Music Chat: What's Wrong With "Woke" Programming?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2023
- I've seen several comments recently decrying the current wave of "woke" programming in the performing arts. Frankly, I think any concern is misplaced, and I want to take a few moments to explain why. Wherever you come down on this issue, I want to assure you: Don't worry. We'll be fine.
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The important thing is the music. The music should speak for itself.
The two worst injustices I have witnessed is regarding film composers as second class composers, and orchestra boards who won't program black composers unless they put jazz in their scores.
Is that why Anthony Braxton is nowhere to be found in classical music programs?
@@franciscocanas5686 I know his music but not his story with orchestra boards. I'm speaking from the personal experiences of a couple friends, who are black composers. Still, Dave is right in the sense it is arbitrary. This hearkens back to his video on what is "conservative": I once suggested Beethoven's 7th for an upcoming concert, and it was considered "thinking out of the box." Beethoven's *7th* ! So, that's where we are.
@@robertjones447 I thought Beethoven only wrote a 5th and 9th symphony
Thank you! Very well put, I couldn't agree more. I always say, in order to be able to judge music and test its ability to stand the test of time, it needs to be played and heard over and over again by as many people as possible.
A thought-provoking talk. Not sure what I think. On the one hand I agree that the compositions of previously marginalized, ignored and/or oppressed groups should be given full and frequent exposure. And that goes for music history, too. Why not uncover and perform the previously ignored works of women composers, for instance? I was startled, amazed and delighted to discover via recordings the sacred works of Cozzolani, a nun and contemporary of Monteverdi whose music is quite astonishingly equal in craft and depth of any of her male contemporaries. Would we even have heard of her a few generations ago? On the other hand, staying with the historical aspect of the "Woke" trend, I have problems with a certain relativism that goes with the re-discovery of say, Clara Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn. With the best will in the world, I can't claim that Fanny's music is the equal of Felix's in aesthetic value. Or is that judgment shaped by implicit bias? A whole host of difficult questions encountered here. In the end, though, I support "Workeism" in the arts as an effort to promote the works of artists unjustly neglected becaue of race, sexual orientation, or gender.
Who would you say are the composers who were highly valued in the 3rd quarter of the 20C.whose reputation has faded the most since the ?( I remember a time when Milhaud was treated as a pre-eminent contemporary composer and Poulenc was regarded as minor.) Who would you say are the composers from about the same time whose reputation has grown significantly since then? Martinu comes immediately to my mind. Szymanowski from somewhat earlier.
One good thing about a record collection: you can return to something that you used to listen to a lot and don't do now, and rediscover why you listened to it. (Or why you don't!)
That was fun! And you sure made some good points.
To be fair I'm more concerned with philistinism than wokeness. Witness the way the program at the annual Royal Albert Hall proms has changed. I don't care who is composing new orchestral music or why they got commissioned, but I do care if a classical music program is being eroded by pop and soul music. Does the LSO perform at Glastonbury?
I think I was sleeping with the wrong people 🤣
Keep talking about all issues, I've learned so much from you. We all do, and the listener with comments are good, also.
An excellent and thoughtful video Dave. I definitely agree music should not be a Zero Sum game.
I'm all for paying attention to neglected composers. Let's start with all those post-WWII white male American composers (note I didn't say STRAIGHT white males) who wrote such wonderful music that is now completely ignored by modern conductors. I'm talking about Roy Harris, David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti, Howard Hanson, Ronald LoPresti, Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, William Schuman, Walter Piston, and a slew of others. THAT'S a good place to start.
Vincent Persichetti!!!!!
And Irving Fine! He wasn't super-prolific, but so many of his pieces are real gems -- Toccata Concertante; Notturno for Strings and Harp; Serious Song; The Choral New Yorker; and (on the lighter side) his choral settings of "Alice in Wonderland."
1. Real classical nuts are frequently in search of new sounds. As such, programming outside of the war-horses is welcome.
2. We don't need to worry about Beethoven. Florence Price isn't going to displace him any time soon.
3. Talent will out. If a caucasian performer gets passed over for one job on diversity grounds, he or she will almost certainly find another.
4. If I never hear the word "woke" again, it will still be too soon. It is a cheap, lazy cudgel utilized by people who want to end an argument, not bolster one.
You should make a video of government sponsorship/involvement in the arts. I'm always conflicted on this topic.
A work like the Copland/Sandburg "Lincoln Portrait" is propaganda because it alludes to opposition to an abominable vice (slavery) in Nazi Germany and its Japanese partner in crime no less than is Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. It is no less propaganda because it is excellent and serves your side in some great struggle.
The British loved to turn German masterworks, including Beethoven's Fifth, against the Third Reich. Then there are such banned composers as Mendelssohn and Gershwin, and 'troublesome' works such as Verdi's Requiem. (Mahler would have been perfect for such use, but he was out of vogue at the time).
Propaganda can define a people against The Enemy. Film was more the norm; it was still quit good in Britain and America. Casablanca may be one of the greatest movies ever, but it still has plenty of propaganda in it. So a self-pitying Rick Blaine comes to realize that he is fortunate to be an American who still has some choices that refugees at his bar lack? Yes, that is propaganda.
So if you are the Good Guys and History continues to see you as such your cultural polemics against The Enemy are still propaganda.
