The Obamas’ classical soirée - Page 4

In November Anastasia Tsioulcas experienced the President's arts outreach ideas at the White House

President Obama greets young musicians at the White House (credit: Rick McKay/White House photo office)

Sharon Isbin and Joshua Bell perform (credit: Rick McKay/White House photo office)

For even the pros, the star power and credibility that the Obamas give to the classical music is not to be taken lightly. “If the Obamas giving their stamp of approval to this music doesn’t make it cool,” said a radiant Weilerstein post-performance, “I don’t know what will.”

What it would have meant, then, to have one of the more relaxed and socially at-ease professional performers to have said something, however briefly, about how the rituals surrounding classical music matter far less than the music itself, or why they each had alighted to this form. Or why, for example, classical music – whether written 250 years ago, 100 years ago or last week – should have a place at the table. Or why this genre is not just a curiosity but is still a living, breathing and vital part of our cultural fabric.

In the event, the star performers did precious little to disabuse the audience of their discomfort with classical music, or to explain why this music, written in whatever era, might be relevant today. There was some talk of personal passion, and there were some impassioned performances, but there was nothing that created a coherent whole or vision for how to re-weave classical music back more fully into the fabric of contemporary American life.

The music should speak for itself, of course. But perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad thing to guide the conversation along in some gentle fashion in the future.

Then again, that might be a rather difficult argument to make when not a single one of the invited soloists chose to perform a piece of American music in front of President Obama. The programme was chock-full of selections from Old Europe: Albéniz to Bach, Paganini to Ravel. At the afternoon performance, Weilerstein did manage to slip in a short solo work by Osvaldo Golijov, who settled in the US in 1986, while Joshua Bell slipped in a Vieuxtemps lollipop of variations on “Yankee Doodle”. Granted, there were certain logistical limitations involved, from instrumentation to space and time (and no multi-movement works were performed).

Nevertheless, taking all this into account, how could it possibly be the case that in late 2009 we as Americans are still so indebted to European tradition that we cannot fathom celebrating our own music in our own “people’s house”?