Maritjn Sanders and Ian Buruma in conversation

Dear Ian,

 

In your letter you raise a few very interesting and intriguing points on behaviour during concerts and the role of contemporary music which I would like to elaborate on from the perspective of my practical background and experiences.

 

So the question is whether the strict etiquette in concert halls prevents people from visiting them. This reminds me of something Sol Hurok, who was a great impresario in New York, once said: if the public does not want to come nobody can stop them. Are people really so afraid of the social control in a concert hall that they rather listen to cd's or the radio at home than hear the same pieces in a concert hall? It is certainly true that many surveys have indicated that more people seem to enjoy classical music at home than in a live environment. The question is however what the reason is for that.

 

I think the key lies elsewhere, namely in the service we provide the general public or rather the absence of that service. Just think of what you have to do to visit a concert. You have to book tickets, maybe get a baby sit and, if you live away from the hall, travel to the centre of a town during rush hour, park your car, get something to eat and drink, and then get back home late at night. All of that requires a sometimes heavy financial investment and a lot of organisation and coordination.

 

The subject of this conference is the future of concert halls, and I strongly agree with you that a modern concert hall should aim at taking away as many of these obstacles as possible. Just take buying your tickets as an example. When I came to the Concertgebouw in 1982 the box office was open between 11 and 3, but not in the weekends. Now you can buy tickets on the internet which can also provide you with information on the programme, where to sit, how and where to obtain your dinner etc. etc. It has been proven that just providing the public with this information already increases your audience substantially.  But a truly modern concert hall should go further than that by creating opportunities for what you could call one stop shopping where park your car under the hall, have dinner there and for matinee concerts even book an on site baby sit. Another major “dissatisfier” for the occasional client one should address is the subscription system. I would like to come back to that in one of my next letters.

 

However once inside the hall, you are indeed urged to behave by sitting still, not cough, do not whistle along with the great tunes you hear, turn of your mobile telephones and so on. I want to relate to you an experience I once had some years ago when I visited with my daughter a pop concert by a soul singer I believe was called D´Angelo. We were standing somewhere in the middle of the enormous hall and everybody was dancing and singing along with the music. Around me was a group of young people who seemed to be big fans of the artist and enjoyed themselves tremendously until they turned to me quite angrily and said "don’t you like it?" I said that I did and then they looked at me very astonished and said " then why don't you dance along? ". To me this shows that classical concert halls are not the only places where behaviour is monitored by social control.

 

I think this Mr Abbing whom you just quoted underestimates the role of silence, which indeed is functional. Just as I hate it that in a museum people position themselves between you and the painting you are looking at or am irritated by the sound guides which are buzzing all around you it is indeed bothering me when any sound around me distracts my attention to the music I want to listen to intensely. And I am sure I am far from alone in this. There have been experiments with concerts during people are encouraged to speak, walk around, drink and eat, and they have all failed. When the Concertgebouw was opened in 1888 it was more like a cafe chantant with tables between the chairs and waiters serving drinks and dinners. Already within a year this was abolished.

 

Ian, I have been talking so much on these topics that I have to come back to the role of contemporary music in a next letter. In the meantime you could maybe elaborate on what you wrote in your last letter on how to make programming more attractive? And what about the role of an orchestra in an environment which becomes more multi media minded all the time? And especially, what would be the motives with which we could stimulate our politicians to bring back music education in our school systems? I do not want to push you in any direction, but I would be very curious about your views on these topics.

 

Best wishes

Martijn