There is a responsibility on all of us to encourage the next generation to play instruments and to attend classical concerts’ Violinist Kyung Wha Chung. Photograph: PR
“Classical music is dead” is what the media tells us, time and time again. How incredible, therefore – indeed, how wonderful – that an incident taking place in a violin recital is able to make headlines all over the world, sparking lively debates on the behaviour of musicians and audiences alike.
A little over a week ago, I made my comeback to the European stage following an injury to my left hand 12 years ago. Returning to London’s Royal Festival Hall was a night laden with emotion. For many years England was my home. There was a time when I thought I would never perform again and I was thrilled that, against the odds, I had been able to. It was a true homecoming for me.
When I came out onto the stage, I was overwhelmed by the warmth from the 3,000-strong audience. The hall was filled with families and children, and I enjoyed meeting many of them at the signing session after the concert. However, the night’s pressures being what they were, I was somewhat taken aback by the interruption of protracted adult coughing – and subsequent laughter – after the first movement of the opening work. After almost two minutes, as I was about to resume playing, my focus was stolen by a restless, coughing young child, directly in my line of vision. That this cough, and my surprised reaction, should go on to gather global headlines, is something of a revelation, and it has raised a number of interesting issues on conduct in a concert hall.
The concert hall and the theatre are probably the last havens of peace; places in which it is still expected that audiences can sit, absorb, think and contemplate without interruption. These periods of concentration are necessarily lengthy, and increasingly rare in the modern world.
I believe it is important, therefore, to foster education in young people today, so that the art of true listening is not lost. Learning to listen is a life skill – it opens us up to a world beyond our everyday experiences and enables us to connect with something transcendental and extraordinary. When that connection is made between musician and audience, with no need for words, it is a most precious exchange. So there is an enormous responsibility on all of us to encourage the next generation to play instruments and to attend classical concerts.
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I have always welcomed children to my concerts, and indeed think it is a vital part of music education that they experience and discover the joys of live performance. However, I think it is also important that the very youngest children are taken to appropriate events, where they can feel comfortable to move, whisper and react animatedly. The concept of “children’s concerts”, which foster much more relaxed environments in which small children are actively encouraged to engage with music on a physical level, is the perfect example of this. It should never become an ordeal for the child to sit attentively – many adults struggle to manage this themselves!
Live performances hold a certain magic, and the concert hall still commands the ability to create a sacred world far removed from the bustle of everyday life. There is a special vitality and excitement to each concert, a bond uniquely shared between performer and audience, which is best enjoyed in the traditional stillness and peace of the concert hall. So there is still a fundamental truth in the words of the great conductor Leopold Stokowski, who said (when addressing a coughing audience in Philadelphia): “Great music is sound, painted on a canvas of silence”.
The overwhelming interest in and passion for these issues – with opinions expressed in equal measure on both sides of the debate – ultimately serve to point to one overwhelming conclusion: that, in the 21st century, classical music is far from dead.
