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Post by julesd68 on Mar 9, 2017 17:05:32 GMT
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Post by ChrisB on Mar 9, 2017 18:15:46 GMT
I can't answer your question but I can agree with the premise of the story if the audience at the lunchtime concert I went to in Berlin in November is any indication of a typical German turnout.
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 9, 2017 18:34:23 GMT
There we go, thank you Chris.
It’s an interesting one for me, and I would love to know the answer. I will attempt to do some research on this.
The audience for most of the concerts I go to could predominantly be described as ’senior’ ... LOL I’ve always seen a good number of younger people at concerts (I reckon I'm somewhere in between) but from what I have seen I have never been aware of this number increasing ...
Difficult to even speculate on the reasons for the music's popularity and younger audiences in Germany, but I would be willing to wager that their concerts are still what we would recognise as 'traditional' classical concerts and not some crass attempt at ‘crossover’ …
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Post by MartinT on Mar 10, 2017 14:09:00 GMT
It has to be cultural differences. I think the Germans are not prone to hero worshipping sportsmen the way we do in this country. They also appreciate the arts across all ages, whereas as you say the British classical concert-going public are mostly blue-rinse with a smattering of students thrown in. I still feel young in the average audience at the Festival Hall.
Many people here cannot separate classical music from opera or even musicals, considering them all to be 'high-brow' and not cool. Such a shame that more effort isn't made to introduce classical music at a young age.
Perhaps, also, they feel a deep rooted connection with some of the greatest composers of all time (e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner) who were German.
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Post by MikeMusic on Mar 10, 2017 16:36:50 GMT
Just about anything is preferable to football.
Baffles me why it is so popular worldwide
I have spent a small amount of time listening to classical, still more than that spent watching football
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 11, 2017 20:52:58 GMT
Martin already said it. They have Bach. He's enough to convert anyone!
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Post by MartinT on Mar 11, 2017 23:38:55 GMT
Football can't compete with the master, thank goodness.
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Post by Stratmangler on Mar 12, 2017 0:10:27 GMT
Echoing what Martin said about it being cultural - it is, and there isn't the same degree of snobbery attached to Classical music as there is in the UK. Consequently Joe Public doesn't feel out of place going to hear orchestras and the like.
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Post by Slinger on Mar 12, 2017 0:34:59 GMT
A couple of points...
#1 I think the Germans do revere their sports stars whereas the English way has been (since the sixties and the advent of the gutter press at least) the build 'em up to knock 'em down method.
#2 The snobbery about classical music, both real and imagined, is ingrained into the fabric of our society. For decades classical concerts, the ballet, and opera, were all priced way beyond the means of "the working class" and it's only now that they are starting to fall within reach of the man on the Clapham omnibus. Somebody realised that all of these events would die a death as there would be no rich new wave to attend them in huge numbers as of old because they simply didn't have the same social cachet as they used to and suddenly a new audience was required. Make 'em cheaper and let the plebs in. It's the journey from Radio 3 to Classic FM in many ways. And that's why seats for La Traviata at the ROH this summer range from £11.00 to £200.00. All my own opinion of course, not "facts" but that's the way it seems to me. I was born in the fifties, and opera was something posh people did.
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 12, 2017 11:58:52 GMT
Some very interesting points being made here!
1. I agree that Germans do indeed revere their sports starts and the German Bundesliga is one of the strongest in the world.
2. Martin makes a very interesting point about the number of the world's greatest ever classical composers being German. Perhaps German youth are introduced to these heroic composers at school? I would like to know and will ask some friends in Germany about this!
3. Ticket prices. When I go to the Festival Hall or the Barbican to see world class orchestras and soloists, I generally pay around a tenner for the cheap seats! I don't think you find a top level pop concert or football match for that cost. Classical music makes a concerted effort to make it affordable to all by having a massive range of ticket costs.
4. Snobbery. I'm just simply unaware of this snobbery, perceived or real, when I go to classical concerts. I would love to take a group of people to a classical concert, who believe they will be uncomfortable, to see what their reaction will genuinely be. The Proms couldn't be less snobby although I bet many people think they are, having only seen the 'Last Night ...' on TV. You get people turning up in shorts sitting on the floor!! It's incredibly diverse.
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Post by MartinT on Mar 12, 2017 20:35:42 GMT
Jules, you got there before me but I was going to say that Henry Wood created the Proms to bring classical music to the public. Even today, you can go to any Prom by queuing up and paying a tenner. You can't do that with anything except a pub band.
I don't see any snobbery from the classical going public, but I do see reverse snobbery from those who think all manner of silly things about classical music because, frankly, no-one has taken the trouble to introduce them to it.
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 15, 2017 17:57:05 GMT
The government is currently consulting on funding schools differently through a new National Funding Formula.
My son's school would be likely faced with an 11% cut. Of course there is a list of potential cutbacks that has left me pretty speechless and very likely that music lessons will suffer as a result of this - both in terms of music in the classroom and also it has been mentioned that musical instrument lessons could well be removed or at the very least cut back ...
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Post by julesd68 on Jun 25, 2018 23:17:03 GMT
Brief thread resurrection - I read today that thousands of people attended a dress-rehearsal for the departure of Simon Rattle from the Berlin Phil instead of watching Germany play in the World Cup!! Madness ...
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Post by MartinT on Jun 26, 2018 8:34:05 GMT
Excellent. That gives me hope.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2018 8:51:23 GMT
Some sanity at last, bloody football, 22 millionaires kicking a glorified pigs bladder around a small piece of turf to hero worship chants, utter large hairy spherical objects.
Arh one of my favorite anti subjects in audio Music snobs plenty of them about, snooty looks, contorted faces, 'Oh you can't possibly feel that Chopin's 3rd was anywhere in the same breath as Mozart 1st, quite frankly dear sir you are an ass'
Humm... pompous, self righteous, arrogant, narrow minded semi intellectual ego scrubbers from a Victorian age.
Some many of them can almost match Roy Gregory for his own standards of self preoccupation.
A few of those were around at the weekend,the problem is the UK is of higher magnitude than you think chaps.
Remember in the war 'lose lips sink ships'
Now were have 'Classical is not just for floppy haired public school buffoons or self taught arrogance on an epic scale, but for the world, the original composers wished for their music to be enjoyed by the masses, not just the jumped up twats from Beaconsfield!
John Lord once said 'We are as valid as anything from Beethoven'
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Post by MartinT on Jun 26, 2018 9:48:33 GMT
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Post by Stratmangler on Jun 26, 2018 18:44:47 GMT
John Lord once said 'We are as valid as anything from Beethoven' Who's this John Lord fella then?
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Post by MartinT on Jun 26, 2018 19:09:54 GMT
Deep Purple and later bands.
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Post by Stratmangler on Jun 26, 2018 19:22:35 GMT
No, that was a chap who went under the working name of Jon Lord.
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Post by Tim on Jun 26, 2018 19:49:31 GMT
No, that was a chap who went under the working name of Jon Lord.First time I saw Purple was with Jon Lord - 26 May 1974, Capital Theatre, Cardiff.
ELF were support.
Now that was a show
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