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BY JAMES McQUILLEN Sticklers for chronographic detail know that the next millennium doesn't actually begin until midnight Dec. 31, 2000, but the world will proclaim the end of this one when the ball falls in Times Square the last day of 1999. And when that happens, "20th-century" will cease to mean what it used to; it will mean "old." This should be good for classical music, a realm in which the distinction between the current century and the rest of time looms large. Many factors contribute to the difficulty of filling concert and recital halls--increasing arts-and-entertainment competition, the wide availability of recordings, and dwindling exposure to serious music in schools--but image is a large part of the problem, and the rift between the traditionalists and the modernists is largely about image. The turn of the century (the last one, that is) has long provided a convenient line in the sand. On one side are the classics, on the other, the avant-garde. Potential listeners, particularly younger ones, are easily turned off by conservatism in programming (classical music is, like, so not hip), and many seasoned listeners are resistant to what they see as incursions of modernism into the halls of high culture. But the distinction is bogus, and the more that audiences approach the 20th with the same ears that they use for all the other centuries of music-making, the freer we will all be to appreciate the vast diversity of classical music for what it is. On the eve of the last full season of the 1900s, Portland is well on its way to achieving that goal. Ensembles of all sizes play music of many centuries to enthusiastic audiences, and even groups dedicated solely to modern music, such as Third Angle and Fear No Music, are no more on the fringes of culture than is the Portland Baroque Orchestra. The most prominent promoters of the classics (outside of the PBO, which innovates within a resolutely old repertoire) are also important outlets for the new, as a cursory glance at the schedules of the Oregon Symphony and Chamber Music Northwest will show. Of course, audiences don't approach music in the abstract; they need the people and places that make it happen, and there have recently been modest gains in that respect. Portland Pro Musica, a new choral organization, presented a promising first season, and Choral Cross-Ties, which had dramatically scaled back its activities and was having difficulty paying its singers, has just been revivified by a merger with Portland State University. Chamber Music Northwest added regular-season concerts last year, and other groups have enlarged their seasons. Reed College was the site of a gain for local classical music, but also of a loss. German professor Ottomar Rudolph, the indefatigable music lover and fund-raiser who singlehandedly built the Reed Music Matinees into one of Portland's most respected concert series, retired last spring, and the series itself followed suit. It remains to be seen whether something like it can be resurrected at Reed, but it appears that there will be a hiatus of at least a year. For some listeners, the loss is great; the Music Matinees were among the only free concerts in town, and certainly the only ones of such a high caliber. Rudolph was able to go out in style, however, by winding up the series in Kaul Auditorium, Reed's new hall and a long-awaited addition to the roster of local concert venues. With 750 seats, it fills the need for a mid-size hall, and it's an immeasurably vast improvement over the Commons, where poor ventilation necessitated open windows above noisy walkways, and the occasional dog would lope across the open area that served as a stage. Kaul's acoustic, like its aesthetic, is clean and dry; it's unforgiving of weakness or mistakes, but at the hands of a skilled ensemble such as the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, which played there last spring, it's beautiful, with a clear, warm and vibrant lower end. Unfortunately, it transmits audience noise as crisply as it does music, which is great if you're performing certain works of John Cage but a problem otherwise. It would be less of a problem if it weren't for the seating system, Kaul's one major flaw. Allowing the hall to accommodate multiple uses meant incorporating a collapsible seating structure, an enormous aluminum thing that's essentially an upscale version of your old high-school bleachers. Not only does it creak mercilessly with the slightest pressure and turn the sound of a dropped program into thunder, but it also, as desert travelers have said of sand dunes, seems to generate its own noise. If PBO fans can demolish it with their energetic, foot-stomping shows of appreciation, they'll be doing us all a favor. Of course, audiences are increasingly capable of making plenty of noise on their own. The most irritating trend in music is the invasion of concert halls by the same inconsiderate behavior that has already overtaken movie theaters. Interruptions by beepers and cell phones have become routine, and stifling a cough has gone out of fashion entirely--Yo-Yo Ma could have been forgiven for thinking that he'd stumbled onto the Portland Cold and Flu Festival when he played the Schnitz last fall. Even worse, some concertgoers think nothing of talking during performances; this was particularly apparent at Chamber Music Northwest concerts held at Catlin Gabel, where the low lighting is, not coincidentally, like that of a movie theater. Auditorium etiquette aside, though, the outlook for classical music is good. Undoubtedly, with continued exposure, listeners will embrace works they once considered difficult and hear familiar works with fresh ears. Given the talent, commitment and variety of Portland's musicians, that's as likely to happen here as anywhere else.
originally published September 9, 1998 |
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