Archived Edition of Chromatic Musings

A good article about expanding classical music

Greg's train of thought is very clearly pitched towards classical music, but there's something here for any musician.

Instead, I want to ask why people in the audience don’t get more deeply involved with music itself. Someone, very likely (and of course understandably), might reply, “But we can’t do this—we’re not musicians!”

But I think the audience really isn’t given a chance. Here’s a small but telling example. Once, at the New York Philharmonic, I read program notes for some large-scale piece—I think it was a Bruckner symphony—that among much else told me that the work was scored for four horns. But right up there on the stage, in plain sight, were five! Any musician could tell you why that was. The horn is a difficult instrument, and the principal player has a sovereign privilege, to not play everything in his or her part. Thus a fifth horn sits in reserve, to fill in when needed.

But do people in the audience know this? Not likely, and the Philharmonic—along with just about every other orchestra—wouldn't think to explain, even when they face a stark contradiction between their program notes and what they put on the stage.