Well, the video for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s performance at Carnegie Hall has finally been posted! On a Friday evening, in great need of entertainment (and perhaps enlightenment), there I went, with much anticipation of good music and good spirits.

Let me preface my comments by saying that this is a noble venture to broaden the appeal of classical music to the great masses. Certainly the orchestra will reach many around the world; maybe its contents will be appealing to new listeners. But it is not for refined palates.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra will not be replacing professional orchestras, live concerts or professional recordings any time soon. Its problems are fourfold. First, the programming is questionable. The concert started a lacklustre piece that was supposedly written by Brahms, then some very odd 20th century percussion piece played on plastic bins, and then around the world. Second, the players, while reasonably adept for amateurs, are not professionals. At best their sound was sluggish and inoffensive. They lack the crisp timing and the general quality of instruments required in a serious orchestra. Their rendition of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkryies’ conjured images of fat lolling women around a TV, rather than the fierce thundering warrior-maidens of Germanic legend. However, this is not the fault of the musicians; a few more days of rehearsal would have been helpful. Third, the sound quality fell below concert-level expectations. For an ensemble of 96, they should have produced a deafening sound. Instead I found myself straining to hear the grating of the strings, then wincing when I heard the false notes.

Fourth, and most disappointing, the production quality was amateur as well, with jerky animations and miscued video clips. In one instance, YouTube viewers were left staring at the darkened image of the conductor’s head, and missed out completely on another, soundless video which the conductor was watching. Given the hype and the backing institutions, I would have thought that more emphasis and thought would have been put into the production. Sadly, the production flaws detract from this marvellous convergence of so many musicians from different places. Ultimately all that was produced was a very well promoted YouTube video with a symphony orchestra.

Update: Here is the New York Times review on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.

I stumbled across this link to the inaugural YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which will be playing at Carnegie Hall on April 15th. Young artists from around the world auditioned by submitting a video through YouTube. A committee selected the finalists, who were announced in March. Tomorrow they start rehearsals.

In an associated article featured in Time, YouTube (and its owners at Google) initiated this project, and they’ve managed to accumulate several well-respected symphony orchestras as sponsors. Hopefully it will shine a spotlight on classical artists and classical music in general, and bring together a new generation of previously disparate artists and music lovers in the digital world.

The lineup of the Toronto Summer Music Festival has just been posted. It seems promising. Check it out!

The last few concerts and gatherings I’ve attended have shaken my faith in the concert hall. Not that I was much of a believer to begin with.

First, the observations:

• Miserable, drab locations with poor acoustics and minimal creature comforts hurt most small-scale, ‘intimate’ venues. Anything on the street, or in a mall is drowned out by the pointless cacophony of the background traffic; anything in a poorly designed church deadens the sounds before it even arrives. 
• Many performers seem, well, like they could use some more rehearsal time before appearing on stage. This is particularly true in any chamber or orchestral music. Aligning various musical visions takes time. 
• Lack of specificity in the programmes detract from the performance. Going to a Mozart concert to hear Random Piece X is not nearly as exciting as going to a Mozart concert to heard the Jupiter Symphony. 
• Live performers make mistakes. Part of this ties in with the practice time.

This boils down to value for time and money. If I spend $80 and two hours of time — which can never be returned — on any artist, I would like to get my money’s worth.  The live music experience is a luxury in the day of high-fidelity speakers and high-quality recordings. I don’t wish to spend my resources on missed notes and sulky performers and dubious interpretations when I could just as well be home, enjoying definitive recordings from the masters of the last eighty years. 

Furthermore, classical music has lost much of its cultural and social relevance. In the day of the great composers, classical music was the dance music (of the middle and upper classes). Operas and major concerts served not only as entertainment, but also as social gathering points. Much of that has been lost in the modern classical music establishment in North America. Most attendees are older couples, perhaps with some children, and these units do not seem to socialize with each other. Somehow classical music is no longer a group phenomenon, but something disconnected and increasingly hard to justify in the present-day world.

If you happen to be in Ottawa, Canada you should consider taking advantage of a rare opportunity to catch a performance of The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk M. Górecki. It will be performed in Ottawa November 10, 2005 at 8 p.m by the University of Ottawa Orchestra. Here are the details:

University of Ottawa Orchestra with Maria Knapik, soprano
David Currie, conductor
In Collaboration with the Embassy of Poland
St. Joseph’s Church
151 Laurier Ave. East, Ottawa