The music world has been tying itself in knots over Ludwig van Beethoven recently. In the year of his 250th birthday, some are calling for a boycott of organizations that perform his music. Others are offering a counter-reformation of sorts, with hashtags and memes in defense of the celebration. Here are eight winning ideas and two counterproductive ideas to consider.
Counterproductive Ideas
Shaming Beethoven. Spending energy criticizing and even shaming people and organizations for performing Beethoven in the year of his 250th birthday seems misguided, and disconnected with industry practice. That’s not to say anyone should feel obliged to pay him any extra mind this year if they don’t want, but there is no need to criticize those who wish to or ask them to change their plans at this point. Like it or not, Beethoven’s music has had a deep impact on the trajectory of classical music writ large. He is a shadow-casting figure who wrote profound and far-reaching music, music that has served as the anthem for peace and freedom across a once-fractured Europe and has inspired children on every continent to take up instruments and glory in the music and the message.
Defending Beethoven. Equally, making a particular effort to defend Beethoven seems unnecessary, counterproductive, and lacking an intellectual foundation. First, any honest look at concert programming statistics will reveal that, even if Beethoven performances were cut in half and then in half again, he would still rank in the top 10 most performed composers this year. Cutting his performances merely in half would still leave him at number one. That’s a lot of Beethoven. Even in an average season, performances of his music are often more frequent than performances of every composition written by.a woman, combined. Given the scale of the expressions offered by those in opposition to the celebration, there is no chance that his big year will be diminished much. In short, the most-performed composer in classical music does not require a defense of any kind.
Source: Institute for Composer Diversity
Winning Ideas
Championing underperformed music that you love. The best path to seeing a change in classical music tastes is to spread your enthusiasm for music you don’t feel gets performed enough. I make no secret of my relatively newfound love for the music of Florence Price. I think it would be great if every musician and music-lover found a composer who they believe is deserving of more attention and drag people to concerts of their music.
Understanding music history. We must learn to abandon the idea of ”greatness” as an intrinsic quality of certain music and instead accept it as a historical fact. Beethoven’s music is great because historically, the culture surrounding it has decided that it is great. Other cultures don’t agree. In fact, plenty of classical musicians either don’t agree or aren’t as enthusiastic about it as one might imagine in the present day. It is perfectly acceptable to write about and marvel at the quality of Beethoven’s music! There is no doubt of that, and I join you in it. But, it is not possible to chauvinistically “prove” Beethoven’s superiority over other music. In composition, as in performance and in the arts generally, the best and most interesting comparisons are internal to the individual artist, and the best evaluations are done on the artist’s own terms.
Supporting new music. We cannot change a long history of sidelining women and persons of color as artists, but we can and we must take responsibility for being the change we want to see in the present generation. That starts with supporting new music, and we must especially take care that we support a diverse range of composers in all of our work. With the depth and breadth of quality music available in 2020, this is exceptionally easy to do.
Encouraging decision-makers. Conductors, curators, recitalists, presenters, and other key decision-makers should be encouraged and incentivized to improve the diversity of their concert programming. (Many great organizations, such as Sphinx Organization and Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy spend their resources doing exactly that.) For reference, the ideal time to express concerns for concert programming in 2020 would have been between 2017-2019, depending on the level of planning for a given orchestra or organization. Therefore, organizers should consider looking ahead to future anniversaries in the out-years and engaging in a dialogue with local organizations now. Discuss how those anniversaries (disproportionately organized for white men), if they are celebrated, might be conducted in conversation with the broad concerns many have for the lack of diversity in major concert halls.
Voting with our wallets. We do a great disservice if we push decision-makers to change their programming and publishing habits but then fail to actually distribute our economic resources to such concerts and works. That causes the business office and the board to believe, rightly or wrongly, that performing a diverse range of composers is a money-loser while performing Beethoven is bankable, and that message has a reach that no Twitter account can counteract. More importantly, it’s not the message we want to send. We must all strive to live our values and practice what we preach.
Performing Beethoven with love and care. One related complaint worth considering more frankly (I’ve seen this most among critics) is that many Beethoven performances are often performed without the energy and vitality that they seem to deserve. If we feel it important to perform Beethoven, we need to make certain to have something valuable and original to say with it. This is even more generalizable to: Only perform music you believe in, and only attend concerts of the same.
Celebrating #Beethoven250 with all the passion that you have. If you are inspired to perform an extra helping of Beethoven this season, do so with joy. If you decide to listen to all of his music in one year, this is a laudable project. If you are a first-year, first-generation university student performing Beethoven for the very first time this year, as many of my students are, then I hope you relish the experience and nothing diminishes that for you. If you lack enthusiasm for it, that’s OK too!
Considering a #Breakthoven. Once the 2020-2021 season has passed and the last of the birthday cake is eaten, consider if there are other composers who might be deserving of all of this attention in the following couple of years. Conductors: consider a new music festival or a season in which every concert contains music by women, say. Maybe the next time there is a major composer birthday we all want to celebrate, it will be one of theirs.
And with that, I leave you with two Symphonies No. 3 that I love. Listen to one, both, or neither.
