Something that seems on the up and up lately in classical music concert repertoire is the unification of the West, East, South, and North in novel ways. No longer are programs dominated by the Western classical modality, and instead "classical" traditions of other ethnic and cultural backgrounds are being integrated into the larger schema of music, a refreshing development given the unfortunate connotation of "classical" with the Germano-centric sphere and post-Medieval modalities. Although the "Classical" period began in the middle of the 18th century, what is and is not "classical" is not more aesthetic than anything else, lacking a coherent methodology except the utilization of certain methodological and structural concepts that have gained the identity of classicism. Utilizing such a hard-line approach towards what's under the "classical" umbrella, if one appeals to chronology rather than aesthetics, would only really begin in the 18th century once music stopped becoming something ritualistic and instead became something pleasurable. Can the "classical" exist within the confines of sacred music? I would argue no, as sacred music's ontology is not designed, nor 'should' be designed, to induce earthly diatonic pleasure but rather to elevate and virtuously illuminate something beyond even what the music is able to convey.
What I'm saying here is that what I consider the "classical" is wrapped up in on one end the purposeful production and dissemination of pleasure by the composer at hand, while on the other end the utilization of definable constructions and theoretical methodologies that provide the composer with a socially-endorsed roadmap guaranteed to produce...pleasure. Argue all you want but when discussing Neoclassicism vs. Romanticism, in a way the later category was less about the production of pleasure than the former but it still adhered to the latter tenant of my definition, and in one way Neoclassicism is less "classical" than the busty oeuvre of the Romantics. Similarly, serial composers were attempting to redefine our relation to world of music through the augmentation of the perfection (imperfection) diptych that still colors much of how we hear music (i.e., consonance [tonal] and dissonance [atonal]) into something akin to if Monet and Pollock had a child (perhaps seen in Rothko if I'm perfectly honest, although this association may be hard to perceive...think destruction of innocence and the attainment of (som)/(no)thing]. Thus, in the subterfuge of semantics contemporary audiences are learning to retrain themselves to hear not "classical" music but the fabrication or facade of "classical" through the lense of (dis)similarity. In short, what I'm saying could be understood as: Construct as necessary to define the difference but followed by unification.
Where did these thoughts come from today? After having attended the first concert of the "Apollo Sessions" hosted at St. Georges, I realized very quickly that there must be a greater emphasis on not simply diversifying concert repertoire (too easy!) but instead the didactic exhibition of transcultural unification. The "classical" exists everywhere, time now to show it! Perhaps it's because I am working on a presentation centered around the theme of musical cosmopolitanism and the growing access to non-domestic musics via digital technologies but the idea that there is a global musical history is fascinating to me. What this then means is that Music Historians, Musicologists, and the like can keep on describing and engaging in dialectics around the conventional chronology of music, all the while adding to the mix the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Neoclassical, Modern, Postmodern, Contemporary of the global community. If this is done, and audiences come to appreciate that these epochs were just as lively and historically "real" across the globe as they were in Russia, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom, and the better-documented regions of the world, then I see a much fuller future ahead for the musical arts. It's not about deconstruction but instead reconstruction, better-construction, updating, reformulating, reconceiving, and harmonizing.
The concert in question combined Western and Eastern classical traditions in a really impactful way, the first "act" (this word intimating a sense of specticality I'm not intended) was the Speranza Wind Quintet (Uni. of Bristol music students) and an (unfortunately unnamed) Hindustani classical singer (ostensibly Uni. of Bristol student but her appearance was unplanned according to the concert's program). While the afternoon concert was slated to be only classical repertoire from a diverse array of composers (early Classical period to late Romanticism), the diversion from the schedule perhaps was more impactful than they actually realized AND much more seminal, even in this informal and unscripted manner. To cut a long and winding blog post short: What must be done in concert repertoire is not musical diversity but stylistic multiplicity. If it's baroque, showcase the global baroque!
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