Great art needs a great audience

Poet Patrick Gillespie makes an impassioned argument ("Let Poetry Die") against institutional benevolence sustaining poetry, and his comments and insights hold true to a great degree for concert music as well.  He perceptively notes that the audience for great art is actually part of great art:

Monroe’s stance excluded the general public from the evolution of art, but as Walt Whitman wrote, great poetry isn’t possible without a great audience, and if the audience is excluded from the development of a given art form, then it will no longer reflect the audience’s own innate greatness. And that is precisely what has happened. The general public no longer turns to contemporary poetry because it ceases to find itself, its greatness, reflected in that poetry. The general public has been excluded.

He comes to a fairly strong conclusion along the way:

The best thing that could happen to poetry is to drive it out of the universities with burning pitch forks. Starve the lavish grants. Strangle them all in a barrel of water. Cast them out. The current culture, in which poetry is written for and supported by poets has created a kind of state-sanctioned poetry that  resists innovation. When and if poetry is ever made to answer to the broader public, then we may begin to see some great poetry again – the greatness that is the collaboration between audience and artist.

While I think that great music has certainly been composed in the past 60 years, I also believe we have lost much because of a commitment to narrow, self-reinforced artistic perspectives that in many ways disrespect the audience.  And how long has it been since American concert music could credibly be described as a "collaboration between audience and artist"?  Ever?  Gillespie's whole essay is here.

Comments

[Patrick Gillespie]

Before taking up poetry, I studied as a composer at the University of Cincinnati's Conservatory of Music. I have a close and inside acquaintance with modern concert music. Though my argument was with poetry, you're right. The argument could and perhaps should be applied to modern composers.

On the other hand, the marketplace of opinion still functions in the film industry. Danny Elfman just blows me away. Here's a guy that brings phenomenal craftsmamship, imagination and skill to on-screen music. Even in an innocuous film like the remake of Charlotte's Web, I find myself losing track of movie so that I can listen to music. I have a feeling he's going to go down as one of the greats.

[Patrick Gillespie]

Sorry 'bout the typos.

[Stuart Sims]

Hi Patrick, thanks for your comment (and for your original essay, of course). It is true that the marketplace of opinion still functions for much of the musical world, and those quarters do still manage to produce very interesting music. I find that concert composers under 40ish are very much of a nobrow perspective, and I find that very encouraging.