Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019
I had a fascinating conversation a few weeks back with a PhD candidate in architecture. He is currently finishing up a dissertation on the construction of early 20th century Opera Houses, and it turns out that the main reason the opera houses in question were built was not for the furthering of the musical arts but for the furthering of the social lives of the upper class. For example. the allocation of space leans heavily toward private boxes, and the boxes loop all the way around from one side of the proscenium to the other so that people in those boxes can more easily see people in other boxes -- or rather, so that they can be seen by the people in the other boxes. For the people who paid for the houses to be built, going to the opera was a social event first and a musical event second, at best.
In modern times the economic elite have a different set of social pursuits that focuses much less on going to the theatre, and at the same time arts funding has been in steady decline. One wonders if there's a connection -- perhaps a portion of the missing money was really never primarily for the support of the arts anyway.
posted by Galen H. Brown
7:20 PM
