{"id":23287,"date":"2023-01-10T19:57:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T18:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/?p=178444"},"modified":"2023-01-14T21:35:06","modified_gmt":"2023-01-14T20:35:06","slug":"pen-to-pixels-the-development-of-classical-music-fandom","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/pen-to-pixels-the-development-of-classical-music-fandom\/","title":{"rendered":"Pen to pixels \u2013 the development of classical music fandom"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Charlotte Smith\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 10 January 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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When Stephen Sondheim<\/a><\/strong> died last November, it was revealed that throughout his career the great songwriter had written copious responses to his fans\u2019 letters. Twitter was briefly awash with heart-warming examples of his gracious thanks and detailed answers \u2013 there\u2019s even an Instagram account dedicated to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what sort of wide-eyed geek actually writes to a famous musician? Well, me, for starters \u2013 the 17-year-old version at least, on a high from being released from school into the cultural wonderland of London. A visit to Wigmore Hall to see cellist Steven Isserlis<\/a><\/strong> left me reeling and pre-internet I must have had to go to the local library to find the British & International Music Yearbook<\/i> to hunt down his agent\u2019s address. I don\u2019t remember what I wrote \u2013 no doubt it was fervent and profoundly uncynical \u2013 but there came an answer of several generous pages (now lost in the muddle of my storage). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the only one to have experienced this. Colin Dunn, now a hire librarian at Boosey & Hawkes, has written several such letters. He remembers writing to John Cage: \u2018I wrote a fan letter to his address, which I gleaned from an International Who\u2019s Who in Music<\/i>. I\u2019d met him briefly in Glasgow at a new music festival. My letter was rather snivelling: \u201cThank you for being an inventor of genius.\u201d A reply arrived within a couple of weeks: \u201cDear Mr Dunn,\u201d he began, and then his words became illegible, but he seemed to want to enter into a correspondence. He was using special carbon copy paper and I would have had to scribble my reply on his original. I spent too long thinking about what to do, as I wanted to keep his original handwriting, but sadly he died, so I never replied.\u2019<\/p>\n

As an aspiring teenage conductor, David Pievsky, now a barrister and amateur violinist,\u00a0wrote to Mark Wigglesworth<\/a><\/strong>, having watched him conduct Sibelius<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Symphony No. 2 from the front row: \u2018I still remember the exact moment in the last movement that he did something that greatly affected me. There was something about that time \u2013 I was starting to understand the effect of the conductor on the music. There was a young naivety in writing to him \u2013 I just thought I needed to ask someone how to become a conductor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The letter I received back was handwritten, courteous, thoughtful and full of realism: that at my age I should bury myself in music and enjoy myself and see what happens. I should go for it, but only if I felt a compulsion and could not imagine doing anything else. He even offered for me to come and meet him and watch a rehearsal, but at that point my shyness kicked in. But I was touched and impressed that he had found the time to write to a random boy who had sat in the front row of his concert and who had questions.\u2019<\/p>\n

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