Pliable of the Overgrown Path, puts it nicely this week when he says that “What we need are virtuoso audiences”.
The way forward, he says, “ imaginative and intelligent
programming that will turn existing audiences into virtuoso listeners,
who then create a virtuous circle as marketing ambassadors spreading
the word that classical music is alive, kicking and happening.”
Virtuoso listeners are open to anything, and in his view we’ll get more of them by developing, extending and challenging existing audiences. (I would add: not in a medicinal way!)
The opposite is exemplified in one of the most sobering things I’ve ever heard and witnessed. I was sitting next to a lovely woman who told me that she enjoyed coming to orchestral concerts because she “loved to let the music wash over” her.
Here I was, yearning for more concerts that would be stimulating, exciting, vibrant, thought-provoking and challenging (and Beethoven is not exempt from this), and there she was, seeking nothing more than a kind of relaxation session in which she could unwind and think of nothing – not her cares, but also not the music. Saddest of all, during the first half of the concert she fell into a light doze.
Now I’m not criticising this concert-goer. I was glad that she found pleasure in orchestral concerts and that the concerts provided something in her busy and stressful life (she was a nurse) that she deeply wanted. She wouldn’t have gone to the trouble and expense of subscribing if they didn’t. But it made me sad. And if we’re at all concerned about the future of orchestras, then classical music as the ultimate chill-out isn’t it.
If this woman’s local orchestra had folded, she would have been sorry, of course; then she would have found some other way to unwind – perhaps bought a nice sound system, or found some other source of apparently soothing entertainment. But if orchestras are to thrive in the future we need audiences who care about and are stimulated by what’s actually happening on the stage and in their ears and minds. “Virtuoso listeners” isn’t a bad phrase for them.