I take the symphony orchestra as symptomatic of what is happening generally in the musical world. This unhealthy state of affairs tends to make all music listening safe and unadventurous. This narrows considerably in the minds of a broad public the very conception of how varied musical experience may be, and puts all lesser works in a false light. Worst of all, it leaves a bare minimum of wall space for the showing of the works of new composers, without which the supply of future writers of masterworks is sure to dry up. Nine-tenths of the time a program performed in a concert hall in Buenos Aires provides an exact replica of what goes on in a concert hall on London or of Tel Aviv.
Music is no longer merely an international language, it is an international commodity.
Reverence for the classics in our time has been turned into a form of discrimination against all other music. Prof. Edward Dent spoke his mind on this same subject when he came to the United States in 1936 to accept an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. This situation, remarked upon sixteen years ago by Professor Dent, is now intensified through the role played by commercial interest in the purveying of music. In the same way musical references in books harp upon the names of a few musical giants. The principal victims of this petrifaction of our musical life are the performing artists themselves.