Critical Thinking

I meant to blog about this yesterday, but oh well. Two nights ago I heard Danial Barenboim interviewed on WFMT 98.7, the program "critical thinking". I didn't have my audio recorder handy, so these aren't direct quotes, but they're pretty close and I think accurately reflect his opinions. In regards to music managent

I don't understand why administrators say they are "making music". Nothing is more insulting to the orchestra and artists. Managing a symphony is like managing which distributors you want to sell Coca-Cola to.

On the increasing number of popular songs being played in symphony halls

This is only treating the symptom and not the disease. The only thing you get from playing popular music is a few people who otherwise would not have been there. The problem is music education in schools. 95-98% of people reach the age of 25 without any direct contact with music. If you drag such a person to a Beethoven symphony they will get nothing from it.

On biographies of famous composers

The problem with these biographers is that most of them are not musicians. Who cares what Bach preferred for breakfast or how his wife washed his clothes? It's not as if he composed from 9-5 and just then started living. He lived in the music