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Published: Thursday, 28 November 2024 at 09:30 AM
Has streaming damaged our knowledge of classical music?
Read on to discover how classical streaming has damaged our knowledge of classical music…
Before classical streaming… the seven ages of recorded music, from 78rpms to mp3s
Like Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, I divide my life into seven ages. Unlike Jaques, I define those ages by the ways in which recorded music entered my life. The first age, back in the late 1950s, was when I became aware of my dad’s prized collection of 78rpm discs. As thick as dinner plates, they required you to leap from your chair every four minutes to turn the disc over or start the next one. Listening to Handel’s Messiah, my dad maintained, was a great way to keep fit. He had Malcolm Sargent’s recording on 19 separate 78s. You leapt up 38 times if you wanted a complete performance.
And the other six ages? LPs arrived in our living room in the early 1960s, followed by 45rpms (‘singles’) during my teenage love-affair with what was then called ‘the hit parade’. After that I consumed recorded music via cassettes, CDs, mp3s and now, almost entirely, by streaming – a medium which, I guess, may outlive me.
Classical streaming… so very convenient and space effective
Obviously, the gain in convenience has been extraordinary. From leaping up 38 times to listen to Messiah, I can now access 38 different interpretations simply by scrolling down a list on my phone.
Just as dramatic has been the gain in shelf space. When I was 30, my LP collection occupied an entire wall of a bedroom. Now my weird need to have a recording of every Haydn symphony and Byrd motet within reaching distance is a naughty secret between me and my computer, freeing up vital bedroom space for my wife’s essential collection of exercise bikes and running machines.
Classical streaming… adrift from a world of scholarship
So that’s all gain. But there’s been loss too. Those wonderful LPs I collected in the 1970s came with extraordinarily erudite sleevenotes. At a time when historical authenticity was becoming a big thing in Renaissance and Baroque performance, up-to-date scholarship was presented almost as an add-on bonus when you bought the latest Hogwood or Harnoncourt recording.
But as recording formats became smaller, the accompanying information packs also shrank, or disappeared altogether. Classical cassettes and CDs still came with sleevenotes, though usually in type so small that a free magnifying glass should have been provided. But when we entered the era of downloads and streaming, it was as if buyers were cast adrift from the world of scholarship. You were lucky if you got basic information about the titles of the pieces and the names of the performers, let alone erudite essays about the music.
Classical streaming… death of the booklet note
Yes, you could argue – as record company execs and their champions in the press often did – that such information was by this time readily available through Wikipedia and other online encyclopaedias. But how many first-time listeners went down that route? To make matters worse, the trend towards minimising or dispensing with sleevenotes and booklets coincided with the closure of specialist record shops and record libraries, staffed by people who could advise knowledgeably, and the decline of music teaching in schools.
It’s good news, then, that one leading classical music streaming site, Apple Music Classical, has just added 50,000 digital ‘album booklets’ to its website. Of course, the reality is that classical music is increasingly being consumed track by track, especially by the young and others who are exploring the classical repertoire for the first time. But you hope that newcomers then move onto discovering whole symphonies, whole operas – in other words, whole albums. And that’s when the listening experience can be deepened by album booklets.
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Does too much information put off newcomers?
Or is that too ‘elitist’ a thought? Until recently, the general feeling was that throwing too much information at newcomers might put them off. Better to let them ‘feel the music’ purely emotionally. Now, I think, we are starting to realise that although classical music does pack a huge punch emotionally, which can be a powerful entry point, responding exclusively on that level will only take you so far.
If you have some grasp of the historical, political, literary and geographical context in which the music was written, and the intellectual process guiding the composer, your understanding will be much enriched. I speak from humble experience. I’m still learning from the programme and album notes written by inspiring specialists. And as I stagger through my seventh ‘recording age’, that’s saying something.