Spring Break
Students can find hidden joys in classical music
Shea Pedersen
Issue date: 3/13/09 Section: Forum
Right before the beginning of a concerto is nearly the best part. Hearing the slivers of strings in the background of excited chatter as the composers tune their instruments sends me back to my childhood days of watching Deems Taylor talk with Mickey Mouse in my once-favorite movie, "Fantasia."
However, as I sat down to prepare myself for the Leipzig String Quartet performance in the LaSells Stewart Center last Wednesday, I noticed something was missing.
It dawned on me that the low murmur a crowd makes while waiting for a show to start was almost nonexistent. Not only was there a surprisingly low number of college students attending - almost none in fact, despite free admission - but many teachers and members of the community apparently decided to stay home as well.
Why is it that the classical art has lost its appeal in modern times?
In my opinion, our generation has become so uncultured that we can't bear to open our minds for a single hour. We only find entertainment in such mindless activities as watching television and playing video games. We claim to enjoy music, but our tastes have been reduced to only that which is found at frat parties.
Once the quintessential soundtrack for society, classical music is now sadly and primarily regarded, if regarded at all, as music for doctor waiting rooms, old people and pretentious English majors who sip black coffee and read The New Yorker.
Although I fall into the latter category as I write from a biased viewpoint, I can assure you that classical symphonies will continue to evolve and be amazing - whether there are people to witness them or not. No longer just defined by the Baroque and Romantic periods the style was stuck repeating for so long, classical music has now taken on a completely new and interesting form.
To my fellow music snobs, I may seem a little late in identifying this shift, but until the Leipzig String Quartet, I had never really witnessed anything truly outside the beautiful, yet definite, confines into which classical music seemed to always fall.
However, as I sat down to prepare myself for the Leipzig String Quartet performance in the LaSells Stewart Center last Wednesday, I noticed something was missing.
It dawned on me that the low murmur a crowd makes while waiting for a show to start was almost nonexistent. Not only was there a surprisingly low number of college students attending - almost none in fact, despite free admission - but many teachers and members of the community apparently decided to stay home as well.
Why is it that the classical art has lost its appeal in modern times?
In my opinion, our generation has become so uncultured that we can't bear to open our minds for a single hour. We only find entertainment in such mindless activities as watching television and playing video games. We claim to enjoy music, but our tastes have been reduced to only that which is found at frat parties.
Once the quintessential soundtrack for society, classical music is now sadly and primarily regarded, if regarded at all, as music for doctor waiting rooms, old people and pretentious English majors who sip black coffee and read The New Yorker.
Although I fall into the latter category as I write from a biased viewpoint, I can assure you that classical symphonies will continue to evolve and be amazing - whether there are people to witness them or not. No longer just defined by the Baroque and Romantic periods the style was stuck repeating for so long, classical music has now taken on a completely new and interesting form.
To my fellow music snobs, I may seem a little late in identifying this shift, but until the Leipzig String Quartet, I had never really witnessed anything truly outside the beautiful, yet definite, confines into which classical music seemed to always fall.
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Daniel
posted 5/22/09 @ 3:22 PM PST
Shea, you make a good point in suggesting that more and more society's appreciation for the arts is decaying and the cultural void is being replaced by mainstream entertainment. (Continued…)
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