Listen to the Music

Re “Rachmaninoff Isn’t Radiohead, Dude!” Commentary, May 23: John Bennett makes very good points about the classical music establishment and listeners: “the absence of listeners not yet enrolled in AARP” and “today’s classical music leadership has largely abdicated its responsibility for self-advocacy.” The best way to get younger people into concert halls is to make them want to hear the music live. This can be accomplished only by bringing back music appreciation in our schools. Some youngsters will like the music and become devotees who, eventually, will attend concerts.

Then our music establishment would be faced with the demands of a new generation of classical music lovers for a hall with better acoustics and a grand design. The establishment got its priorities backward: First create broadly based patron demand, then build the hall. It’s not too late.

Herb Zweig

Woodland Hills

As decades pass I have been saddened by the diminishing sensitivities of younger people to the wealth of art, music and literature bequeathed to them by creative minds over the centuries. Youth is not at fault. I can only conclude that the problem is the disappearance of regular, daily experience with music and art in the schools. A keen sense of aesthetics can be acquired only by regular, active participation. Otherwise young people are left to the vagaries and greed of mass-media moguls. There is plenty of room in life for pop culture and the fine arts to coexist, but the richer, more artistically nourishing experience in music requires nurturing, or it will be crowded out by musical junk food.

Jerome S. Kleinsasser

Bakersfield

When I was selling subscriptions for the L.A. Philharmonic I heard endless complaints about conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s insistence on forcing those who prefer the old masters to listen to a schedule dominated by more modern music. At the same time, many masterworks beyond the warhorses never get played. When I provided this feedback, I was admonished. The Philharmonic “solved” its customer-service problems by moving to a new building with two-thirds as many seats. What the symphony has needed is not better acoustics but to listen to its patrons, who, as Bennett argues, believe we can attract more listeners by playing more of the geniuses who are the foundation of classical music.

Scott S. Smith

West Hollywood