Koussevitzky passed on Florence Price in the 1930s. He ushered in some great new music, but this is one piece he missed. I won't try to figure out which reason mattered the most, but I bring this up to say we need extra-musical factors to shake up the playlist. They can bring unduly neglected works to light, energize new music by under-represented (but not under-performing) artists. It was a local group advancing works by Black composers that introduced me to works by Florence Price and inspired me to explore other kinds of music by Black artists. At its best, classical is an openness to explore new things, even old new things. Without some kind of innovation, even the ability to hear familiar things in a new way, music would just get stale.
Florence Price stinks though ......too safe too conservative.
Thank you, Dave, for a thoughtful take on a term, "woke", that has entered our discourse on all sorts of matters political, social, cultural .
Wannabe candidates for all offices are seizing on the term as if it were one of the great plagues of our time.
Will I ever be able to enjoy "Meistersinger" or "Tristan" without factoring in the composer's bitter antisemitism?
Must I approach the symphonies of Allan Pettersson solely as screeds on injustice and physical suffering?
Yikes!
I need a beer!
The problem with your talks, Dave, is you force us to think and that is always hazardous.
Or is that just a "woke" observation on my part?
I come from a somewhat different musical background and so my perspective will be a bit different from that of an exclusive classical one. The greeting, "Hey. man," was first used by black jazz musicians in the 1940s because they got tired of being called "boy" by bigoted white people. I'm sure that would be considered "woke" today. Music was heavily segregated once upon a time in America. "Race music" and "race records" were exclusively marketed for black audiences - this was mostly jazz, the blues and gospel music. The point of fact in all this is that music was segregated and it took a lot to break that wall of bigotry. In 1964 the Beatles were booked to play Jacksonville FL. Concert goers were still segregated in the South - black kids and white kids weren't allowed to attend concerts together. For real, that's part of our history. The Beatles voted among themselves not to play unless white kids and blacks could attend their concert together. It was a bold move, but the city of Jacksonville had to give in and the Beatles played to a rockin audience. I'm sure the Beatles would be considered "woke" today.
Of course, one can say all this is rather different now - and none of it applies to classical music anyway. But the origins of the term "woke'" is African-American, which means "to be alert to racism." A good example of this is what happened with Lizzo, an expertly trained classical musician, who dared to play James Madison's crystal flute. This caused significant outrage among certain political hacks and other know nothings, who mocked her abilities, her weight and the way she was dressed. A lot of us were "alerted" to the blatant racism and what the real criticism was all about. Like a lot of other things, "Woke" has a lot of different dimensions to it. Just my 2 cents.
Thank you for this.
Wow - you went there. Good for you. I needed a few days to think about this.
Most of your subscribers would readily agree with you that it's fine, and proper, and even noble to right past wrongs. In Western music, that would mean programming the music of worthy composers who have been unfairly ignored. But the term "woke" only tangentially refers to simply righting wrongs. As we have seen over the past several years, it really means erasing history, destroying tradition, and tearing down statues and renaming buildings, without regard for their historical worth. Having watched your video twice, I think I understand what you mean, and I KNOW you value tradition. It's important to bring in new artists and compositions, letting them face the test of time; that's a reasonable and humane thing to do. "Woke" is NOT that, and using that term doesn't help the argument you are making.
It's good that the likes of Beethoven and Bach have not been subjected to such redefining treatment yet. But our local classical music station hasn't played a performance dating from before 1980 in a long time. Bernstein barely gets a nod every now and then. We don't hear from Bruno Walter, or Artur Rubinstein (imagine trying to discern what Chopin should sound like without Rubinstein showing the way!). I honestly don't know if it's by design, but it IS a sign of the times. Our musical performance tradition is in danger of being truncated, and we will be the poorer for it.
Thank heaven for programs like yours that help us remember, and revere, and learn from yesterday.
I agree wholeheartedly. Please play & record Florence Prince. I would never have heard the incredibly enjoyable new disc of her violin concertos if it weren't for "woke programming." Where I draw the line is being told what to think about the music. Price, Farrenc, & Still, we are assured by Classic FM (yes, I know, Classic FM is a total joke), wrote three of the greatest symphonies in the repertoire. Price's Symphony 1 isn't even her best, let alone the second greatest symphony of all time! I *love* Still's Symphony 1 & I wish it were widely known & regarded. But is it really greater than Mahler 9? Program the hell out of all this. But let us draw our own conclusions. Please.
Florence Price is an average composer but today she is an identity place holder for those who insist certain outcomes from history.
@@hortleberrycircusbround9678 Well, it is still good to get to know her. It is not like she is "pulling the chair" (rather, the pedestal) from under Beethoven or Brahms! If all she had going for her was the pigment in her skin, then it would render the promotion disingenuous... But Florence Price deserves rediscovery.
@@bigg2988 She is way way too conservative and polite- Ellington was such a more interesting composer, daring and gorgeous. My personal preferences is for a composer like Charles Ives so Price's compositions are not only polite but mind numbingly boring. Maybe I haven't found Price's great compositions yet but I highly doubt it.
@@bigg2988 have you heard the gospel singer and guitarist virtuoso sister Rosetta Tharpe's music? She is a trillion times more exhilarating then Florence. As for the fusion between jazz and classical you must have heard Stravinsky's ebony concerto or maybe the composition that Benny Goodman commissioned from Bela Bartok, his "Contrasts" Both are more iconoclastic. I am not the biggest fan of the romantic period of music so when Florence drags around romantic music in the 30s especially in contrast to so many modernist masterpieces I shed tears of boredom.
