Saturday, September 20, 2008

Opening Concert at Longy last night

How’s this for food for thought? For those of you who were there, you recall that the first half of Longy’s opening night concert last night ended with Teddy Bor’s piece “Bach at the Double”. Funny to think that this decidedly merciless parody on the sacredness of “classical music” is a joke we are all privy to. If we go with the assumption that what can be parodied is what is widely known in the general populace, then what is common in our culture is the idea of classical music as serious business. This idea or image, then, is what classical music is to the general public: the affectation and pretension surrounding classical music has become its defining characteristic, not the great, “sacred” music itself.

This is just a musing of mine. What do you think? Does this ring true? Is there more to it?

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