Spectacle: Mimeographed Music
ZESTLESS REST. Many of the new works Ormandy chooses are financed by Edward B. Benjamin Foundation of New Orleans. They are called the "Restful Music Commissions" and were created to promote "restful music that charms" because the benefactor was alarmed by the "dissonance" of modern music. Therefore, composers like Gottfried von Einem, this year’s Benjamin representative get a reading but the leaders of the American contemporary scene, like Leon Kirchner, Andrew Imbrie, Seymour Shifrin, Stephan Volpe, Milton Babbitt, John Cage and Edgar Varese don’t. George Rochberg, Gunther Schuller, Elliott Carter, William Schuman, Howard Hanson and Peter Menin all have had one to three pieces played, meagre samplings of their total orchestral output. Philadelphian Samuel Barber is the only significant contemporary whose works have been played enough — nine times — to make his style known to Philadelphia audiences.
In 1960, an anonymous benefactor gave Ormandy money to commission and perform five compositions by contemporary American composers. Ormandy selected Walter Piston. Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, Roy Harris and — guess who —Richard Yardumian. The Copland is yet to be performed. The Harris, Sessions and Piston, all symphonies, have proved to be works of a large scope and commanding of attention. But all the composers on the list are neo-traditional, significant for their contribution to American music some 15 to 30 years ago. None of them begin to indicate the new directions music is taking today.
Ormandy himself has addressed the problem of establishing and developing a repertoire. In a text prepared for the Orchestra’s press book, he says: "The hardest part of a conductor’s job is program building because no matter what he plays, somebody doesn’t like it. Some people won’t listen to anything written since 1890 and their neighbors may call us old fogies if we play a work that is ten years old.
"Since it is manifestly impossible please everybody, I have set up some principle to guide my program building. My principle is this: Let’s be fair to the listeners who like only old established favorites, fair to the listeners who want to hear what’s going on in the world today, fair to the young composers who deserve a hearing. ‘Live and let live’ is a good motto in music as well as life …. I make it a rule to include in each of my programs something that people can hum on the way out. If they can do that, they will come again."
SHOW BIZ. In making a statement like that, Ormandy is clearly placing box office success ahead of musical values. When ticket receipts start dictating policy, the Philadelphia Orchestra is no longer a cultural institution; it is in show business.
Granted Ormandy must maintain a delicate position, satisfying the conservative musical tastes of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, the money and social prestige behind the Orchestra, and the subscribers, its audiences. But, after 28 seasons in Philadelphia as permanent conductor and musical director, Ormandy surely should have the final word concerning the purely musical aspects of the organization. Certainly he would be able to convince all concerned that by upgrading the quality of programming, the Orchestra would not face financial doom. To the contrary, it might increase its already considerable renown.
