If you're wondering if I'm one of the shushing retirees, no, I've lived in Madison for 38 years, and I've never gone to one Concert On The Square. I don't know if I've gone to any sort of outdoor classical music concert in my entire life. If I did, it wouldn't be because I thought it would be good listening but because it's a social occasion. Isn't classical music supposed to be indoors? Don't you need walls for it to sound right?
And I'd have a hard time shushing people. I didn't even resort to a slight look askance to deter the lady sitting next to me at the "Elvis" movie and singing along. With an outdoor classical concert, I think the idea is to draw in young people by making it casual and easy and fun. It's totally wrong for old people to act stuffy. Speaking of indoor things: stuffiness.
Over there at Reddit, somebody says "This should tell you everything you need to know":
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Yes! Classical music should be indoors! I hated Tanglewood.
Last Performance as a Boy Soprano is outdoors, Mozart Laudate Dominum. Summer music camps tend to be outdoors.
Handle’s Water Music premiered on the royal barge floating on the Themes. Music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park. Lots of classical music performed outdoors.
The clip is a classic. I know assholes like that.
Chamber music requires a chamber.
"Lots of classical music performed outdoors."
Yes, but that's to amuse the public (and to win a paying future crowd). I don't think the musicians like it, singers especially. There's a sound problem.
I’ve been to one concert on the square, three summers ago. My son is a piano student and there was a guest pianist playing a concerto.
For me, it was a horrible experience. There was literally not one group within my sight in any direction that wasn’t talking. And because the music got louder, their conversations got louder. That is not the way to experience music like that. We left.
I’ve been to Ravinia and had a wonderful time, both for classical and jazz concerts. So it’s not necessarily being outdoors. I suspect being free has a lot to do with it. I guess for some, if you’re not paying to hear it, you’re not there strictly for the music.
I have played a great many "concerts" outdoors. Starting with a couple hundred weddings in various gigging string quartets. No, it isn't acoustically ideal, but then it isn't supposed to be. We are generally there as much to be seen as to be heard! I remember one particularly memorable gig (not a wedding, this, just "background music" for three hours) at a shopping mall in Reading, UK; management put out a space heater inside the four stands, but we were still freezing our fingers off.
As for "But that's to amuse the public" -- well, obviously. Just like any other concert, of any kind of music, indoors or out. I think the main reasons classical musicians are reluctant to play outside are that (1) their instruments are generally fragile and expensive; and (2) they aren't amplified. The inverse square law applies in the best of situations, but outdoors is generally not the best of situations; some sort of acoustical shell at minimum is necessary for anything to sound decent.
I've been to two or three of the 'Symphony in the Park' summertime concerts over the years here in Eugene and I think no one expects the silence of the concert hall-- e.g. there were children running about here and there, doing the stuff children do-- but in my limited experience the audience was a concert audience and not picnickers out for a party at which the band happened to be the Symphony, if that distinction makes any sense.
A good singer can sing anywhere but typically at these events the ESO gives us John Williams, show tunes, and Scott Joplin, with an occasional 1812 Overture, not Strauss tone-poems or songs from Winterreise.
Definitely some concert-goers like the Portlandia people, though, ha.
1812 overture works outdoors, but it’s heavy on brass and percussion. Try something heavy on woodwinds. Not going to work outside. Don’t even try a piano. Fool’s errand,
Considering I was 14 when I spent the Summer in Great Barrington, ground grubbing for a dear friend as she trained a rich woman’s Morgans(we lived in a camper for weeks!!)I loved the sound on the open air &will never forget the crowd. They were all sprawled out, picnicking &visiting.
I don’t think I’m a “multitude of people” person!!
There is a reason that the woodwinds march in the middle or back of the brass if you see a high school marching band in a parade or halftime show. In a symphonic arrangement, woodwinds are always front middle. Acoustics matter.
’Don't you need walls for it to sound right?’
Absolutely. You’ll never receive the requisite acoustic nuance outdoors.
I saw Pavarotti in Central Park and it was sort of like the Portlandia video.
You have to get there really early if you want a good spot.
I've been to the Santa Fe opera, back when it was partially open on 2-3 sides, and you could still hear the cars on US84. Loved it. It was built to have a moderate amount of distractions, like the setting sun, or thunderstorms over the Sange de Christos. We had assigned seats tho. No Portlandias in front of us.
"....(I)t's a social occasion."
