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Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

theparisreview.org

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Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#11

Post by unraveller »

It's a fools errand to put elitist classical music and opera on TV to compete with the slop when mass TV dispersion is anti-elitism to the core, operating over the work week schedule not the broadway season.

Any one who cares about experiencing art as a pastime can see that government subsidies of culture performances could be better spent anywhere else than TV. Surely the TV station will just game it so whatever appears on the screen is slop-adjacent, they never wanted a high-culture wing, they gain nothing from a critical thinking audience.

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#12

Post by musha68k »

unraveller wrote: post #11

It's a fools errand to put elitist classical music and opera on TV to compete with the slop when mass TV dispersion is anti-elitism to the core, operating over the work week schedule not the broadway season. Any one who cares about experiencing art as a pastime can see that government subsidies of culture performances could be better spent anywhere else than TV. Surely the TV station will just game it so whatever app…

Unless it's outright public broadcasting itself e.g. check fantastic European arte.tv as probably best of class (?) example.

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#13

Post by vikramkr »

coldtea wrote: post #8

For his cultural goals he wasn't wrong. His aim wasn't to just give more people access to classical music with whatever means (a la "worse is better"), but to give more people the appreciation of classical music that refined educated listeners had. To treat them as capable for that, as opposed to needing "dumbing down". Part of that was maintaining the primacy of music over unrelated attached things, like the televis…

Given songs could be made hits because of their videos - that's arguably the opposite of prescient, because it turned out that the televised image was not actually unrelated but in fact a new core integral aspect of a new art form, the music video!

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#14

Post by vikramkr »

cwillu wrote: post #5
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #2

Evidently before television people used to go to classical musical concerts blindfolded - who knew!?

“[They are no longer by any means coming into contact with the thing itself but rather with a predissected, cliché-ridden product of the culture industry, which gives them the illusory sense that they could become actively involved in culture.” It's more about having the choice of what to look at being decided for the viewer.

And about making clear that the proles who think they're enjoying music just because they're enjoying it aren't actually part of "culture" because they're not enjoying it in the "right" way. In a sense he's right - televised and recorded music didn't lead to people participating in his image of music culture. It created a new one that was massively more accessible, making music much more prevalent in everyday life than it ever had been, while unlocking new avenues of artistic expression unimaginable a few centuries ago.

In that context his argument carries a lot of weight I think - the classical music culture was truly one that evolved for the medium of the live performance. We'd be making the same mistake he's making if we thought we were fully appreciating it through a recorded or visual medium, since in our cultural context it is easy for us to be as dismissive of the importance of the live aspect of classical music as it is for him to be dismissive of the recorded and visual aspect of televised music

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#15

Post by ghaff »

The date is probably also relevant.

Watching a symphony on a (maybe) 19" B&W TV as a probably grainy NTSC broadcast and listened to through a small tinny speaker... well, let's just say we're not talking the Met Live in HD on a home theater system. I know the person being interviewed here has other points to make. But it's probably also the case that classical symphonic and chamber music particularly probably translates less well to broadcast/"film" than other forms of art which are generally more dependent on the presentation than just the music itself.

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#16

Post by LiquidSky »

coldtea wrote: post #8

For his cultural goals he wasn't wrong. His aim wasn't to just give more people access to classical music with whatever means (a la "worse is better"), but to give more people the appreciation of classical music that refined educated listeners had. To treat them as capable for that, as opposed to needing "dumbing down". Part of that was maintaining the primacy of music over unrelated attached things, like the televis…

Except in the opening question Adorno also dismisses radio music. This is just snobbish idiocy.

Clearly the only REAL way to experience music is in your private box at a grand symphony hall dressed in full evening wear.

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#18

Post by Gravityloss »

musha68k wrote: post #12
unraveller wrote: post #11

It's a fools errand to put elitist classical music and opera on TV to compete with the slop when mass TV dispersion is anti-elitism to the core, operating over the work week schedule not the broadway season. Any one who cares about experiencing art as a pastime can see that government subsidies of culture performances could be better spent anywhere else than TV. Surely the TV station will just game it so whatever app…

Unless it's outright public broadcasting itself e.g. check fantastic European arte.tv as probably best of class (?) example.

Hooray for public broadcasters. They do it in my country too. If you have good sound system connected to the TV it can be quite nice, though it's still not nearly the same as being there. And the recordings are available to be streamed.

There's also this new world's largest modern concert organ that's a good piece of attraction. https://musiikkitalo.fi/en/organ/

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#19

Post by rpdillon »

coldtea wrote: post #8

For his cultural goals he wasn't wrong. His aim wasn't to just give more people access to classical music with whatever means (a la "worse is better"), but to give more people the appreciation of classical music that refined educated listeners had. To treat them as capable for that, as opposed to needing "dumbing down". Part of that was maintaining the primacy of music over unrelated attached things, like the televis…

> This is the fault of the sound engineers, who subsequently engage in fundamentally quite unmusical procedures by surgically extracting these voices, which is quite in keeping with their—if I may say this—unartistic intuitions and is also congenial to the highly problematic taste of the public.

I've never been a fan of the word 'problematic' because it says so little about what the problem actually is.

Regardless, he seems to have disdain for the tastes of the public, which doesn't quite jibe with the idea that he's treating the public as capable of appreciating music without it being dumbed down.

I see a lot of defense of his arguments in this discussion, and I don't have much to add, other than to say I really don't understand it at all. I think it's really just a blind spot in how I think about art, but asserting that a televised performance of an orchestra playing some classical music is 'pointless' doesn't make sense to me.

Re: Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole (1968)

#20

Post by Almondsetat »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #2

Evidently before television people used to go to classical musical concerts blindfolded - who knew!?

That's like saying that spending hours of your day stuck between two lanes of traffic in a gray highway is not bad because people went outside before cars.
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