspected it would be, a moving and well-written account of his journey from childhood to the brink of stardom with The Police. His lyrics have always been favourites of mine; his prose did not disappoint.
Incidentally, I returned home to the copy of his new Songs from the Labyrinth that I had ordered from Amazon. Songs of John Dowland, the Elizabethan popular songwriter. Lovely stuff--so often, Dowland's music is sung by voices denote people who cannot possibly be mature enough to have suffered love, desire, loss, and still maintain hope. It is a real treat to hear these songs performed by someone who is obviously a grown man with some experience of life. I highly recommend both the book and the disc.
The second musical thing I did was, during a visit to Durham, I heard the local Sinfonia play at the Cathedral. Although it's not the best acoustic setting for orchestral music, it's still magnificent to be in such fine surroundings--the work of great talents and great devotions, both in music and in stone. The programme was Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, Brahms' Violin Concerto, and Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5.
Between Sting and the Sinfonia, though, I'm struck by a paradox. Popular music is generally performed only by an elite few, and appreciated (albeit on various levels) by a vast number of people. Orchestral music, on the other hand, can be performed by a much larger number of people (indeed, demands it); so long as enough people can be assembled to play with good tone, in tune, and in time, in the right combination of instruments, a decent concert can be staged. And yet, somehow, there is a much tighter ratio between the number of performers and that of appreciative listeners.
So, the question I have--which is the 'elite' music, and which is the music 'of the people'?
posted by Wendy Dackson at 9:04 AM
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