Shush! As a Hollywood Bowl regular, I can inform you that conversations during a classical music concert there are a no, no. Eating is done before the performance, although wine drinking may continue thereafter.
The Bowl is a beautiful venue to enjoy a Southern California evening outdoors. Sure, once in a great while you will hear a wine bottle bouncing down the stairs. And no one is bothered by the occassional howl of a coyote. But people do not talk during the music. Socializing is contucted before the show and intermission.
The Santa Fe Opera is also an outdoor venue where you wouldn't dream of talking during a performance. I can still remember 27 years ago the final act of Richard Strauss' Salome when a storm began whipping the robes of the singers. A lightning storm in the distance was the perfect accent as Salome was given the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
Isn't classical music supposed to be indoors? Don't you need walls for it to sound right?
Well, then I guess it's time to shut down the Hollywood Bowl...
It looks like the National Symphony Orchestra is finally returning to a live audience concert on the Capitol Lawn this Fourth of July. I've been to several of their Capitol concerts and the sound is just fine.
Been to plenty of outdoor concerts as well at Wolf Trap, but always popular music, not classical. Last time was Ringo Starr and gang, if I remember correctly.
I could only get 39 seconds into that video. If it is anything like that, I'd have to make sure I was out of state when this thing happened.
One of the biggest problems in concerts, movies, etc. is rude people who won't shut up and be considerate of others. And yet, this ridiculous Reddit poster acts like its the those kill-joy old people who are spoiling everyone's fun with their mindless fuddy-duddy "Etiquette".
Stop boxing me with all your RULES man. Let me have some fun. Quit being so square, bro.
So what if I like to talk? I'm assuming the people who sit near the orchestra, do so because they want to hear the music. If you want to be FREE, MAN, go sit in back.
If you're outside, you have to run sound and have someone mix it, and you'll still sound meh at best. I play in a 50 piece wind band, and even Sousa sounds better inside. I also play in a woodwind quintet, and playing outside is just silly. Still, if that's what they want...
The polka band works just fine, inside or out. The big band usually has a singer, and dancing is a major reason for our existence in either case, so a dance floor is required more than a roof and walls. Asking an orchestra to play outside only works in very special places. If you have something made of wood to play, heat and moisture are not your friend. Sax yes, oboe no. I play a plastic clarinet outside if heat/cold/moisture are a factor.
The paying customer is always right, especially when they're wrong. Make it shine, dress like a professional, and make it look like fun, even when it isn't. Entertainers entertain. Old school stuff.
I have very fond memories of dates in my twenties in the cheap seats at the Hollywood Bowl (eating KFC!). I also went on on awful first date there to see the Go-Go’s.
I think that is the only place in LA that I really miss.
Bah humbug.
Outdoor concerts in the summer can be very pleasant. Have enjoyed since growing up in London and going to Hyde Park Bandstand, a nice walk from home. Now Hollywood Bowl more to my taste.
I agree that outdoor stages are grossly inferior to acoustically-optimized concert halls. Tanglewood was particularly disappointing.
Hollywood Bowl, though, is pretty good. Definitely the best outdoor venue I've been to, by far. Yuja Wang performs there every now and then and takes everybody's minds off the background noise from the 101.
Two words: Hollywood Bowl.
Are the acoustics in Disney Hall better? Yes, of course. But there's no grander or more profound place to hear a symphony than in the Bowl, under the stars, on a summer night.
The Hollywood Bowl is currently running a summer classical series. A beautiful setting to listen to music ... imperfect acoustics, but I'm sure some prefer this setting, both musicians and listeners.
https://www.hollywoodbowl.com/events/series/234
I've been to a few good outdoor classical concerts, but those were either miked or shelled or both. Some of the summer concerts from Vienna on PBS are so miked and amped that they might as well be indoors if you ask me (at least from my recliner, I've never been in person).
But that's trivial compared to the real show-stopper for me: outdoor concerts around here draw too many randos unless the access is tightly controlled, and sometimes it isn't. Sad.
I remember hearing a memorable concert outdoors on the Ohio River. At Marietta. As Michelle says, they had a shell of some sort behind them on the boat. The audience was on the shore. It was a beautiful summer night. The boat apparently went up and down the river, stopping and playing at particular spots.
Sound travels well across the water, but still, by acoustic standards, it was probably only adequate. The atmosphere of this unusual locale added tremendously tp the pleasure.
