Is there a crisis of Classical music - yes or no? Edwin Baumgartner of the Wiener Zeitung seems to believe so and his most recent article is a provocative one. In his view, the planned "Mega-Event" on May 8th, when the Philharmonies of Vienna and Berlin will jointly perform Mahlers Symphony No 6, is a cause for concern. All problems started with Karajan, Baumgartner contends. It was him, who placed the artist before the work and shied away from world premieres, concentrating instead on recycling the old repertoire. Conductors, the author feels, should be "servants of musical history". The important figures, to him, were Bernstein, Abbado, Gielen and especially Boulez - most of the others seem to have "a lack of culture" (this is actually a Boulez-quote we can not take any responsability for). Baumgartner concludes with an implicite demand: Music will not stay vivid by Show-events organised like soccer games, but by constantly performing and supporting new works.

We don't want to impose our opinion on you too much but we have the strong feeling that this man is clearly NOT a musician and simply doesn't like a good game of soccer. Take a look at our "15 Questions"-section and find out that young artists refuse to be taken as "servants of musical history" any longer and see no point in performing, if they are refused the right of putting their own personality into the music. There is no such things as old and new repertoire, they would claim, but merely exciting new interpretations or musical mimicry (as Emily Hayes so perfectly put it). And to search for negative vibes in a move to break open the otherwise so strictly seperated world of big orchestras seems a bit negative to put it mildly. Whether or not Karajan was helpful to "musical history" may be debatable, but he was hardly the coffin nail to culture.

And now decide for yourself.

Source: Wiener Zeitung