WUORINEN: STATE OF THE ORCHESTRA

Consider the history of the symphony orchestra as seen through the eyes of Charles Wuorinen: born in the 18th Century as a voice for 18th-Century music; nurtured and expanded in the 19th Century to serve the increasingly lofty utterances of composers from that era; allowed to dwell almost exclusively in the symphonic glories of the past through much of this century.

With contemporary composers receiving short shrift, Wuorinen suggests, the orchestra seemed headed for a home for the feeble and useless by the beginning of the next century.

But the ex-New York composer says things seem to be changing,

“I am fundamentally optimistic,” says Wuorinen on the state of the orchestra. “I think that American orchestras are much better with new music now than they used to be. Part of the change has come simply because the population of orchestra players has switched generations. There are lots of young players, lots of flexibility. And the Composer-in-Residence program has helped keep interest in new symphonic music alive.”

He should know. Currently in the midst of his first year as resident composer with the San Francisco Symphony, Wuorinen, 47, points with pride to the Bay Area ensemble as the innovator of this popular nationwide program. The players, he says, are now “very quick, very responsive” to new music.

Yet he remains aware of the difficulties of keeping the creative juices flowing among conservative concert planners. “What worries me most,” he says, “is that costs (of maintaining an orchestra) keep going up. There is a lot of pressure to program 100% popular pieces. And new music is never popular.”

An obvious reference to the audience--another key factor in sustaining contemporary music. “It’s often difficult to tell if a new piece has been received in the proper spirit,” Wuorinen notes. “Yes, an audience claps, but that doesn’t tell if they’ve gotten the message.”

Wuorinen will be in town tonight when the Los Angeles Philharmonic (led, not coincidentally, by San Francisco Symphony music director Herbert Blomstedt) presents the West Coast premiere of his “Movers and Shakers.”

Though excited about the performances of his six-movement virtuosic piece (played in its premiere last year by the Cleveland Orchestra), the composer remains mindful of the problems facing Music Center audiences: “They’re at a disadvantage, simply because they’ve never heard my work before.

“Most people go to concerts to rehear the familiar. They just don’t have enough practice in hearing anything new.”

Wuorinen sees two solutions to this problem: “There’s no shortcut to familiarity. One thing a concertgoer could do is learn to read music, though most people aren’t that engaged.”

And the other way to prepare for the unfamiliar? “One word--relax. Try to accept the music on its own terms. Don’t worry about getting the correct message. Music is its own message.”

He downplays such aids to the concertgoer as program notes and pre-concert lectures, explaining, “The meaning of music, at best, is ambiguous in verbal terms.”

Symphonic organizations also come under fire from Wuorinen. They spend too much time glorifying themselves, he claims: “It’s all huffing and puffing. They build big buildings to put concerts in. They do everything but actually promote the art.

“We have to distinguish between the orchestra as a sound-producing medium and the orchestra as a cultural symbol.”

Wuorinen’s personal approach to the former comes with no particular regard for its rich tradition. He notes, “I approach orchestral writing the same as anything else.” The issue of cultural symbolism is treated with equal frankness.

To Wuorinen, changes in society should be reflected in the concert hall. Less genuflecting to the past is in order. “Say the name Beethoven once,” he offers as illustration, “and think of the images it conjures. Now, say it over and over and over, and it’s lost its meaning. The same with hearing his music.

“A balanced program? Ideally it would be this: 25% for standard repertory; 25% for a classic of our time (Stravinsky, Bartok, etc.); 25% for a work from a living, established composer (Carter, Cage, Tippett, etc.), and 25% for the Department of Failure--a place for experimentation, for a work that may not be grasped or for one that may not be that good.

“Don’t get me wrong--we must preserve the past,” he adds. “In fact, I feel such a plan would serve the composers of the past.”