The near future of the arts

[Atash Hagmahani]

A few nights ago I listened to the radio on my combo FM radio/MP3 player. It was Johannes Brahms' Fourth Symphony.

Beautiful.

Brahm's music tends to be "texturally rich". Lots of themes weaving in and out on different instruments. The first movement of the 4th symphony is kinda dreamy. As the movements go on, they get increasingly "agitated" until the fourth goes out with a bang.

Today they were playing something that they very rarely play on the radio: Sibelius'es Violin Concerto. I guess there is a reason why: its debut was a disaster, due to the man Sibelius had in mind to play it being unavailable multiple times, and it being hard enough to play that relatively few violinists can.

There is a section of the first movement for which the violinist must maintain a trill with the 1st and 2nd finger, while playing a second moving line on the 3rd and 1st fingers. It ends with a series of octave double-stops played in fast succession. There are also quick slides from first to 7th position, a series of quick broken chords, tricky double-stop sixths, and glissandi with double-stops.

The third movement is also devilishly hard to play. Despite the technical difficulty, it is actually quite tuneful.

I suppose that we can enjoy this stuff while our CD and MP3 players last. Live performances are still available in some cities but not others, and they will become increasingly a luxury that ever fewer can afford. A lot of orchestras will probably go bankrupt, as they are not very financially secure in the best of times.

The Brahms piece I mentioned dates from the 19th century, when Europe was industrializing, and there were no major wars after the Napoleonic wars concluded (the Franco-Prussian War was mercifully brief). It was a time of peace and prosperity, in which modern orchestras could be afforded. The Sibelius dates from the 20th century, when expectations were still high tho the financing of orchestras started becoming an issue--in part perhaps due to the fall in popularity of classical music.

I suspect that the future is bleak for any arts that cost too much to perform or to display. (oddly, in Korea they have a museum that houses exactly 2 Rodin sculptures).

All my kids take musical instruments that work reasonably well as solo instruments. Preferably portable ones, though we do have a piano and all of them can at least sort of play it (the boys fairly well). We're scaling everything down.

I would like to compile a library of good solo pieces.

[Watcher]

Sometimes,  in times of hardship, people turn toward high arts as consolation.

During the 2nd world war the impoverished mining communities of South Wales became well known for the rapturous reception for touring productions of Shakespeare, while there was a flowering of painting amongst the heavy industry workers of the North of England.

In times of plenty, frivolity and decandence has reign.  Harder times might well lead to difficulties for some prestitigous institutions that depend on high levels of funding, but i think a lot of these institutions are actually irrelevant or even negative in their impacts on culturally enriching society.  In the UK we have the 'Arts Council' which distributes taxpayers money to artists and art institutions.  In my opinion it leads to a handout mentality and a throttling of geniune creativity as everything is viewed through the prism of what will attract and maintain government support.  Those handouts retard our culture.

If you have read 'The decline of the West' you will be familiar with the idea that we are in an age of decadent and faddish cultural sterility.  A sharp downturn might ironically result in a resurgence of true artist creativity.