:: Richard Barrett's blog ::

:: Saturday, March 29, 2003 ::

Trying to figure out a time when Megan and I can go to Bloomington, Indiana so that she can see the place before we move there, and maybe try to get an idea of certain logistics - like a place to live, for example. One of the last two weekends in May will probably be it - Memorial Day weekend will be a marginally less expensive flight, but other things might be more expensive. Who knows.

Singing Bach cantatas and realizing a) these were written to be sung in church b) he wrote one of these a *week* really opens a window into just how different of a place music had in the culture of the day. "Serious" music of the time was alive, it was vibrant - the understanding wasn't limited to to a few pieces, most of which being older than fifty years or so. The culture was such that people heard something new all the time. I fundamentally believe that we've taken the concert halls and the opera stages and made them museums, and that's why the audience is dying off.

We can't call it "classical" music anymore. "Serious" music, fine. Art music, sure. But by (inaccurately) calling it all "classical", a barrier is automatically erected between the music and the audience, because it creates an image of Something Old to which the audience is paying respect rather than enjoying.

My challenge to the churches and the schools of our day: put music back in! Churches, hire COMPOSERS again, not just organists, so that new music can be written! Schools, make music part of basic education again so that the necessary seeds may be planted in the heads of the Beethovens and Mozarts of tomorrow. We have no Bachs today because there is less and less of a musical infrastructure in our society to cultivate those abilities in the minds and souls that could potentially create great things. Otherwise the concert halls will remain museums in which fewer and fewer people will be interested.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 6:18 PM [+] ::
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I've been singing Bach all night. If you're a solo singer, Bach can be what really separates the men from the boys. Any two-bit tenor can sing "Ev'ry valley shall be exalted" from Handel's Messiah, but put "Erwaege wie sein blutgefaerbter Ruekken in allen Stuekken" from the St. John Passion in front of him and watch him quake with fear. That includes me, too.

A dear friend of mine, Steve Wall, who has sung solos in Bach oratorios almost longer than I've been alive, suggests that if you sing the right notes, rhythms, and words, a conductor will generally leave you alone in Bach, because he's put basically everything he wants on the page. So maybe it's time for some demystification of ol' Johnny Brook. The "historically informed" people have helped to throw up a smokescreen around Bach and his contemporaries that accomplishes little more than making Bach scary to the soloist, and inaccessible to the audience. Bach's music doesn't need to be scary - it's beautiful, inspiring, soul-searching, and mathematical if you're into that, but I don't think he intended to frighten his soloists. Since he was composing for the church - writing Masses for the masses, you could say - I don't think he intended to alienate his listeners, either.

That said, learning all of Bach's right notes, as Steve suggests, can be hard enough sometimes.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 12:39 AM [+] ::
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:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 12:31 AM [+] ::
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