At the risk of rapidly diminishing returns, though, I do want to make a couple of points:

* I think you are probably right about the blog, and while it raised many of these issues, it was never really the subject of my concern.

* If Eileen Farrell felt that she was marketed in a way that had nothing to do with her actual personality, and that this was a non-issue for her in her life, that is fine, of course. My issue is that marketing and PR have become so pervasive, I often feel that they threaten to become the driving forces behind artistic decisions. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve been told that sometimes musical considerations have to take a back seat to commercial ones.

* My other major concern is about how the audience relates to the performer. When a person comes to the concert for the “brand,” he is coming with manufactured expectations which impede his ability to have a genuine response to what he hears. In this way, I worry that branding is a real interference in the relationship between a performer and an audience. Since this relationship is at the heart of the concert-going (and -giving) experience, it is a huge issue.

Not getting any lighter, I’m afraid. Better quit while I’m behind…

Even from the purely financial point of view, sacrificing musical considerations for short term sales will be counter-productive in the longer term, unless you want a career as a Liberace. Better to accept a smaller income and stay honest. Serious listeners will stay with you.

The problem lies in persuading agents, record companies and PR people to accept smaller incomes (and all their incomes are extracted from yours).

As for how the audience relates to the performer: each member of the audience makes his own personal contract as to how he is reacting or not reacting. One is perhaps recalling the pleasure of the lamb shank he had for dinner; another wishing the artist were performing Chopin and not this Bartok thing; and still another transfixed with pleasure at this modulation into G minor. You cannot control the terms of that contract; you cast your musical seed as best you can and let it fall how it may. Your business is casting as rich a seed as possible.

I was a high school teacher for many years. It amazes me when former students inform me that he or she has majored at university in my subject because I so “inspired” them, when my memory is that when in my class, he or she was off on a distant planet. You just never know.

Incidentally, I want to add that I value your artistry very highly. In Japan (where I lived and taught for a number of years) contemporary artists of high accomplishment are sometimes designated as “National Living Treasure” by the government. If such a title were bestowed by the American government, you would be well on your way as a candidate. Thank you for your ideals and dedication.

Rex

This discussion about branding is very much along the lines of what Naomi Klein discusses in her book “No Logo”. She explains how in the last few decades corporations began shifting their innovation from making a better product to doing better marketing and branding. I think this pervades all aspects of our culture, including music. I’m heartened to see that a major label such as EMI is still hiring real musicians to record real music. I had written off all the major labels as it seemed like all they did was just repackage old stuff (”Shostakovich for Morning Meditation” anyone?) or promoting artists who really are nothing more than brands to an unsuspecting public (Bocelli comes to mind).

I’m sorry to hear that you feel a bit controlled by your managers. It would seem to me then that that is an issue between you and them and not you and “us”. And if you feel so strongly against any sort of branding either fire the managers, or as someone else implied, ignore them as best you can.

All while I was reading your thoughts, I couldn’t help but think about Matt Haimovitz and his attempts to break out of certain traditional “classical” boundaries by playing in bars, or for that matter playing a rendition of “Purple Haze”. I don’t know if all that he is doing is a managerial attempt at branding in itself, but his “image” is now that of a maverick classical artist who plays in bars. Really in the end no matter what you do, you will be branded in some way by individuals, whether it be in the way your managers wish or simply because categories happen. Just the same I personally like to see how artists themselves handle it whether it be Haimovitz in a bar, or Helene Grimaud playing in some sort of nightclub (a performance that I came across on Youtube - glasses clinking in the background of Beethoven). Unless you decide to take it all to the streets, there’s only so much boundary or brand hopping you can do, especially with a big clunky piano on your back. :o) If I were you I’d be more worried about the future of the very music you play rather than how your managers wish to present you.

Slightly tangential thought…. I was just earlier today looking up a new (to me) pop artist whose song I had recently heard on the radio. (Michael Franti & Spearhead: “Say Hey (I Love You)” ). A bopping rather delightful little tune. On Amazon they had a video interview of Franti, and he expressed all sorts of grand social ideas and ideals. All certainly well intentioned and well meaning. But I’m not too sure what all he said had to do with the music.

First of all, I need to say that I’m very lucky in the people that I work with. They are all reasonably understanding of me, and of what I’m unwilling or unable to do, even when it makes their jobs more difficult — which, I daresay, is often. And I certainly have no intention whatsoever of firing them!

