RSS SPIRIT

The God Juice Comes Out When I Rub These Together




I attended a chamber music competition for high school students not too long ago. You might imagine how much I looked forward to it. With dread and fear actually. That it was scheduled for Sunday morning did not improve its prospects. But perhaps too typically I found my self enjoying it very much. The young performers were great, the musical choices were inspired if not always well done.

Chamber music is classical music meant for private performance, or smaller venues. Composers write it for 3,4 and 5 players. The pieces are short, about 10 minutes or fewer. You can have any combination of instruments – piano, horns, strings and percussion. I heard a variety of compositions and arrangements from the dozen or so performances vying for a modest prize. My personal favorite was a piano, clarinet and cello combination; a nice mix of instruments.

It struck me as I watched well-outfitted young men and women march on, play and march off. This is an under appreciated format for classical music. Chamber music might be a way to get people excited again about classical music. Because let's face it, all is not well in this world. Classical music is increasingly marginalized and esoteric and, that worst ignominy, unheard.

Speaking as a classical music lover, I want it to succeed. But even hearing a world-class symphony these days is a mildly oppressive experience. There is too much reverence, too little noise. We sit in our gilded shell against a large orchestra and hear a rattling crowd who wheeze the death knell of a once glorious music.

Hyperbolic, perhaps. But nobody is talking about a classical revival, are they? I believe that possibly could change with a stealth chamber music strategy. We can woo people back to the wow inspiration of the best classical music. Chamber music I think has the right qualities to attract the modern crowd. It is short, its rhythms are recurring and solos are common. Chamber music critically is an intimate form. It is easier for an individual to approach. The audience can pick up individual instruments easier too. These are all elements familiar to popular music.

First we need to change the name. Frankly, chamber music needs a brand spiffying from top to bottom. For a name I am thinking, Roots Classic. We should unstiffen the look of the players and their surroundings. We do not need porcelain primness executing under a candelabra. We need brand new black Air Jordans conjuring in an abandoned warehouse.

For us classical music lovers, it is painful to watch music that can bring people to a wild and wonderful place degenerate into something brittle and compulsory. The "Roots Classic Movement #1" would attempt to break it down and get people again susceptible to those devilishly deceptively simple melodies.

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