I just perused a recent article about the Florida Orchestra and some highly-publicized comments from subscribers about the contemporary programming that is being done by music director Stefan Sanderling.

I understand that some patrons don't care for hearing anything written after 1870 or so. Fine. But why do they complain so about hearing something new and/or dissonant?

There are plenty of concertgoers who love more modern music, and they (for the most part) put up with the Brahms symphonies without writing angry letters to the orchestra's management or the local music critic.

So, what makes the conservative patron more important than she who likes more progressive fare?More...

Oh, yes, I forgot - money. The older, more musically conservative patron has had more time to earn more money, and they might want to give some of it to the orchestra, maybe in the form of expensive season tickets in a good section of the hall, or by serving on the board of directors, or by giving a major donation.

While I'm on this subject, there are also many concert goers who will apparently not attend unless there is a big-name soloist playing a warhorse concerto. It hurts just a little bit as a member of the orchestra when there is an all-orchestral program and you look out and see a half-empty hall. What are we, chopped liver?

Norman Lebrecht, in his lurid tome Who Killed Classical Music? talks about the tyranny of the high-priced soloists and conductors (and the managers who control their careers) who command upwards of $75,000 per night, and how orchestras should overthrow this paradigm and find new, younger, more artistically interesting soloists that would provide much the same as the big guys (Perlman, Mutter, Ax, Ma, Barenboim, etc.) but at a cost that cash-strapped orchestras can afford.

Want to know how this worked out? Orchestras which tried to hire relatively unknown or B and C-level soloists found that audiences didn't want to come see and hear them. Orchestras that tried to cut costs further by showcasing the orchestra rather than a single personality also saw drops in attendance.

The fact is, people want to see the big names from their CD jackets at home, playing the pieces that are always on their mp3 player at the gym, or that the classical music station plays as they drive to and from work.

So we're back to a situation where Yo-yo Ma commands over $65,000 per night for a single concerto (not for a three-concert run, but for a single evening) and is in demand for nearly every orchestra's opening night gala year in and year out.

The problem is, orchestras such as the Oregon Symphony give 15 classical subscription concerts each season, and there aren't 15 mega-artists to sell out the house for every concert, and if there were, we probably couldn't afford to book them anyway - affordable ticket prices wouldn't be able to subsidize the fee of the artist, never mind the fact that you have to pay the orchestra and conductor as well.

It's just a shame that we have to resort to hiring the same five or six artists in order to be assured of making money on a concert, and that we keep going back to the well-trod path of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, and Beethoven in order to make the rest of the programs sell.

There's so much great music - even of the last two centuries - that we never get to play. For whatever reason, the surprisingly sophisticated Portland audiences don't seem willing to embrace works which are great and have a story to tell, but don't have humable tunes or a $70,000 a night soloist.

Yet I'm sure that there are quite a few patrons who look at each new season brochure and go "Nutcracker? WTF?? I'm not going to the ballet, I want to hear symphonic repertoire!" or wonder how many times they'll have to sit through Brahms' First Symphony before they get to hear John Adams' Harmonielehre or the Magnus Lindberg Violin Concerto.

But they don't get written up in the local paper.

Go figure.

I know this was posted several weeks ago, but it's a very worthwhile piece and deserves some comment.

I'm one of those atypical concertgoers who loves all-orchestral programs and while I love Mahler and Strauss as much as anyone, I definitely want to see programs with some edge and novelty.

What was so depressing about the comments about the Florida orchestra is that it shows that the attitude of many listeners isn't that they know what they like - but that they like what they know. And unfortunately, this attitude tends to drive too much orchestral programming. As a result any piece that's not well known tends to get lumped into the same category as the unlistenable, atonal "modern" music that many listeners (somewhat understandably) disdain. Over the years I've read about audiences in New York fleeing performances of such works as Nielsen's 4th or Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony. Or orchestras that won't program ANYTHING by Schoenberg because most listeners don't bother to distinguish between his pre-12-tone works and his earlier, more romantic ones. We all know of many wonderful, perfectly listenable pieces that rarely get played because they're not known. And they're not known since they don't get played...

What's also troubling is that audience avoidance of unfamiliar works suggests that too many look at the symphony concert is nothing but a form of entertainment. Of course it should be that, but it should be more. Years ago I worked at a ballet company, and their audiences were much more open to new works. It seems to be the nature of ballet. But the other critical factor was that the audience had come to trust the company, such that they were confident that even for works they didn't know, the company was sure to be presenting something of high quality and would do it well. Not enough orchestras seem to have gained that kind of audience trust - or perhaps even tried to develop it.

Now, to contradict almost everything Charles wrote and what I've written in response: One impression I have from years of concertgoing is that a lot of people don't even know what's on the program until they get in their seat and look at the program book. In which case you'd figure that an orchestra could be more adventurous in its programming, since the audience doesn't really come with any expectations - other than, I suppose, not to have to endure something they won't like.

As for high-priced brand-name soloists, I still wonder whether most actually justify their fees through increased ticket sales.

Thanks for the post.

Hi OSF - thanks for taking the time to comment.

Just one follow-up: as for the soloists and their fees, it really doesn't matter if their fees are offset by the ticket sales, what matters is the belief by managements that they will. And when I hear about guest conductors whose fees are $25,000 for a 3 night concert run, it really makes my blood boil.