Everyone knows that it’s the quality of the music that makes a concert. But the quality of its programme can help: if not to make, then certainly, to break a performance. Sit me down five minutes before a concert and give me a thin booklet with a pretty picture on the front and a list of the pieces to be performed, with one, two, or even three paragraphs of well-written, contextualising prose on each, briefly informing me about the dates and whereabouts of the composer when she/he/it/they penned the music, and any interesting ideas about what might’ve been spinning round in the inside of his/her/its/their skull like a tumble drier in order to provoke this outpouring of notes, and I’m in pre-concert heaven. Hell, you can even add a passage on the performer and what she/he/it/they like to do besides practise. Pop an advert on the back: it don’t bother me.
What DOES bother me (yes, here it comes) is glossy books so large they’ve got an ISBN, stuffed so full that they’re overflowing with pictures of places I should pay lots of money to look after my children, who will turn out so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and perfect that they will be able to come up with catchphrases like the ones emblazoned on these adverts, like ‘breeding inquisitiveness’ or ‘nurturing good nature’ or ‘potentially inspiring’; detailed analysis of every bar of music, telling me (in words, of course) exactly what the first four notes of the first subject does (they always rise, you know) and then what chord the next five notes imply, and then the next eight harmonic twists and turns, and then the integration of a rhythm the composer heard when he/she/it/they was in the queue for the toilet once, and what that means when she/he/it/they puts it in retrograde inversion; endless, endless, endless information on where this performer learned their art, and who taught them, and then who else taught them, and then who taught them in a very staged, impersonal, general sort of format, and then who they performed this with, and who they performed that with, and how many totally meaningless competitions they’ve come third in, and how many children they’ve inspired, and how many CDs of how many works on how many different labels they’ve recorded; and then charge me £4.99 for the privilege to have the option of reading this mass of literature and milk-teeth instead of listening to the music, and then throw it in the bin about 7 weeks later and then feel bad about not recycling it. And then half of the time they don’t get the order of the pieces right, and say Mozart died in 1971.
STOP using programmes to make me annoyed at how ridiculously copious everything about them is, and just let me go to a concert with good information on who and what and a little bit of why.
What DOES bother me (yes, here it comes) is glossy books so large they’ve got an ISBN, stuffed so full that they’re overflowing with pictures of places I should pay lots of money to look after my children, who will turn out so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and perfect that they will be able to come up with catchphrases like the ones emblazoned on these adverts, like ‘breeding inquisitiveness’ or ‘nurturing good nature’ or ‘potentially inspiring’; detailed analysis of every bar of music, telling me (in words, of course) exactly what the first four notes of the first subject does (they always rise, you know) and then what chord the next five notes imply, and then the next eight harmonic twists and turns, and then the integration of a rhythm the composer heard when he/she/it/they was in the queue for the toilet once, and what that means when she/he/it/they puts it in retrograde inversion; endless, endless, endless information on where this performer learned their art, and who taught them, and then who else taught them, and then who taught them in a very staged, impersonal, general sort of format, and then who they performed this with, and who they performed that with, and how many totally meaningless competitions they’ve come third in, and how many children they’ve inspired, and how many CDs of how many works on how many different labels they’ve recorded; and then charge me £4.99 for the privilege to have the option of reading this mass of literature and milk-teeth instead of listening to the music, and then throw it in the bin about 7 weeks later and then feel bad about not recycling it. And then half of the time they don’t get the order of the pieces right, and say Mozart died in 1971.
STOP using programmes to make me annoyed at how ridiculously copious everything about them is, and just let me go to a concert with good information on who and what and a little bit of why.