So, my ranting on this subject is not based on any complaint I have about my career, or the people I work with. Nor is it sociology, closet or otherwise. It is based on my feeling - valid or not - that this is very much a question of the connection between performer and audience. I don’t much care if music is being played in Carnegie Hall or a downtown bar, or if the performer is wearing a tuxedo or blue jeans. (In fact, I think it’s a good thing for music to be played under as many different sets of circumstances as possible.) What I care about is the emotional experience of the listener. And I believe that the greatest experiences listening to classical music happen when the performer, as a physical entity, seems to disappear, and you feel a pure, unfettered connection to the sound you are hearing. And the more one is aware of the performer as a category, to use your word - be it Mr. Serious, Mr. Loopy, or Mr. Yellow - the more unlikely he is to disappear.

Probably lots more to be said here, but since the comments section isn’t really for me, anyway, I’m going to sign off here. Thanks for reading and responding.

When I look at a perfomer playing, it seems to me that the audience is the furthest thing from their thoughts. (Although, Artur Rubinstein did say that he like to find someone in the audience to play to, usually a pretty woman. But you never saw that he was really doing it, at least histrionically.)

What more can you do? Smile? The fact that you are fortunate to have an audience is more than half the battle…. the mountain comes to Mohammed, at least half way. And like you say it doesnt matter in the end how you look or are presented or whether anyone has read your blog in order to connect emotionally with the music.

But I will contradict myself too. Just this afternoon I was watching a video of a young Spanish performer. It was a very profesional video and you could watch her facial expressions very closely. Her excitement to her music was palpable. And I must say watching her react to the music she was playing was, for me, a very good way to connect with the music. But in this case she certainly didn’t disappear in the least. Just the opposite. So maybe giant video screens at the concert hall showing your face?

Sometimes when I think about music in real-world terms it is positively distressing. You can argue that the chasm between human beings are great, and that communication works only on a everyday, superficial level. A musician may have this vision of beauty trapped in his world of the imagined. And in his music, he sets it free. But what happens from there? It often gets lost in the rustle of concert programs.

It all seems like a very sad way to share one’s art. Perhaps this is why Glenn Gould retired from the concert stage as soon as he was able.

In my opinion, musical integrity is of foremost importance. Given the conditions of having a very public musical career–the jetlag, the logistics of concertizing, audiences who may care more the performer’s facial expressions than the music itself–what drives a musician to perform may be musical integrity itself. This is why I think Mr. Biss’ concern with “brands” in the classical music world is very real and legitimate–hardly “masturbatory” as you put it.

Though it may not always be understood or even appreciated by the audience, the music that the performer presents to the world is never out of his control. So long as he is completely consumed by his art, his music will find its way to his listeners. All art, in a sense, is quite useless. Music can’t be anything but itself. It is the job of the performer to present music as it is, untainted by the technicalities of practical life. And it is our job as listeners to receive the music as it is–or as Mr. Biss put it, “a pure, unfettered connection to the sound you are hearing”. It is there that a emotional connection is formed.

I might take issue with your word of concertizing as “a sad way to share one’s art. Certainly demanding, maybe agonizing, frustrating and the like. But there are rewards, there must be, otherwise why are so many people doing it? I believe GG retired to the recording studio not so much as against concertizing as *FOR* the recording studio, simply seeing it as a more highly evolved way of presenting music. (Methinks he simply took introversion to an extreme degree.)

I also did not mean in any way to suggest a lack of control of the music by the performer. I did mean to suggest a lack of control once it finally left the instrument. And I raised that point only to try to suggest that Mr. Bis’ worries are less worrisome than the survival of the audience itself for his music, or classical music in general. While I have grown to
detest the theatrics of Lang Lang and the ubiquitousness of Yo Yo, just the same I can understand that they do build an audience, for better or worse. In some ways it could be argued that they are counter-productive in building expectations of theatrics and a circus-like atmosphere, but their pull cannot be completely dismissed either.

I also didn’t mean to suggest that people (or I) care more about facial expressions than the music. (In fact to judge the usual balance of seating arrangements at concerts where it is general admission, people seem to care about fingers more than faces.) No, I only suggested that because it can be another way of bringing a person into the music. I dont wish to suggest, nor do I hope for, a conscious inflection or practising of facial grimaces or grand arm gestures, but in a natural sense I find it just another means to connect, and that’s not a bad thing.