@@hortleberrycircusbround9678 Thank you for the enriching discussion. I also highly value Charles Ives, whose music I discovered in my grown-up years, but spent many happy hours with thereafter. He is really a colorful amalgam of many best things about American Classical music - in the widest sense. Thanks for the pointer to Rosetta Tharpe - I am not greatly into Gospel, so she is a new name, but I like guitar virtuoso music, so this may be a surprise find!
On the issue at hand - boring as certain mediocre Romantism may appear, some of the most cutting-edge Modernism can be just unbearable if it does not "speak" to the listener's mind or feelings. I guess masterpieces will be masterpieces, and duds remain duds, whatever the period or means of expression. :) But there is also plenty of pleasing, if not first-class, music in between, so it depends on whether we have enough time and opportunity to look into it. Have a great day!
Well said. Genuinely not the direction I thought you would go, but your observations were very compelling. Thanks for another extremely thoughtful commentary.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for the great talk! Could you please expand on what the 99,9% junk were musicwise?
This is a very novel take. Thank you for this very insightful opinion!
Only now are composers who perished in the Holocaust getting their day in the sun. I hope nobody is against that.
I like the comment on "zero-sum." There are too many new works and too few venues that it's impossible to determine who is more deserving than another, simply because noöne can hear everybody. Does Aaron Rabushka deserve a recording more than Laura Clayton?
Fascinating topic; very well argued. And yet I'm confused, as I thought you were first, last and always about musical considerations taking precedence over everything else. Are you saying that well at least woke programming is an improvement over the casting couch. I'm certainly in favor of repressed people getting their day in the sun; but what about when the woke theoreticians say that the very structure of western music is racist (as I saw recently on youtube by a respectable academician). You say life doesn't have to be a zero game but maybe it sortta does, under the present zeitgeist..
Dave has commented numerous times about how German-centric our musical understanding is because that's where the branch of our prevailing theory first took hold in a lasting way. I'm sure he would agree that this has been a a negative at the expense of the exploration of all non-Germanic classical music, whether that's French music or Russian or Czech, or by composers who are minorities or women or in some other way do not fit into the Germanic ideals.
@@MatthewMarczi Right. But would he disavow the German tradition or would he celebrate the fact that with the onset of romanticism, and specifically what I call the class of 1830, (because of the relative openness of Parisian culture?) we start to hear from composers from France, Poland and Hungary?
@@jeffheller642 He simply argues that it shouldn't be exalted above everything else at their expense. The Germanic musical and theoretical tradition is obviously a justified bedrock of classical music, but it's easily arguable that its influence has been too hegemonic to the detriment of the proper appreciation, exploration, and evaluation of composers outside of the Germanic tradition, which encompasses, among other things, the "woke" programming we're talking about of works by non-white and non-male composers.
@@MatthewMarczi and what do you say to highly esteemed academics who say that western music is inherently racist? Ever since I was an undergraduate I have had to defend (if only to myself) the continued legitimacy of the western (largely west European) cultural tradition, i.e., literature, philosophy, painting and music. The term 'woke' seems to me to have emerged from the same zero sum wing of 'postmodernism'. I intend absolutely no exclusivism, elitism, or heaven forfend, Germanic chauvinism. Thank you
@@jeffheller642 I am not going to pretend to be qualified to respond to that with any kind of authority. For starters, I have not read the works in question (I haven't even formally studied music so I can't pretend to know what prevailing trends there might currently be in academia). I would have to read the arguments first before I could even begin to address it and even then I probably wouldn't be sufficiently informed to judge it. As a layman, I think we can at least make the argument that the western tradition being exalted above others has instilled in our culture a false sense of the superiority of western music over non-western and have come to associate characteristics of western music as superior by default.
Appreciate the level-headedness, Dave. Thank you.
I would be interested to hear the opinions of the (few?) members of racial minorities who play in major orchestras on this issue
Sure the fact that certain classics are still popular is partially a result of good luck but that's not to say that Bach isn't also good. I personally just don't care to see an opera or composition solely based on the background of the creators. If the work is genuinely good and the creators/performers happen to fit xyz category then that's great. it just doesn't make much of a difference to me and tbh it is annoying when it is so obvious why some average opera is programmed at the Met. Same principal applies to Hollywood.
Yes performing arts organizations should live in fear but that fear should be to make sure to create performances that people actually like and want to spend money on.
I'd just rather the selection process for new works to attempt to focus on interesting and innovative ideas that might be a bit more risky but could potentially pay off more in the long run than to select new works that make an organization look virtuous.
I think the performing arts and Hollywood have become overly risk averse by comparison to the past. It is true that the performing arts and cinema are less popular than they used to be. Part of that is modern life but imo there needs to be a more genuine attempt to keep the performing arts relevant than wokeness bc nobody cares.
This is partly 'our' fault (none of us in particular, but in the most general sense) as the audience. The simple fact of the matter is that the root of nearly all programming decisions is how best to make money. That's why more innovative music is less programmed, and partly why music by previously marginalized composers is more programmed, because it's currently perceived as more profitable to do so.
