I live in a relatively small city - small in size as well as small in the sense that it is culturally limited in what it has to offer. I often miss the big cultural hubs of London, Berlin and Paris, but one thing that is good about living in a smaller place is that you have this constant feeling that you really have to take everything that's on offer and try and get to everything - all the events - that are going on. When I go to London, I often feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice and variety of things to do, and this can easily result in me not doing anything at all, or feeling bad that I missed that concert or that exhibition. However, here in Hannover, I can pretty much see everything I want to see, and this is nice!
Last Friday I went to a wonderful concert in a gorgeous concert hall that I had never been to before. The hall was the Galerie of the Herrenhausen Gardens, and was very interesting; the walls are covered in beautiful classical murals, the ceiling is intricately designed and there are grand chandeliers hanging from it. The audience was full, about 200 people or more, which also gives you an idea of the size of the hall - it's really perfect for music concerts.
The concert was given by one of my favourite violinists - Isabelle Faust. She played a really interesting programme, consisting of a solo Bach sonata (Partita in B minor) and following this, with no pause for any clapping, she performed Luigi Nono's 'La Iontanza Nostalgica'. The Nono is a very interesting work for violin and sound engineer; there are 8 separate recordings of Faust playing various different sound effects and snippets of music, and in the hall there are 8-10 music stands dotted around the place. Faust moves between the music stands and plays a little from each one on top of the sound recordings, which are controlled by the sound engineer. I think there is an idea that the artist is directly faced with herself and her own playing but there is also an improvised feel to the performance of the work which is very refreshing. Overall, I found the performance hugely effective, and also want to mention that I am still thinking about the beauty of her Bach playing, which was hugely special and very touching. She has such an incredible understanding of this music, and through her playing I could feel her own emotion about it, which I found it very inspiring.
At some points throughout the concert, which was about an hour and a half long (with no interval for this particular kind of performance), I looked around at my fellow audience members. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see firstly that the majority of the audience was over the age of 70 with only a handful of young students in the crowd, and secondly that many people had fallen asleep! I say I am not surprised because neither of these things are new. I can't remember ever going to a classical concert where there was a more even balance in age range of the audience, from young to old, let alone even more on the young side than the old. And I have witnessed many, many people sleeping during concerts, even at my own!
It is always very sad to me that I don't see more young people at concerts. I know there could be a few reasons for this; ticket prices don't tend to be cheap - which already eliminates young people from being able to attend, the publicising of the concert is often not really targeted to young people - so they don't even know the concert is on, or where to find out what's on, and perhaps classical music concerts are simply unappealing to young people. However, when I think about that last one, I think that the reasons classical concerts can be unappealing to young people are to do with it being an 'elite' kind of thing, and the rigidity of sitting in a quiet hall and only clapping when you are supposed to is just not something that interests a lot of young people.
As for audience members falling asleep.... there are definitely reasons for this happening too, which probably stem from the age issue. I have always had the feeling, when attending classical concerts, that a large portion of the audience, coincidentally (or not) at the older end of the age spectrum, go to concerts to be seen, rather than because they are actually interested in the concert itself. It is almost like it is a fashionable thing to do, a social event for their calendars, which is completely infuriating! Before the concert began last Friday, a family siting in front of us caught my attention. The father was telling his young daughter (the only child in the audience) to stop fidgeting, sit still and watch the concert properly. About a quarter of the way into the concert, he himself had fallen asleep! However when the concert finished, he was very hearty and loud in his applause, as if he had loved every minute of the performance.
Perhaps, it is wrong to let such minor deficiencies in other people's characters get to me. Maybe it is because I am a musician myself that it bothers me so much, as I know all the hours, months, years of preparation that has gone on behind the scenes so that this concert could take place. Maybe it is also because I am a poor student, and I feel lucky to be able to attend such amazing performances - it is a gift! Delacroix wrote in his journal (which I have talked about in a different blog post) how much this kind of behaviour at concerts infuriated him. His way of dealing with it was to think that it was actually all one big plan - there was some angel who wanted him to have the most special evening, and so filled the audience up with people so that he wouldn't get lonely, although the concert itself was just for him. Maybe this is a rather egotistical view of this issue! But there is also something poetic about it.
I think artists these days are really passionate about breaking these issues and the 'typical' concert go-ers behaviour. It is really important that young people feel welcome and get involved, and there really are some amazing performances going on, like the one I saw on Friday, that should be available for everyone. Developing concerts in new kinds of spaces and changing the structure of typical classical concerts is a very current issue, and one that I am very interested in - I have a lot of ideas and will definitely be writing about this more in the future!Labels: Culture, Music, Thoughts
