Those 50, or maybe 5000, basic pieces

November 8, 9:51 AMSF Classical Music ExaminerScott Foglesong

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This morning I have been listening to some of the earliest recordings of Bartók's (left) Concerto for Orchestra — Koussevitzky's 1944 Boston broadcast recording (the same month as the world premiere, with the original abrupt ending), and Reiner's 1946 traversal with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Both performances are strong, sure, and interesting, fully competitive in their own way with the welter of subsequent recordings that now grace the catalog, from conductors and orchestras the world over.

The Concerto for Orchestra is one of the most recent works to join the "standard repertory", that is, works which are programmed on concerts without needing any commentary regarding the pioneering spirit of the program committee. The Bartók is just "there", as much part of the regular subscription series as a Beethoven symphony or the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

That can't be said for a lot of later 20th century music.

Some works have made their way their way into broad public consciousness — i.e., not too many people think of them as the modern-music sacrificial lamb tucked into the program. Shostakovich makes it due to several immensely (and deservedly) popular symphonies (5, 9, 10) that figure frequently on programs. One finds the occasional this 'n' that, such as Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Next door at the opera house, Britten's major works are certainly standard fare by now.

But most of the 20th century repertory action belongs to the pre-WWII period: stuff by Debussy, Ravel, earlier Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, et al.

It's easy enough to say that there was a time when none of those works were accepted, but just how much truth is there in such statements? And how long did the public require to accept those works?

Let's consider the situation a century ago in 1908 in regards to fairly recent music. Thinking back from that point nearly 40 years to 1870, what were some of the works introduced to the repertory? The list is astonishing:

• All four Brahms symphonies
• Dvorak's seventh, eighth, and ninth symphonies
• Tchaikovsky's fourth, fifth, sixth, symphonies and the big concertos.
• (Both Mahler and Bruckner would need a little more time before achieving broad acceptance.)
• Wagner's Ring cycle and Parsifal (released from Bayreuth captivity as of 1903).
• Puccini's operas through Madama Butterfly, including La Bohème and Tosca.
   

There's more, but you get the general drift. It's worth emphasizing that by 1908 the above works were part of the repertory to some degree or another, some very much so. La Bohème was premiered in 1896, but by 1908 it had been performed the world over, including in Latvia, Malta, Belarus, Chile, Egypt, even the United States in 1900. John McCormack, not an artist noted for performing risky modern repertoire, recorded Che gelida manina in 1910.

But now think back to 1970, the same period from our own 2008: certainly there have been no equivalents to the Brahms and Tchaikovsky symphonies or Puccini operas, etc. Has anything written since 1970 reached standard repertory status? (The quick answer: no.)

We must be careful not to draw false conclusions from this inquiry. It's far too easy to quip: well, music just ain't what it used to be, nobody likes modern music, it's all going to pot, classical music is dead, etc.

Vide Henry Pleasants's The Agony of Modern Music, the definitive screed on this particular mindset.

For one thing, consider that the standard repertory (whatever precisely that is) was in the process of being formed in the 19th century, and in the last quarter of the century, the doors were very much open to new arrivals.

The civic orchestra as we know it (Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, etc.) came into being roughly around mid-century as the audience swelled beyond the aristocracy to include the broad middle class. The idea of preserving worthy music from the past was largely a 19th century notion in response to the needs and wishes of the new listening public.

That standard repertory has grown extremely large. Just consider what an effort one must make to become familiar with the symphonic literature alone — starting with late Mozart and Haydn, through Beethoven, into Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, then to Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Bruckner, Sibelius. Then come the concertos, the tone poems, the suites and other such works.

Solo instrument repertory, chamber repertory, the big choral works, the opera. Baroque music, either performed by major orchestras or historical groups. It adds up fast.

In a tremendously crowded arena a new work is hard-pressed to gain any traction, no matter what its merits. The sheer weight of the accumulated literature poses a tremendous challenge to a composition — not so much to be heard, but to be heard again.

Successful repetition is the key here. (Successful repetition, not just trotting it out before a series of equally bored/hostile audiences.)

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony suffered a thoroughly inauspicious premiere performance, but it grew legs quickly and became known fast. Ditto Madama Butterfly, a near-failure at its premiere but a gigantic success after a few judicious nips 'n' tucks. Even a work as solidly standard rep as the Brahms First Symphony required abundant hearings, but by the 1880s it was part of the common musical culture.

So there's hope for the later 20th century repertory yet. It needs to be heard so folks may have an adequate opportunity to judge it appropriately. After all, you can't make a lot of sense out of a complex composition on a single hearing, whether the piece in question is a Beethoven sonata or the latest John Adams.

But you also have to want to hear it again, and there's the rub. Nobody likes having 'culture' crammed down his/her throat. I hate that sort of thing as much as the next guy, and I'm among those who are charged with communicating music to the public.

I'm absolutely and always willing to give new music a hearing (and a playing for that matter), and I'm also willing to take the time required to get to know a new work. But I'm not a typical concert-goer, even here in the musical Pure Land of San Francisco.

And there is a lot of music calling for my attention, including Bach, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, Brahms, Sibelius, Stravinsky, and some other composers who figure prominently in my own personal circle of favorites.

I wouldn't pretend to have even a ghost of an answer, but I do have a hope.

That is for the boundaries to begin softening (as I think they may well be.) Those boundaries include Standard repertory vs. modern, Classical vs. Popular, European vs. World, etc.

By this I do not mean that we should toss a rock band into the middle of the San Francisco Symphony and call it fusion. Been there, done that.

I'm really thinking in terms of repertory itself, and the mindset that goes along with it. I hear that in works such as John Adams's distinctly postmodernist El Niño, with its multicultural spirituality, multimedia format, and its clear references to Handel's beloved Messiah.

I see it in the programming of major arts organizations. Not just throwing a contemporary work, preceded by an altogether respectful and sober pre-concert lecture, into an overall standard-rep concert, but thinking past the established boundaries and bringing it all under one roof.

And not with deliberately counterculture "contemporary music" organizations that preach so energetically to the choir.

As I said, no answers. But tremendous promise and possibility...