Rediscovering the Showcase Concert

March 30, 2013March 10, 2008 by Reynolds

What’s this program about?

We forget how young the idea of a public concert is. Until around 1700, the idea of people assembling to play music not as part of a theatrical presentation or church service, but rather purely for listening, was almost unknown. Tulsa Symphony

Concerts in the 19^th Century included a lot of eating and drinking, gossip, and press reports on the personalities similar to today’s tabloids. Concerts were occasions for the hippest people to hear the newest, edgy music, filled with surprises and musical special effects.

Works discussed: Rimsky-Korsakov, Capriccio Espagnole; Sarasate, Zigeuenerweisen; Turrin, Fandango; Williams, Cowboys Overture; Brahms, Academic Festival Overture; Fauré, Elegie

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And Then There's This . . .

Vince Bielski, When Classical Learning Meets Public Education the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic. “Classical education, whose name gained traction in the 1980s to evoke the movement’s focus on liberal arts and the Western canon, is struggling to overcome local political opposition.”

Peter Wood, After College: The Coming Cultural Collapse of Higher Education. “Students graduate with a veneer of knowledge rather than a core. An increasingly obsolescent institution has wedded itself to an increasingly noisome cultural stance.”

Anthony Esolen, Heap Songs Upon Their Heads. “We are the most beauty-starved people, I am persuaded, who have ever trod the earth.”

Gregory Wolfe, The Wound of Beauty. “The time has come to bring beauty back, to give it the glass slipper and invite it to the prom.”