{"id":9208,"date":"2013-01-24T18:46:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T23:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=9208"},"modified":"2013-01-24T18:46:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T23:46:28","slug":"reality-check-how-does-toronto-symphonys-audience-choice-compare-to-other-classical-popularity-contests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/01\/24\/reality-check-how-does-toronto-symphonys-audience-choice-compare-to-other-classical-popularity-contests\/","title":{"rendered":"Reality check: How does Toronto Symphony’s Audience Choice compare to other classical popularity contests?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Pablo<\/a>
(Pablo Helguera cartoon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m sitting listening to Yoko Hirota playing Toronto composer Brian Current’s mesmerizing Sungods<\/em> on a just-released album of Canadian music for solo piano. The piece will never make a Top 10 popularity list or something like the Toronto Symphony’s upcoming Audience Choice concerts.<\/p>\n

Here’s what the TSO and conductor Shalom Bard will present on Saturday and Sunday:
\n\u2022John Williams: Theme from Star Wars
\n\u2022Beethoven: Second movement from Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
\n\u2022Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
\n\u2022Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: The fourth movement of Symphony No. 9
\n\u2022Barber: Adagio for Strings
\n\u2022Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture
\n\u2022Plus a “wild card” piece from a list the audience will vote on at each concert.<\/p>\n

According to a TSO spokesperson, 3,500 people cast ballots for this programme, so, from a statistical point of view, this is more than a representative sample of the symphony ticket-buying public. (You’ll find concert details here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For curiosity’s sake, I thought I’d compare this with other lists of top classical hits. I also wondered about the Star Wars<\/em> score on the list and how much other non-art music finds its way onto classical hit lists.<\/p>\n

I went to iTunes to see what their Top 10 classical sellers<\/a> are and discovered that, in Canada, only one of the 10 pieces listed is art music: No. 4 — Yo Yo Ma’s interpretation of the Prelude from Bach Suite No. 1 for solo cello.<\/p>\n

The rest of the music was all pop\/popera stuff. There’s nothing wrong with it, or listening to it. But it is not something we would expect at a symphony concert, for example.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday’s Classic FM Chart<\/a> from England told a similar story, with Andr\u00e9 Rieu on top, followed by the soundrack to The Hobbit<\/em> and an Andrea Bocelli album. Nicola Benedetti’s Silver Violin<\/em> album was the top seller I would consider legit classical, at it stood in the No. 8 spot.<\/p>\n

I checked in with Classic FM’s Hall of Fame<\/a>, an annual Top 300, compiled from listener votes. The top 6 for 2012 were:
\n\u2022Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2
\n\u2022Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
\n\u2022Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
\n\u2022Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4, the “Emperor”
\n\u2022Paul Mealor: Wherever You Are (it’s from a British TV series)
\n\u2022Mozart: Clarinet Concerto<\/p>\n

I consulted the Naxos Music Library blog<\/a>, which featued a “must own” classical list in 2009:
\n\u2022Barber: Adagio for Strings
\n\u2022Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
\n\u2022Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
\n\u2022Bizet: Carmen
\n\u2022Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
\n\u2022Wagner: Ring Cycle<\/p>\n

Since only Lorin Maazel is the only conductor I’ve witnessed with the ability to present Wagner’s Ring in concert (in abridged, symphonic form), I went looking for classical “singles,” first at Kickass Classical.<\/a> The Top 6 there are (and we get a bonus “keyword” to describe each selection):
\n\u2022Beethoven: First movement from Symphony No. 5 — “rousing”
\n\u2022Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture — “powerful”
\n\u2022Mozart: Allegro from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik — “formal”
\n\u2022Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor — “scary”
\n\u2022Rossini: William Tell Overture — “horses”
\n\u2022Pachelbel: Canon in D — “wedding”<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, from Top 100s Radio<\/a> we get:
\n\u2022Handel: Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah
\n\u2022Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
\n\u2022Johann Strauss Jr: The Blue Danube
\n\u2022Brahms: Lullaby
\n\u2022Wagner: Prelude\/Overture to Lohengrin
\n\u2022Chopin: Funeral March from the B minor Sonata<\/p>\n

So the Toronto Symphony’s list is, in this context, not bad at all.<\/p>\n

But I’m seriously concerned about the amount of non-classical music on classical sales charts. What would classical album sales look like if the pop stuff and movie soundtracks were moved to a different spot?<\/p>\n

John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sitting listening to Yoko Hirota playing Toronto composer Brian Current’s mesmerizing Sungods on a just-released album of Canadian music for solo piano. The piece will never make a Top 10 popularity list or something like the Toronto Symphony’s upcoming Audience Choice concerts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,76,14,19,36,42,60,63,1],"tags":[409,798,1566,3339,3360],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2ow","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9208"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}