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Steinway's Remedy for Music
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20662 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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9 / 1992 |
3,670 Words |
| Author
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Susan Fegley Osmond
Susan Fegley Osmond is an editor in the Arts section of The
World & I. |
New classical works rarely attract an avid following: Audiences tend to be sparse for concerts including new pieces, and, once premiered, works all too often are never heard again. Mindful of the estrangement of much of the public from contemporary music, and of the short lifespan given even deserving works, the Steinway Foundation--founded in 1988 by John and Robert Birmingham, the owners of the prestigious piano company--created the 21st Century Piano Project.
A major activity of the project is commissioning all sorts of new piano works, as its general purpose is to promote the composition and performance of music for the piano and to attract audiences to the music of living composers. For the project's inaugural event on June 11, the foundation commissioned piano concertos from three composers, each representing a different continent--Argentinian Lalo Schifrin, Russian Rodion Shchedrin, and American Lowell Liebermann. The three works premiered together in a concert given by the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its music director, Mstislav Rostropovich, renown for his contributions to new music both as a creative catalyst and as an interpreter. The program gave at times a hopeful view of the state of contemporary music, though not altogether a satisfying one.
The foundation's criterion for selecting these composers was the "accessibility" of their music. As Birmingham says, they were looking for works "that will tell people classical music is still alive and healthy…and music that will show them what a great piano can do." The concertos were premiered before a near-capacity audience, about two thousand members of which were conductors, board members, managers, and other executives from more than sixteen hundred orchestras who were attending the event as part of the American Symphony Orchestra League's annual conference in Washington. These are the people who decide what will be presented in the concert halls, and some of them have taken up the bait: The concertos have been programmed by a number of orchestras both in America and abroad. National Public Radio is also broadcasting the three works nationwide (check your local stations for dates and times).
The foundation has spared no pains to make sure the works it commissions are heard repeatedly and have a chance of entering the repertoire. But the final success of these three concertos depends on the quality of the works themselves, and here we encounter a problem. While the Shchedrin and the Liebermann have a shot at longevity, the Schifrin seems to have been
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