Posted by Of course... on June 10, 2003 at 08:44:59:
In Reply to: Re: Re: NY Phil moving to Carnegie? posted by js on June 09, 2003 at 23:43:42:
the NY Phil is not going to spend millins to help out the Louisville Orchestra or the San Antonio symphony. What I meant is that it's a shame that arts institutions and local governments in many places are still spending massive amounts of money on venues when the organizations that will play there are in such trouble. Below is a portion of an article from the New York Times last Sunday. I haven't heard hundreds of concerts in each of the venues (more like dozens), but I've also played many times in each of the halls, and I agree with the writer's assesment:
...MOREOVER, for the Philharmonic, moving 10 blocks south and merging with Carnegie Hall offers no guarantee that the orchestra will address the problems its critics have long cited, notably its cautious programming and status quo thinking. I, for one, have long felt that what ails this often recalcitrant institution could be fixed through dynamic artistic leadership without so much as repainting Avery Fisher Hall.
Its acoustics, though far from ideal, are hardly disastrous. The sound lacks warmth and clarity, but it's not dry and dead. If anything, it's overly bright. Vibrant music-making comes through just fine. On great nights — during Kurt Masur's magisterial account of Brahms's "German Requiem" with the Philharmonic after Sept. 11, for example, or the three electrifying Berlioz programs Colin Davis presented with the London Symphony in March — few audience members think about the hall's acoustics. The players are always pained to hear the Philharmonic compared unfavorably with other world-class orchestras that perform at Carnegie. How can anyone expect them to sound as good in such a compromised hall?
But don't they understand the crux of the comparisons? How the orchestra sounds at Avery Fisher Hall is less important than what it chooses to play and how it sees its mission. Because music lovers in New York can routinely hear the historic orchestras of Europe in repertory that is their birthright, as with the Berlin Philharmonic playing Beethoven under Claudio Abbado in 2001, the Philharmonic faces pressure to offer something equally distinctive, something New Yorkish, along with its accounts of the great masterpieces.
Leonard Bernstein's answer was to champion music by living American composers, though his audiences heard plenty of Haydn, Beethoven and Mahler as well. To make sense, this move must be seized by the Philharmonic as a chance not just to enhance its aural impact but to jolt its artistic metabolism.