It is funny – as a Music Director you’re responsible for putting together a season that is coherent and musically fulfilling. But then it’s thrown into the hopper of PR/Marketing and God only knows what is going to come out. You’re thinking one thing and then you catch a glimpse of what is going out to the public and – “that’s not what I had in mind!” So, what’s in a name?
At the Edmonton Symphony we are coming up on a set of concerts next week that I have been really looking forward to. Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from WSS; Gershwin – Symphonic Portrait of P&B; Ellington – Nutracker. We also have a world premiere by Allan Gilliland. This piece is called Dreaming of the Masters II: Rhapsody GEB. To make a long story short this is going to be a rhapsody in the tradition of Rhapsody in Blue that is also a homage to Gershwin, Ellington, and Bernstein (hence GEB). These concerts are going to be super fun. I’ve been exchanging emails with various departments at the ESO about them, talking about program notes, post-concert talkback, etc. I’ve finally figured out what was throwing me off – everyone keeps referring to these concerts as the Jazz Masters concerts. Honestly, the first time I saw that I didn’t know what concerts they were referring to.
More than most I am particularly sensitive to the attempted “ghettoization” of these three fabulous composers. Gershwin, a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of all sorts of music, has been mistakenly characterized as a “light composer” by the establishment for almost 80 years. Just try and find his music on a Main series concert at most orchestras. God help you if you actually want to rehearse American in Paris. Orchestras look at you as if you’re insane – “we’ve played it the same lousy way for 70 years, why change now?” And God help me, because I love this man and I’m usually such a fan of the music he makes, but Simon Rattle’s Porgy & Bess is the most obvious example of the “in order to make Gershwin work we have to jazz it up!!!” tradition. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Leave George alone. He knew what he was doing.
Ellington? Do I even need to start? Possibly the greatest orchestrator of the 20th Century (Mr. Ravel being the obvious exception) and a brilliant song writer. But of course he wasn’t good enough for the Pulitzer or Fulbright committees. Bernstein? When I was a graduate student at USC I actually heard a member of the composition faculty say “It’s a shame that Bernstein wasted all that time and talent writing for Broadway.” I am forever ashamed that I did not immediately haul back and sock that idiot right in the kisser.
But the real problem here is that we are so hung up on putting composers into these nice boxes. You use a sharp 9/flat 13 chord (or vice versa!) – you must be a Jazz composer! With these three especially this is a very treacherous slope. They do not fit nicely into any category and so we have a problem dealing with them. I understand instinctively that the marketing department of the ESO is in the business of selling our concerts, and they are trying to convey a certain idea to our public to get them to buy tickets, but I can’t help but think that labeling these three as “Jazz Masters” just isn’t quite right. Even Ellington, who spent most of his life in the Jazz idiom, was as a musician so much more. The Sacred Concerts, the Tone Poems, the re-orchestrations of Tchaikovsky and Grieg, etc., etc. What Ellington was was a curious musician. All three were curious and so they transcended the boundaries of music that were set for them.
There is a living Master who borders on this question, one Stephen Sondheim. My blog colleague Ron wrote a piece about Sweeney Todd wherein he posits that Sondheim is a raving genius. It would be hard for me to disagree at all with his assessment. Just last Friday my wife and I saw the chamber version of Sweeney. As far as I am concerned it was absolute genius, and the staging brought the brilliance of Sondheim’s vision to the fore. I am lucky enough to have seen the original production (Angela Lansbury rocks!!!) and it has always been a favorite of mine. But I always refer to the work as an “Opera” for no other reason than that seems to be the closest name I can put to it. I suppose that the nomenclature implies (to me) a certain sophistication. I also want to put Sweeney as far away from the drivel that the Three-Named-One has foisted on the world over the past 30+ years.
In honor of the Big 3 (4?) I shall go exploring. So new to the iPod – Bernstein’s Wonderful Town and Kaddish Symphony, Ellington’s Complete RCA recordings, Gershwin’s Oh, Kay!, and (just for S & G’s) the original cast recording of Sweeney Todd. God That’s Good!
Good God, this is American music, yes,but what about the last 40 years? Is this still the best of American music? Does an orchestra still have to actually sell a concert like this? If you can’t sell tickets to WSS, then you can’t do anything…a?
Will the Rite still be considered modern music after it turns 100 years old in a few
years?
We are fortunate that Berstein wrote what he did and not sell insurance or deal drugs,but what the heck happened in the US
the past 40 years?
Bill, tell me a masterworks program made up of American music written all after 1985..what would that show look like and how would you sell it.
What a waste that John Williams only wrote for the theatre huh? lol
Well said. And it’s a shame the “Jazz Masters” title misses so much of the richness of the programming conception.
But what would you have called this program? I’m curious.
The naming of concerts is a difficult matter
Over at Sticks and Drones (via Adaptistration) conductor Bill Eddins raises a challenge about the tricky business of naming concerts for marketing purposes. His example cites an interesting and attractive American program saddled with the bland moniker…