This analysis focuses only on the recovery of ignored composers of the past and the promotion of contemporary composers. It ignores other aspects of wokeness in classical music such as the promotion of performers and the reinterpretation of the life and work of classical composers. I found interesting the part where you described how difficult was the life of composers such as Bach, Haydn, etc. Some woke opinions would describe those composers as privileged and I have a bigger issue with that, and with the overal varnish of elitism that some people apply to classical music. Recently a Poulenc opera was interrupted in England by climate change protestors and I wondered whether they would do the same type of protest in an alternative rock, folk or world music festival.
I suspect the Poulenc protest was more to do with who was in the audience than what was being performed.
My two cents: if we like the music composed or played, it is all for the better, as otherwise we might not hear it at all! Just as we salute the endeavors to bring to light some 2nd-to-3rd rank Romantic or Baroque composers who were "assigned" to oblivion by history - not always the audiences, when they had the say! - we could find enjoyment in adding new names to our music lists, be those female artists, or ones of color. The whole would cross the line only if we are told to prefer someone solely based on their diversity, if it is not born out by the reflection of that (say, ethnicity) in their art, which would make it extraordinary... Vice versa, no one should be "disqualified" by the same extra-musical considerations. I suspect we are not nostalgic for the times when listening to, say, Mendelssohn was not "right" because he came from Jewish background, and some creative styles were dismissed as degenerate by default?.. Real tolerance does not exclude anyone, or does it? In my musical explorations, enjoyment and merit (so far as I am competent to judge...) are the only criteria.
I've been exposed to the term "woke" several times, particularly in film. I think it's pure garbage: a way for people unable or unwilling to look beyond surface level to negatively judge things without thinking critically or even watching/listening to them, just because it features people who just happen to be a way that they associate with a vaguely defined political opponent.
This is why I agree with you, Dave. What's wrong with people getting exposure and play? If they're good, great! If they're not, move on! Time will tell. In the meantime, we're getting a lot of things that we might just enjoy. Why inhibit that enjoyment, for oneself or for others, because of some meaningless details such as ethnicity, sex, etc.?
Live and let live!
Very thoughtful and ojective video, Dave. Keep up the good work!
"Prostitution" might be a wee bit steep expression....I imagine that the word covering the meaning you tried to express, rather was "selfpromotion"?
The more selfeffacing artists tend not to take the centerstage, both in respect to further their carreers and later on in the collective memory, no matter how splendid musicians they were - Peter Maag, Hans Rosbaud, Eduard van Beinum, Stefan Askenase to cite but a few examples.
Political "wokeism" is deeply influenced and informed by postmodern philosophy. I'd love to see a video of yours on postmodernism in classical music.
I hear this claimed a lot, but rarely demonstrated. When Zizek asked his opponent to name a single "post modern neo marxist" the loudest user of that term had no names to give.
This is just bullshit
Spendid commentary. You, sir, are a seemingly rare example of a mentally balanced human being. I salute you!
When politics invades non-political areas of society, such as the arts, only negative things can happen. Just as when economics invades politics or arts, or economics AND politics invade education. Each area of society should stick to their own areas, otherwise confusion and negative consequences arise. However, our society is in such a total mess right now because everything is in everything else's space and interfering with it. I'm against contributing to that trend even though good excuses can be given for it in some circumstances.
Let me get this right: "When politics invades non-political areas of society, such as the arts, only negative things can happen." Are you sure? Shostakovich? Do you not think think politics invaded his music (as one example). Politics and classical music has always been intertwined, just as with theatre, film, writing, and art.
I seriously don’t understand how people can believe that art, especially music, has EVER been apolitical. It’s an incredibly naive perspective.
@@billgaits3717 No, I am saying that music and the arts has always been influenced by what goes on in society, and you knew that was what I was saying in the first place. What's more, as the video demonstrates, certain composers etc were sidelined, ignored etc because of their race, gender, sexuality etc. But you don't seem to have a problem with THAT side of things, just with the reverse happening.
@@thevault3853 You could take these things case by case. I don't think gay men have missed out on recognition, even in times when they were severely oppressed in many other ways. Blacks in America created an entire genre of popular music that gained recognition despite racism. Women have been recognised as performers and as singer-songwriters in popular and folk music, but very little as composers in western art music. If this was a consequence of prejudice, you'd have to say that some prejudices were much greater than others.
My opinion? I doubt that most of the art-music establishment would have been actively discriminatory on any of these grounds since at least the mid 20th century. I suspect they would have been among the more deliberately open-minded institutions. Likewise, while there will always be prejudiced individuals, I don't see why the art-music listening public would be any more prejudiced than the rest, who were perfectly open to the contribution of women and blacks (and indeed include plenty of both).
Does reverse discrimination matter now? I think it's unjust and I don't support it. Since the merit that stands the test of time is so hard to judge in the arts, we can try to reward it and we will probably fail. In that sense, perhaps it matters less in this sphere than most. But it is still better in my view to try to recognise merit, than to have pretentions to be a righter of past wrongs.
This is the most naive thing I've ever heard. Politics has never not been invading the arts. Who do you think commissioned all the composers I assume you love? The church or the state - politics!
When merit takes a back seat, the art suffers, and the listeners along with it. The music establishment can dump lots of money and resources into pushing the trend, but when it's no longer profitable it will stop. With the vast access to tools to create and platforms to distribute, composers of a wide range of skill and experience etc. can reach listeners easier than ever. "Wokeness" is the establishment trying to ride the wave of a cultural trend, It's not genuine.
