Portland Press Herald
August 26, 2007

CLASSICAL BEAT However you define it, classical music is a beautiful thing
And to those who fear it may be on the wane, I say think again.

CHRISTOPHER HYDE August 26, 2007

The other day a friend of mine remarked, with perfect seriousness: "No one's writing classical music any more, are they?"

As the music festival season winds to a close, with its world premieres, Maine premieres and contest-winning commissioned work, the answer seems to be that they are indeed writing classical music and quite a lot of it. Of course it depends on what one means by "classical." It's like the supreme court definition of pornography. It can't be defined, but you know it when you hear it. Even sophisticated jazz, which occupies a middle ground, is quickly recognizable because of its stereotypes.

Which, when you think of it, is very strange. Why should one collection of burbles and squeaks -- which encompasses a lot of what is being written today -- be instantly identifiable as classical or pop? I noticed this phenomenon a long time ago. My mother was a rabid baseball fan, and the radio was always tuned to WIBG in Philadelphia, which carried the usually distressing Phillies games. (The Athletics were even worse, but that's another story.)

WIBG was a pop music station when it wasn't carrying the games, and it took only two bars or less of the latest hit for a young person to dive for the volume control and "off" knob. On the other hand, the first few notes of the Beethoven andante from the "Pathetique" Sonata were enough to identify the Longines Symphonette. This can be carried to extremes. Play a single D-flat above middle C on the piano, hold it for a while, and there's a very good chance that Debussy's "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" will follow, in spite of all the myriad classical and pop composition that begin with the same note.

By "classical" I do not mean just Mozart, Beethoven and others of that era, but also ancient, medieval, baroque, Romantic, pictorial and contemporary music -- basically any music meant to be taken seriously and to outlast its composer. A polyphonic song by African nomads may be eminently classical.

John Gillespie, in "The Musical Experience" (Wadsworth Publishing Co. 1968) provides a "musical qualitites" table that explains at least part of the difference between classical music and other types:

• POSITIVE -- NEGATIVE
• Subtlety -- Obviousness
• Reserve -- Exaggeration
• Variety -- Monotony
• Originality -- Triteness
• Dignity -- Flamboyance
• Balance between intellectual and emotional elements -- Imbalance between intellectual and emotional elements
• Beauty -- Prettiness
• Sentiment -- Sentimentality
• Consistency -- Inconsistency
• Skill in formal design --Slipshod formal qualities
• Simplicity and clarity --Pretentiousness

The lists are helpful, in spite of the slippery character of such concepts as "beauty," but they do not explain the fact that there is a lot of bad music out there which is still distinctly "classical." A friend in college could rattle off pages of imitation Mozart that sounded right until one realized that there was nothing in it but three chords, an Alberti bass, and empty cliches.

Judging by the Maine festival season, there is still a lot of work in the "positive" category being written, although no one can say what will be in the tiny remainder that survives, even if audiences like it.

Another thing the festival season indicates is that the audience for classical music is large and growing, and that it has become a tourist attraction almost as vital as the rocky coastline. The license plates at Round Top Center for the Arts in Damariscotta for the Salt Bay Chamberfest were from all over, and the last concert was just about standing room only.

I am not one to worry about the aging of that audience, either. There is an endless supply of listeners of a certain age who have come, by whatever route, to appreciate serious music. And when the music we like most was written, the audience for it was less than a thousandth of what it is today, while its composers would have starved without aristocratic patronage. As Mark Twain once observed, aristocracy is the biggest protection racket ever perpetrated upon mankind, but it had its uses.

As for increasing today's audience, the Beethoven Opus 127 String Quartet at the Chamberfest, and "The Soldier's Story" at the Portland Chamber Music Festival, showed once and for all that the secret is performance, performance, performance. Do it well and they will come. More listeners have been turned away from great music by tepid or academic renderings than by any other obstacle. They don't understand what they are missing because they have never heard it. Love comes first, then understanding.

Christopher Hyde is a writer and musician who lives in Pownal.
He can be reached at: classbeat@netscape.net

Copyright © 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers.