Works Reviewed

Ebony Concerto, Igor Stravinsky

A concert hall where boredom reigns offers a strange sight. From all these presences results nothing but a sort of emptiness. Faces without expression, gazes without thought, slumped bodies, dispersal, lethargy. Is this really the audience's fault? The audience is a convenient scapegoat, they are made responsible for everything. “They don't like music,” “they are afraid of modern music,” “they are ‘pickled’ in their old habits,” etc. Certainly, they are often wrong, they come along slowly, they can easily be lazy, not giving of themselves, their culture is insufficient. But if the program is good and well played, you will see this same audience, who just now was sluggish, pull themselves together, “take part, sympathetically,” as Stravinsky says. But, you insist, where do the audience's indifference and the hostility toward new works come from? Come on now, let's be serious! The audience is asked to be the witness to experiments, they are drowned in mediocrity, they are offered the best and the worst on the same program, and we are surprised, we dare to be surprised by the fact that they lack discernment and welcome with only cold politeness these experiments that amuse no one, to be honest. We’ve all seen that, when the audience is exposed to good things and to the best things, they will almost inevitably gravitate toward the best; when the audience is exposed to good things and to the worst things, they will gravitate toward the worst; when the audience is exposed to whatever mishmash with mediocre works included, they are lost: they do not know which way the wind blows. Which is to say that every concession toward mediocrity when selecting works is difficult to excuse. Concessions betray uncertainty and negligence more often than opportunism. But whether they are excused, understood, or condemned, this does not change the consequences they bring about. Each of us, with the slightest reflection, can measure them. And when one thinks of the treatment that is all too often inflicted upon the audience, it is deplorable that they are not angered. You might say that among the listeners there are those who are amused by nothing and others who settle for anything. Nothing can be expected of those types of people.