Well said 👍
"Merit" as judged by who? Exclusively white dudes?
Possibly, but it is also genuinely trying to reverse centuries of systematically EXCLUDING music composed and performed by women and non-white people for the sole reason that they were not white males, which ALSO had nothing to do with quality.
The winnowing process takes time, and has unfairly excluded minorities from consideration. When this trend is over, we'll have a few great pieces that will become part of the general repertoire, and some very good contemporary composers to pay attention to that might not have become known if not for this trend.
@@patrickhackett7881 Exactly. Too many people are missing the fact that this is a process, and it's the same process that took place over centuries to establish the canon we know today. Only we're going through it now, so we see the mess.
Considering that the majority of famous musicians are product of great marketing and the label industry, with plenty of far superior musicians remaining unknown their whole life or even refusing to have a career (disagreeing with industry), to me these woke programmings are just the other side.
Yes, but at the best the music labels served as gatekeepers. They could have some quality control of performances for sale to the music-loving audience. So a label could make the detrrmination that some orchestra is not up to playing Mozart or that some violinist is wise to avoid Paganini. Yes, the repertory was far narrower than it is today, at least as was sold in record stores.
We had less choice, but we also had less schlock... and schlock turns people off. Maybe we had to turn to record labels of, for example, Soviet-bloc countries to get the good Czech, Hungarian, or Russian music on the fringe of the standard repertory. Fine.
@@paulbrower Arbitrary quality control. To me they focused on artists who showed off better, because marketing and money are easier this way. They dictated aesthetical trends, bad educated audience who got used to these performances as the only way to do music and blacklisted great artists.
@@LuisKolodin Yes... but musical performances from the time on recorded disc are generally good. Some times the record companies trip up by assuming that some German-Austrian fellow (Karajan) is ideal for conducting music of the Austrian and German repertory even if he is generally better on just about everything else. (Brahms, late Bruckner, and whatever Mahler and Mendelssohn he recorded).
So to what repertory do you link Seiji Ozawa when practically none of the classical recording is from eastern Asia?
As for the ill-educated audience... I could make the case that in America at the least, people ar generally LESS educated about music than they used to be. The classical musicians and orchestras are probably better tha n they were in the early 1960's.
The line between education and advertising was thin in classical recordings back in the old days...but the record companies aren't doing this any more.
When selecting artists for our chamber series, I'm happy with programs that are more diverse than the former norm, as long as the program provides musical substance. Indeed, it's hard to find artists now who don't do this. What I will not book are concerts that make a political statement, as if our patrons, who average at least twice the age and wisdom of the artists, gave a damn about the artists' views on the environment, race relations or where they stand on the gender spectrum. And don't get me started on the current fad for diversity statements and land acknowledgements.
A refreshingly nuanced and balanced opinion that is grounded in material reality. Nice one
#1 rule of life - it is not fair #2 rule of life - the biggest problem of life stares back at you in the mirror #3 rule of life - life is hard. Now get on with life and stop blaming others for your misfortunes.
Dave: thanks for addressing this issue. I can largely agree with your views: I don't mind anyone trying to get unknown composers to the forefront based on these flawed arguments, or whatever frivolous reasons for that matter, for very much the same reasons you don't: if it's good, the end result will be more music that's worthy of being played more often, being listened to by more people.
What I have a problem with is that doctoral students at musicology departments of, among other places, the Brussels conservatoire, are literally taking a hostile approach to Western music theory because they deem it to be Eurocentric or even outright white supremacist, based on critical theory that the Frankfurt School, including composer and philosopher Theodor Adorno, came up with.
This is how academic disciplines have been corrupted in the humanities and social sciences, and the same is happening in musicology but also art history, literature, etc.
If the intellectuals who should strive to preserve our cultural heritage are taking a hostile approach to it, we're in big trouble. It's like the Egyptions knocking down the temples at Abu Simbel because they were built using conscripted labour from farmers during the dry season. Culture can only be preserved if the current generation embraces rather than denounces it.
I think where "wokism" has had a noxious effect is in the auditioning of prospective orchestra members. Blind auditions were standard. But, if what I've read is true, the blind audition is disappearing due to "wokeness." In other words, the system was fixed; now it's broken.
Auditions are indeed broken but for very different reasons than this. Favored candidates can skip early rounds, sometimes even skipping straight to non-blind final rounds, and pre-arranged signals can indicate the performer even in blind auditions. All too often, the conclusion of an open audition is "nobody was good enough, we didn't select a winner", making it easier later to elevate their all-along favored candidate. (The joke in the industry is that sometimes the only way to win a position is NOT to audition.) Contrary to the belief of many, more often than not such favored candidates remain white males. Orchestras are not exactly overflowing with black or hispanic musicians, even among their newest hires, and many sections remain fully or largely composed of white males only. Conductors are still overwhelmingly white and male, as are the composers whose music is being played.
The general position is that the candidate is not seen while auditioning, and is likely anonymous..Thus one cannot see that the violinist is a black female with a huge Afro, and a musician cannot flirt with a conductor.
The irony is that people who traditionally haven't been able to play in the realm of composition finally get their chance - at the moment when interest in the genre is miniscule, and creativity has been smothered by the mediocre requirements of the academy.
