Today is the 90th birthday of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama . To celebrate this I am republishing, without further editing, the 2014 photo essay about my close encounter with His Holiness at the Kalachakra Initiation in Ladakh, northern India. The Paradox of Our Age , a short but powerful essay credited to the present Dalai Lama, is widely available in Ladakh in northern India, a region known as 'Little Tibet'. The text ends with the observation that: 'These are times of fast foods but slow digestion/Tall men but short characters/Steep profits but shallow relationships/It’s a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room'. Tibetan Buddhism is widely viewed as an appealing alternative to materialistic Western society, so, not surprisingly, The Paradox of Our Age is widely circulated on the internet and Twitter - see photo tweet below . I bought The Paradox of Our Age on an exquisitely printed little scroll in the Tibetan refugee market in the re...
Comments
There are an awful lot of works that would fall apart if not for a traffic cop on the podium (excluding operatic works. They really need a benevolent dictator to keep things going!)
Most, however, were composed after 1890 and require humungous resources. That alone makes these performances costly. So, maybe, the clue to financial stability is for orchestras to pair-down, perform older (and newer!) works that don’t require so many musicians, and occasionally get someone to conduct the bigger works. The late 19th /early 20th century orchestra is truly a product of the end of the Industrial Age and the central focus of the Consumer Age. We are, I believe, in the post-ages for both. And small is good again.
Cheers
David Cavlovic
Whether or not they're overpaid is a different matter entirely (one could say the same thing about software program managers compared to the developers who actually build the darn things), but if a conductor "doesn't make a difference" to the music, then classical music, recording-wise, might as well be like rock music (or film scores), where only the first recording of a work is necessary or "valid".
Obviously it is not. The Guardian article speaks from a position of sheer ignorance and self-righteousness.