Not everyone is a classical music fan, but real instruments and real music do make a difference.
The 1812 Overture can be performed indoors, but outdoors allows more realism:
In the sections that contain cannon shots, actual cannons are sometimes replaced by howitzers, tanks, ...
Ann says classical music performed outdoors is to amuse the public. Isn't that true of all performed music? Or there some higher purpose involved when its performed elsewhere?
I'm staying in a house about 100 yards from the outdoor Britt Theater in Jacksonville, OR, listening to the symphony practice as I type this. An acoustic shell is involved. I'm not actually is the audience but I enjoy it from where I am. One advantage of amusing the public is that mostly recognizable (old) music is performed rather than more recent irritating works. The public is enthusiastic about the music season because it didn't happen for the last two years.
My hometown has a summer sinfonietta that always does 6 free midweek concerts outside and 6 formal concerts on the weekends at the local arts center. Throughout middle and high school I was volunteered for various jobs at all of them - usually usher at the formal concerts and raffle ticket seller at the midweek concerts - so I attended a lot of them. Even though the midweek concerts were free, people were always polite and fairly quiet - it was still a concert, and a social occasion only after the music was over. There's a bandshell, so the music sounds pretty good, the selections were lighter than the weekend concerts, the concert was only an hour, and it was usually pretty fun. While people were polite, anyone taking it too seriously and shushing others wouldn't have been appreciated. The setting is beautiful - on a small lake, so some people attend in canoes - and it's a special part of every summer back home. Now that I think about it, I really miss it.
“ Ann says classical music performed outdoors is to amuse the public. Isn't that true of all performed music? Or there some higher purpose involved when its performed elsewhere?”
Beauty, accuracy, subtlety, complexity…
wont speakers serve acoustic function?
speakers for outdoors
do walls close in for bad performance? how can audience escape?
I would shush hard. Ally of the white hair here.
This point has already been made several times, but as we're coming up on Independence Day, there's probably lots of places putting on an outdoors 1812 overture with field artillery. I do believe that may be the only time I've attended a performance of a symphonic work outdoors, though.
I think classical chamber music is traditionally performed in a chamber and so also with most other classical music, but there's a grey area with stuff like, e.g. brass arrangements, or . . I was going to say "guitar works by composers like Albeniz," but Wikipedia tells me he never actually composed for the guitar and what I'm remembering are transcriptions. Well. It's still more or less classical music.
The most interesting outdoor concert I ever attended was a carillon concert at Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge.
Sort of as with bagpipes, acoustics didn't seem to be an issue.
That said, I dearly love the pipes.
Twenty-some years ago, my son took us to a free Don McLean concert at Lakeshore State Park in Milwaukee when my oldest was attending UW-Milw. It had rained and a large tent became the location for McLean and his small band. "American Pie" happened in my generation, but it was obvious that every young college student in attendance knew every word in the song, so in order to fully enjoy the music, singing along was required so the music wouldn't die.
I've attended many Baltimore Symphony Orchestra events at Oregon Ridge. Fireworks are incorporated into the performance, and it's great family evening picnic fun. Is it the same as a real orchestra concert? Hell no, but you couldn't drag me to one of those anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMNXXWozeyM
Deplorables existed before Hillary and Trump, and they will carry on long after they're gone.
Philadelphia Orchestra — world class summer performances at the Robin Hood Dell. https://thedellmusiccenter.com/venue/about-us/
I saw Georg Solti with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia many times, and it was magical. At Interlochen, all of our performances were out in the evening air. However, organ performance really must be indoors. In a large reverberant place.
- Krumhorn
Cheney's Jan. 6 committee hearings should be held outdoors next to the dunking pond.
There are some great outdoor music experiences, just probably not classical music.
The best one I remember had me sitting on my front step, 10 blocks away from Camp Randall (the UW football stadium). Pink Floyd sounded very mysterious and cool wafting over the neighborhood.
Beauty, accuracy, subtlety, complexity…
For whom, though?
For a lot of my life, I took voice lessons. My most recent teacher always insists that her students participate in a recital each year, because performance for an audience is the point. I can sing for myself whenever I want, and certainly some of my best work has been while alone, in terms of beauty, accuracy, subtlety, complexity… but conveying the music to an audience was my job as a singer and if I couldn't do that, I had failed.
