Stephen Marc Beaudoin takes a look at this year’s OSO programming, and he doesn’t like much of what he sees. Here’s a brief sample:
The Oregon Symphony is playing fifteen Classical Series concerts this season. Five of the programs are terrible. I will hasten to add that an additional two of them are mediocre.
Of the fifteen, I find but three of them to be really inspired and hey, three out of fifteen is a good place to start, Oregon Symphony. The rest I could take or leave (but won’t attend). So on the whole, I find more than half of the Symphony’s Classical Series concerts to be utterly and thoroughly uncompelling. I’m sorry, more than uncompelling: dead on arrival. (Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Tchaik make a number of appearances)
Read the complete post here.
It’s one of those posts that have me straddling the fence – I’m not so much opposed to the content as in the way it is presented. I do have to say that I’m shocked that anyone would hate the Brahms Violin Concerto so much, but it is possible that Anne Midgette has made anti-Brahms sentiment the critical default mode.
Part of the puzzle of putting together programs is that to get a “name” artist, you have to book several seasons ahead. At that time, there is often no repertoire attached to the artist – you don’t know exactly what the artist will have on offer until maybe a year ahead of time. So, while Josh Bell could play Corigliano or Bernstein, he wasn’t offering those pieces this year, so we got Mendelssohn.
What you see this year is programming that is trying to tread a delicate balance between being stimulating for the cognoscenti and at the same time having no small amount of populist appeal (i.e., butts in seats).