Dvorak and the Goo Goo Dolls

Last Friday I went to a concert at the Amphitheatre in Tinley Park featuring the Goo Goo Dolls and the Counting Crows. I went for the latter band; most people went for the former. Lucky for me, the Goo Goo Dolls opened the double-header and this proved useful as I moved from far in the back to four rows from the front due to the lack of interest from the significantly younger Goo Goo Dolls crowd.

As the Goo Goo Dolls were performing I started making parallels to classical music. I knew maybe two or three songs from the band, and that included one cover song. As is the case with most, I was more enthusiastic about the songs I did know than the ones I didn’t know; even if, overall, the band is not my cup of tea. That very same principle counts for classical music as well; people want to hear Beethoven’s Fifth, Also sprach Zarathustra, and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; tickets sell better when these major works are programmed; and the applause is longer and louder even if it is not an orchestra’s best performance.

But what made me think most were the songs I didn’t know. If I would have bought an album before the concert and would have gotten familiar with some songs and the band itself, the experience would have been much more exciting. Lately, I have been listening a lot to Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 9; next time I will hear these pieces in concert, I will be much more thrilled by the music simply because I know the pieces more intimately.

Once you know a couple of works by the same composer, or the same band, it also gets easier to listen to works you don’t know by that same band or composer. If the Counting Crows come out with a new CD, I will make sure to get it. If the Chicago Symphony Orchestra programs works by Dvorak, Strauss or Shostakovich (the few composers of whom I do now know a couple of works) that I haven’t heard before, I will make sure to go to that concert.

I believe music education can contribute so much to generate excitement for classical music. I wrote about it before—and again, I don’t want it to sound like a big promotion—but the CSO’s Beyond the Score concerts are really my favorite performances to attend. The entire composition is explained in the first half of the program, with multimedia, live excerpts by the orchestra, acting and lecturing. Then, when you hear the second half of the program, the music sounds so much more interesting. I remember how exciting it was to hear Strauss’ interpretation of his music critics in Ein Heldenleben; he made them sound like insects and you could really pick that up from the music.

I am not quite at a level yet where I understand and recognize a composer or an orchestra the way I understand and recognize the Counting Crows, but I can picture myself going to a classical music performance with just as much enthusiasm as soon as I do.