I feel the same way about the visual arts. If the plaque beside the piece is bigger than the piece, in order to explain what the artist's "saying," then the artist is communicating badly and has failed. (Context is another matter. I appreciate the plaques that tell me where the artist is from, what influenced her, events of the piece's time period - these data enhance my appreciation of the piece. But if the artist's work doesn't say something to me solely through the medium of my looking at it, then to me it's either hotel wallpaper or garbage, depending.)
It's been a long time since I attended, but it was generally a good experience as the amplification was well done and most people were decent enough listeners (avoid setting up next to people with tons of wine or booze)
It's a beautiful spot and the programs are focused on more casual orchestra fans, I think for kids growing up in Madison many hear their first orchestra this way before seeing more serious music at the overture/etc.
The serious listeners wouldn't like it, but seeing 3 year olds dancing to the music on a lovely night on the Square is better than a night watching TV or seeing a restaurant full of people staring at their phones.
I like my 4th of July 1812 Overture played outside, with military artillery percussion.
The point of the greatest orchestra halls is their acoustics. The great ones were built, and the new ones are getting built, with two goals: supreme acoustics in a place that is beautiful to the senses.
We are (finally) getting a new symphony hall here in my town. And the lift it is giving to the musicians and musical director- just knowing it's being built, is amazing to see.
Yes, they play outdoor concerts. They have to. To build the brand. To get more eyes and ears on the symphony, which to each new generation, is a tough sell. Getting some eyes and ears in front of a symphony in a park or at Tanglewood, just might grab a few more who want to see more and will buy tickets to see them at Symphony Hall in Boston, or in Sarasota, or in Denver.
GrapeApe said...
"1812 overture works outdoors, but it’s heavy on brass and percussion. Try something heavy on woodwinds. Not going to work outside. Don’t even try a piano. Fool’s errand,"
We went to a few of the Concerts on the Square when we lived in Madison, and loved them. All the sections were properly miked, including the piano, and the sound system was just right for the venue. There was a good mix of light classical (though I was longing for some Grieg) and orchestral pop. Chacun à son goût.
I do sympathise with Freeman Hunt's comment ('I would shush hard'); while in the amphitheatre outdoors those years ago I never did, the atmosphere being 'relaxed' and the music not really requiring the silence of the concert hall, the courtesy of good manners has decayed such that I've had to hiss at a couple in the concert hall-- that was almost involuntary, I was so irate. On another occasion, I sicced Management on a party of teenagers, some of whom were 'talking quietly' during the first half of a concert, on and on, and not so quietly. They were chorus members who were involved in a different concert of the series and perhaps not present entirely voluntarily but, still. One of their directors came in at intermission and laid down the law; such glares! as they later returned to their seats, ha. I don't remember the program but that I do remember, and the fact that the balcony was far too hot (have never made that mistake again).
I've also never been to COTS. The idea of baking in the heat with 100s or 1000s of others, being bitten by bugs, just has never appealed. And of course, there's the huge problem of people thinking they've so much of importance to tell their friends right now during the music. Insufferable twits.
The now-defunct Irvine Meadows outdoor ampitheater was an amazing place to sit outside and hear music of all sorts - classical to rock concerts. You could opt for seats, or a section of grass for picnicing, or, if you were so inclined, the special tables down front with catered fancy food and wine, cordoned off from the rest, but on display to all. No one really cared about shushung unless you were right up front. Then you got shushed.
My very soft spoken and ordinarily polite husband has one field he will die upon: historical accuracy as it relates to sexual mores and class manners. We weren't shushed but nearly beaten to death by an entire theater of women watching Titanic once. When the lovers first embrace, or kiss, or something, he cried out "that would never happen in that historical era!" I'd never heard him do such a thing. The entirely female and entirely full theater hissed and booed and threw popcorn at us as we exited...all the way from the first row.
We take our entertainments at home. Our movie editor friend sent us a difficult game, or app, great fun. It's called "Framed." There is a single obscure film shot, and if you guess wrong, another image appears.
It sounds like a great place for a Black Lives Matter demonstration.
A few years ago--must have been pre-Covid--I had to turn to a pair of whispering young numpties sitting a few rows behind at an indoor classiscal concert and say, in a low voice but distinctly, "Shut up."
That felt good, and worked well.
Tina's story reminds me of myself. I'm no fun at movies that lack historical accuracy . . . I may not speak up but I will squirm and groan. (Never seen Titanic all at once, just snippets.)
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