On Monday night, I left the kids with E and ventured into Harvard Square to hear Alex Ross, the author of The Rest is Noise, speak at the Harvard Book Store. I felt very cool indeed as I took my place among the graduate students and professorial types; kind of an out of body experience actually as I haven't been one of the academic crowd for so very long.
Ross spoke initially about himself and how he came to write such a book: as an undergraduate at Harvard he had been involved with the campus radio station and discovered many forgotten LPs among the station's library that introduced him to 20th sounds, both classical and popular. His stated mission is to make clear the connections between classical music and the rest of the 20th century, both politically and musically, but intertwining music with stories of governments, wars and personal histories. He clearly has a thorough analytical understanding of how music came to be the way it is today, and in what way each genre owes its dept to traditional Eurocentric music of the past.
As a speaker, Ross is remarkably eloquent. His book is written in a comfortable yet nourishing style, and his speech is the same. He stated that his book hosts three different conversations: the first is a discussion of the "explosion of style" that defined 20th century music; the second is the discussion of how "politics and music intermingle" with the composers "becoming soldiers"; and third, a discussion of the "lonely, outlying figures" like Sibelius who didn't define new styles or revolutionize sound and therefore are often overlooked in histories of the period.
The only thing that disappointed me was that he was not nearly as witty as I had hoped he'd be. This was important to me not because I was in the mood for jokes, but because I've felt through his writing that he's been able to lighten the atmosphere surrounding classical music and I was hoping his personality would convey an equal lightheartedness about his subject. I feel strongly that classical music could use some advocates who don't take things quite so seriously, who are able to convey the joy and all-consuming nature of music study without bogging it down in the ladder-climbing and self-satisfaction of the academic elite. Ross' writings have done the entire industry a huge service in this regard, but I still feel that academics, journalists and business people within the field of classical music could make further strides in readjusting the industry's perceived uber-seriousness.
Perhaps I'm looking for a public figure who, through sheer force of personality, could lift the industry out of its "obscure pandemonium" (as Alex Ross says) up to a place of mainstream recognition. With Pavarotti's death so recently behind us, his image comes to mind. Is there an academic or a business leader who could have a similar effect, making not only "Nessun Dorma" widely recognized but the whole language of classical music?
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