On the matter of prostitution, I often despised it when orchestra managers would treat an artist without an agent like a prostitute without a ...pimp. I refuse to see myself as a prostitute, and if it costs me jobs so be it
"Woke" is not so much about righting a wrong. If it were that simple, nearly all would be on board endorsing the logical fix. But in the music industry as in general culture, the problems lie in the perception of what is wrong, should/can it be fixed, and by what means.
I think you are FAR too charitable to the people opposed to "wokeness". The enemies of woke WANT to continue the wrongs, and are very strenuously opposed to correcting them. One of the main reasons is that they rely on whole categories of "-ists" and "-phobes" to vote for them in support of otherwise-unpopular political policies, such as trying to take money from the masses and give it to a handful of billionaires, then letting said billionaires form monopolies, pollute the air and water, exploit employees under slave-like conditions, and take advantage of customers - understandably not very popular policies, so they need to find other ways to win elections and further said fascist policies. That's why they lie and gaslight constantly, gerrymander, suppress voters likely to vote against them, and court folks with thoroughly disagreeable views which everyone else rightly reject.
It's about understanding a wrong. Though the word obviously is being hijacked by certain political elements and made to stand for the fact that they don't want to recognize or right those wrongs so instead of supporting the wrongs, they fight "wokism" instead. Sounds better than, for example, saying you are fine with racism and don't want to do anything about it.
I do agree with most of what you said, but I think you've missed the most worrisome points, which are that 1. the people involved in the "woke" movement really do believe it's a zero-sum game, and that no good thing happens except at the expense of others, 2. they are the only ones who know the way to "right injustices" and only their way is correct (and don't you dare disagree), and most worrisome of all, 3. no, you (and especially You, being who you are) have no "right to say it's crap" if you think so, and if you try, you'll be shouted down for being unfairly biased. These are the real problems, and we get there when everyone is too nice and afraid to speak up. (I do always appreciate your "It'll all be fine in the end" attitude tho.)
These are always the problems when you are dealing with zealots, but that's really another issue than the one I raise.
Agreed! Why not look for good art everywhere?
In many communities the best piece of art is a mural in some Mexican restaurant. That's part of the pleasure!
In the Western world, money often ends up being the impetus behind so called “cultural revolutions”. It rarely has anything to do with equality or fairness.
I found myself at a disadvantage fairly often in my career pursuits, due to my lack of..shall we say....NON-musical attributes (I am as UN-woke by birth/nature as you will find). As it happened, just when I was beginning to gain some real traction in the 'biz, the new guidelines and preferences for the culturally "marginalized" became the rage. My reaction?.....At least I knew that part of the reason I wasn't chosen was due to things totally beyond my control; so I had a choice: a). work harder to overcome my handicap or b.) say to hell with all of them and turn my attention to other things I enjoyed. As Mr. Hurwitz says here (10:26): "that's the way the Arts work." LR
As long as it's good music I could care less who wrote it...God bless 'em.
Thanks for a rather perfect analysis and summation.
I think that wokeness is very harmful in the arts. It makes "caring about the moral values art promotes" much more important than "caring about the quality of art". It's a form of neopuritanism. The moral values are different, but the attitude and personality are the same.
Yes, but this has always been the case. Even if we could define "quality," that has always taken a back seat to other considerations, and the cream has still risen to the top and the arts do just fine.
Yes. 99.9% of the programming will turn out to be crap. I may believe that my symphonies are better than others, and that it is sad that they are not being performed, but I know that many composers suffer from the "my baby" syndrome. I may believe that my baby is the handsomest child ever conceived, but everyone else may believe that they are uglier than sin. Only time will tell.
oh.... Dave wades into controversy! I believe diverse/inclusive considerations for performers and compositions just make good business sense. Chicago is majority non-white. It just makes business sense to try to appeal to Chicago's non-white population. As a typical urban area, Chicago has a sizable Gay/Lesbian population, a good chunk of which like classical music. Why not appeal to them? I observe that 1/3 of the CSO's upper string players are of Asian background. Where would the classical music business be without the interest that so many Asians have in Western Music? And even more so Jews! Can you imagine classical music without Jewish people?? This is literally life in the big city and musical institutions must appeal to and take advantage of this diversity.
One of the reasons for this reaction (perhaps over-reaction, for now), is that for centuries, music was performed to a significant extent based on the very same criteria, but in reverse. Female and non-white composers and performers were kept in the shadows, and many more were discouraged or outright prevented from composing or performing in the first place. Classical music remains to this day effectively one of the most racist and sexist institutions in our society, despite these recent efforts, and some people are very rightly embarrassed by and concerned about that.
People complaining about "affirmative action" or "woke" decision-making ignore the fact that before that, we had "negative action" decision-making which explicitly and almost universally excluded those classes, regardless of quality, for the simple reason that they weren't white males. It is the height of hypocrisy to complain about one but not the other. And it often turns out that despite strenuous efforts to foreground non-whites and females, they STILL end up under-represented, making the complaints about those efforts even more absurd.
“Classical music remains to this day effectively one of the most racist and sexist institutions in our society”. Compared to what?
I’ve been a fan of Indian classical music ever since I was a teenager. Back in the 1980s and 90s, all the instrumental soloists were Indian men; with the one exception of Ken Zuckerman. Since then, plenty of Indian women have broken through. Non-Indian soloists are still almost zero.
