Like orchestras all over the country, the Florida Orchestra appears to be fighting a two front war to advance the new music cause while also fighting to save its subscription base with a steady flow of Brahms, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Such a war shouldn’t be a lose-lose situation, but conservative subscribers in Florida seem to have set it up that way. Angry letters to the orchestra tell the tale:
“We truly were not impressed with this display of contemporary music,” wrote Carol Enters of Clearwater after hearing the Helps Symphony No. 2. “If, indeed, maestro Sanderling is impressed, let him mount a series all his own, so that those who appreciate such presentations can enjoy them . . . and those who do not will not have to suffer through them.”
New music lovers and the orchestra dutifully play and listen to subscriber favorites en route to their new music desert, but apparently subscribers are unwilling to expose their ears to the jarring idiom (sarcasm intended) of John Harbison and Oliver Messiaen.
John Fleming, the article’s author seems to like the programming choices as much as the Florida Orchestra’s subscribers:
The Harbison Double Bass Concerto and Carmina Burana was another puzzling match. I found the program of Bob Helps’ symphony and the Brahms First Piano Concerto especially strange, since Helps, the late USF professor and piano virtuoso, was no fan of Brahms.
Maybe so, but the works aren’t incompatible. Rather than a full menu of Mozart or Beethoven, audiences in Florida are getting variety. I heard Harbison’s Bass Concerto performed two years ago by Seattle’s own Jordan Anderson. My impression of the piece today is probably is as true as it was in 2006. The concerto is an engaging work, by a relevant composer, but is probably not destined to become part of the standard repertoire (but what bass concerto has?). The concerto stood side by side with Tchaikovsky’s “evergreen” 5th Symphony. The works didn’t clash but they did contrast nicely. The Dutch conductor Lawrence Renes, a week earlier, conducted a program featuring Bartok, Brahms and Stravinsky. Composers who hardly fit snuggly together.
One conductor in town told me his programing philosophy is variety. He thought of what he would like to hear if he were in the audience and he doesn’t like to hear a concert that sounds the same from start to finish. Variety is as good a philosophy as any and one that should give different listeners something to cherish. Except in Florida.
Zach Carstensen
oznitorres
James Bash
sultanascheherezade
Philippa Kiraly