VIVE LA DIFFERENCE

posted by James Reel

    Over the holiday weekend, several bloggers I read happened to take up, one way or another, questions regarding how classical music is different from popular music, and whether or not this is a good thing. Greg Sandow, whose mission as a blogger is to fret over the decline of the classical audience without demonizing pop culture, notes that you can’t reduce the difference between classical and pop to creativity versus formula. I suspect this post is what inspired Sandow’s principle nemesis, AC Douglas of Sounds and Fury, to re-post something he’d written long ago on the pop/classical dichotomy. It’s worth repeating the gist of it:

    Well, there's surely nothing amiss or to be sneered at about a work whose perceived hallmark characteristic is its aspiration to be merely widely accessible here-and-now entertaining, and I don't mean to suggest there is. All I'm suggesting is that, as there can be no meaningful aesthetic continuum connecting such works with works whose perceived hallmark characteristic is their aspiration to transcendence, we drop the pernicious postmodern fiction that works of both realms occupy the same hierarchy of aesthetic value, differing only in their details. Such a view serves simply to demean and devalue the works of both realms by denying them the defining virtues peculiar to each.
    In short, what I'm suggesting is a return to the hierarchal sobriety that was largely the norm in the pre-postmodern world; a frank admission of the separateness of the hierarchies of aesthetic value of the realms of high and popular culture, and an acceptance of the clear aesthetic distinction between the artifacts inhabiting each.

    You’ll find the full post here. Meanwhile, on a related topic, oboist Patricia Mitchell isn’t happy with percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s call to make classical concerts more like pop shows. Writes Patty:

    I just don't like comparing what we do to what a pop star does. We don't do pop music. Big whoop. We aren't going to appeal to everyone. And I doubt we will ever have a crowd cheering and standing and flicking their lighters (or whatever it is they do) while we play. I can live with that. I don't look down on a great rock performer, but I don't want to become one. That's not what we do.
    Sure, I want to introduce "my" kind of music to more people. Sure, I'm excited when someone new joins the "classical" music crowd. But I'm just not all that into trying to turn what we do into pop music.

    You’ll find her full post here. Because I basically agree with what these two bloggers have written, with only a couple of reservations (I don’t really trust quasi-religious concepts like “transcendence,” but I’m sympathetic to what Douglas is trying to say), I’ll add nothing.