Here in the UK the audiences are fairly mixed, I guess. They consist mainly of white Brits (I’d guess mainly liberal, Guardian-reading white liberal Brits) plus middle class British Indians. I’d say East Asians and Blacks are under-represented in the audience. This dynamic would change if it was a concert of Indian-Jazz fusion (e.g. the various versions of Shakti).
If I compare the Indian Classical scene with the Western Classical scene, the most conspicuous feature is the massive contribution of East Asian performers to contemporary western classical music, especially as soloists; from Yo-Yo Ma to Yuja Wang. Think of Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan; though they often record with both Japanese and European vocal soloists, it’s still a choir and orchestra of Japanese people mainly performing Lutheran church music in a country where less than 1% of the population is Christian.
@@georgesdelatour Well said. Here’s another example: there are a lot of women composers who have made their mark in contemporary classical music (in the last fifty years to seventy five years more or less): Kajia Saariaho (who passed away recently), Unsuk Chin, Elzbieta Sikora, Betsy Jolas, Michèle Reverdy, Olga Neuwirth, Sofia Goubaïdoulina, and many more.
@@georgesdelatour I was referring to western classical music, since that's the only form that is ever even mentioned on this channel. I'm not sure how Indian classical music, an entirely different genre with entirely different performers, composers, instruments, traditions, and styles, and coming from an entirely different part of the world and cultural background, is particularly relevant to a discussion of western classical music. It would be more relevant to compare western classical to jazz or even western pop music, since at least they come from and are prevalent within the same culture, and have a bigger overlap in audience, forms, theory, and even performers/composers.
I am also primarily referring to western classical music in the traditionally western countries of NA/EU. The whole genre is an import to Asia, where they perform largely western composers (though with their own composers mixed in), revere the same western soloists and conductors as western audiences do (while also still having plenty of their own), and often import western musicians to help establish standards and lead sections in their young orchestras (particularly in non-string sections). This is of course much less necessary today, as their classical music "industries" and educational pipelines have become fully mature on their own, but there are still plenty of Asian orchestras with western principals in various sections.
Certainly there is a huge difference between who we see on the stage of a pop concert today compared to a classical concert in NA/EU countries, or who the frequently-performed songwriters/composers are.
It is true that there has been a great increase in female performers of classical music in recent decades (particularly string players and certain woodwinds, but much, much less so in other sections, from double bass to brass to percussion, where women remain a rarity, particularly in the top orchestras throughout NA/EU). My impression is the higher pay and status the orchestra, the lower the proportion of women. Despite their preponderance in certain sections, they tend to remain a minority overall. (In lower-paid or amateur orchestras this may not be as true, or not true at all.)
In the last few years there has been a rather SUDDEN, and obviously quite guilty, increase in intentional exposure for female conductors and composers, but they still remain hugely under-represented. (Not only had we ignored female composers of the past who did exist, but of course also gave far fewer females the opportunity to compose or get their compositions performed in the first place, so there will probably always be fewer of them that wrote a significant quantity of high quality music.) The same is true of Black, Hispanic, and Native American composers, at least in the US (again, still hugely under-represented despite the giant, obviously guilty, recent reaction trying to rectify that).
But finding orchestral performers from those groups is much, much more difficult after so many decades of neglect and exclusion. (An orchestra has typically 50-100 musicians, but still just one conductor, usually one soloist, and a few composers on each program, so it's much easier to quickly add conductors, soloists, and composers than to redress imbalances in whole orchestras. Those particular composers and conductors and soloists suddenly have a LOT of demand for their work!) Many American orchestras are lucky to have even a single African-American, Hispanic, or especially Native American musician in their ranks, which is clearly, grossly unrepresentative of the US population as a whole (about 19% Hispanic, 14% Black, and 1.5% Native American, in other words about 1/3 non-white and non-Asian - how many major orchestras look like that? NONE, not even remotely close. Of course the expected proportions will be different in other countries. In some European countries, an all-white orchestra may be fairly representative of the country's population, or nearly so.)
It's easy to say those groups just aren't interested in classical music or whatever, but I haven't experienced that to be true, and the bigger difference is the poverty and lack of the right education to be prepared for the field, and that is the fault of our society as a whole in underfunding schools in those communities, redlining, hiring discrimination, and other means of keeping them in the economic and educational cellar. It may not all be directly the fault of those involved in classical music that there isn't a pipeline of diverse musicians ready to join the field professionally (and often they offer educational programs seeking to rectify such problems), but the fact remains that orchestras are overwhelmingly white and Asian.
It is true that Asian classical musicians have been widely accepted (even over-represented) in NA/EU, but that has been really the only good point in this discussion over the last couple of decades, besides the gradually-increasing acceptance of female musicians.
This phenomenon itself is relatively recent, driven by both Asian-descent musicians in, or immigrants to, NA/EU often tending to be from relatively wealthy and well-educated families who focused on classical performance from a young age (often to the exclusion of all else besides math and science, such as sports), and the huge increase in the number of fantastic musicians emerging from China, Japan, and Korea, especially in the last two decades. When the numbers of very high-quality musicians are so overwhelming, it's hard not to hire a lot of them.
