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Vol. XIX No. 6 March 2004 |
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 Dear Editor: Compare ticket sales for programs of exclusively 17th- to 19th-century works with those that venture beyond. I am in a large population of music lovers ready and eager to attend more concerts, who are put off by recently composed works that are stuck into the program to—what? educate us?—in the middle of the program, so we'd have to walk out on Baroque, Classical, and Romantic works in order to avoid them. We are not (merely) antediluvian, we are not perverse, we are not cantankerous; we know our music, we have tried contemporary music, we have been rewarded with hours and hours of displeasure, and we won't take it any more. And we are legion. If young composers are writing what people cannot understand or love or bear, you can wait till the 22nd century in the hope that orchestras will still exist and that the enlightenment will dawn on the latest generation of unwashed mortals. Or, before suggesting so corporately and cavalierly that musicians "re-examine" their meager salaries and that government is the main culprit, music directors—and Juilliard—might re-examine the discrepancy between what you're teaching and playing and what people want to hear.
Aaron Alexander
Editor's Note: Far from suggesting that orchestral
musicians re-examine their "meager salaries," Judd's proposition was directed
toward "[those] of us who are paid rather nicely—soloists and conductors." His
intention was, in fact, to raise those meager salaries by eliminating the wide
discrepancy.
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