Free Fertilizer if You Bring a Friend!

Just here for discussion.

Since I’m a cynic when it comes to greatest-hits shows, Bryant Manning addresses me directly:

Even if you're a cynic about a greatest-hits show, any initiative to bulk up classical audiences wins every time.

Who wins what, now? The initiative wins...? The performing organization wins, what, more audience? The audience wins...more of the same?

Seems to me that the only thing anyone wins from a greatest-hits show is a first-class ticket to Civil War Reenactment Land. To put it another way, whatever success a greatest-hits show may have (gains more audience, more money, etc.), the only thing that I see it winning is a self-perpetuating cycle of specialized programming geared toward those who devour greatest-hits. In other, other words, the performing organization becomes pigeonholed into an endless dependence on pandering to the lowest common denominator (That’s where the most profit is! Heh, heh). Thus, progress, newness, freshness, sustainability is lost.

Yes, I oversimplified. Okay? I don’t need dozens of scathing emails reiterating something I already know, like last time (such as “but that new money in turn commissions new works.” Pffft. Hardly.). Anyway, you know who you are. But I don’t think I’m that far off the mark.

As time progresses, and I’m told that it will, those greatest-hits will become distanced from relevance (How relevant is Monteverdi, these days?). They will become antiques, items of nostalgia, even more so than they already are (Gregorian Chant anyone?). Recycling them in an endless loop is like watching a Civil War reenactment. They’d be interesting in the way a fifteen-year-old, stained, sticky-paged, public school history textbook is interesting.

Okay, I’m becoming a little verklempt. Discuss among yourselves...
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