Also, in the US at least, despite past laws excluding Chinese immigrants and a history of exploitation of Chinese workers, mistreatment of Japanese immigrants during World War II, and friction between Asians and other ethnic groups (and some discrimination against Asians generally), they are NOT one of the classes that I would say have suffered the extreme amounts of widespread historic and ongoing discrimination, hate, and animosity that millions of Black slaves, wiped-out native populations, and waves of unwanted Mexican immigrants have. Notably, those latter groups also tend to be much poorer and less well-educated on average than white or Asian Americans, which I think factors into the continued discrimination (wealthy people tend to dislike mixing with and tend to look down on poor people), and certainly into the lack of opportunity to enter many fields requiring a lot of money and education, like classical music. But also, again, we kept one group as slaves, wiped out the population of another as we invaded their country and stole their land, also stole land from the third, then tried to kick them out and xenophobically exclude them in all the years since... so there is built-in and wide-spread resentment, guilt (defensiveness/fear), pre-conceived notions, etc. for each of those groups that doesn't really exist with Asian populations in the US, or often with similar ethnic groups in Europe - ie, most Black people in the UK or France are immigrants or the descendants thereof who have always had freedom, not millions of descendants of slaves living amongst (and sometimes out-numbering) their former enslavers, the one resenting having ever been enslaved, and the other, it turns out, to this day too often resenting having had to give up that power. This particularly gives racism against Blacks in America a certain quality that isn't really present in Europe. (I've heard Black people from both regions visiting the other comment on this uncomfortable and uniquely American dynamic.)
I've got a little beyond the topic, but suffice it to say that in recent years, more institutions have been wrestling with the question of how much responsibility they have for wider-scale discrimination in society and what they should do about it, instead of just chalking it up to lack of interest, or somebody else's problem that they grew up poor or never received the same quality of education. The conclusion, at software firms as much as at orchestras, is starting to become that they're responsible for their lack of diversity even if the problem started long before their audition took place.
Does it matter that Franz Schubert and Peter Tchaikovsky were gay? If the music is great, who cares?
I do not care that Florence Price was a black female. Her music stands on its own. (Thank you, Dave, for introducing me to her music. It is structurally sound and has attractive sonority.)
There is no strong evidence to support saying Schubert was gay. Some of the literature on the subject was summarised in the essay "The Buffet Of Life: An Essay on the Possible Sexuality of Franz Schubert".
A troubling video. In summary: so because the old systems of selecting quality never really worked out, we can just as well use some kind of communist/socialist thought experiment? I liked the throwing-a-dice-idea better. Or just pick some random social security numbers from a hat. That would work. As a father of three gifted children, I have concluded a long time ago that we still live in the Stone Age with regard to recognizing and realizing potential. A shame that mr. Hurwitz has given up, which makes this the most cynical of his videos. Who also will be giving up are the gifted who won’t get their moment in the sun. No problem, 99,9% is crap anyway…
I don't think that you understood what Dave wanted to say...
It seems to me that the "old system of selecting quality" needs to be modified which is happening and which is a good thing all in all
@@HubertusdgT unfortunately, that is not what he said. The message was basically: a woke system is as good as an aristocratic system, time will tell what music is worth playing. My point is that we have no real means of identifying the exceptional gifted. It is still a game of chance, now influenced by woke. The Stone Ages, that is where we are, despite all of our technology and “overflow rooms” of music. Ideology is only making it worse.
@@antonbakx8555 But it is as good as an aristocratic system. Aristocrats were no better equipped to judge quality in art. That's partly why most of that music doesn't survive; they commissioned a whole lot of garbage.
@@MatthewMarczi I don't agree. Aristocrats were, at the time, the best judge of quality in art. In Haydn's case for example, Prince Esterhazy was so impressed that he kept him on for 30 years. Haydn's music was supposed to be exclusively for the prince but unknown to him, Haydn's music was leaking out and became popular all over Europe. Haydn became the most famous composer of his time. Also, Beethoven couldn't have composed his later works without the patronage of aristocrats.
@@porridgeandprunes Haydn was an extreme exception, and not all of the rulers in that family even had any interest in music. The reason we know it was an exception is because Haydn's music actually survives. They employed and commissioned work from other composers lost to history as well. Aristocrats are just people with money, often inherited. That's no qualification for knowing anything valuable about music. Their access to music was simply their access to money, and frequently their employment of musicians was entirely out of a desire for prestige.
The good thing about wokeism in music: there's a chance to break up the over-played, tired, worn out hegemony of the European classics. The bad thing: a lot of the music that is played in the name of wokeism isn't played, loved or heard much for the best reason: it sucks.
Bach and Mozart n33d to be played MORE these days. People better recognize!
Well said, Dave.
I hate wokeism but you are correct!
Given all this, I must comment that you have yet to feature a single female composer in your "If I could choose only one work by" series. As I write this, you've already featured 100 composers -- and I can think of several women composers who could have made it into the top 100...
It's not a "top" anything. It's just a list, and I'm making no special point of sex or anything else. I'll get to who I get to when I get to them, or him, or her, or it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide The activist argument is that any deviation from equity (equal representation) is evidence of racism. If you buy that argument you can be shamed into prioritising equity over whatever your original goals were.
Russian composers are being left out from concert hall programs here in Poland. I don't really blame them, given the political climate.
During World War Two, Myra Hess (who was Jewish) played J.S. Bach to Londoners during the Blitz. I understand if people don’t feel like playing or listening to some super-nationalistic piece of Russian music like the 1812 Overture while the invasion is ongoing (though even then, I wouldn’t stop them if they wanted to). But Russian music has been such an important part of western classical music, at least since the 19th century. It’s wrong to cancel the entire repertoire.