Thank you for the financial crisis

Although the heading of my today's blog may sound a bit cruel, nevertheless I would like to make a kind of comment on the crisis from a different angle. Within the art-sector - though not exclusively - the pain of dried-up grants and subventions is being felt quite heavily. Yet, as a manager, I am a bit amazed by the fact how things are going.

First and foremost, the crisis was not too unexpected. For financial experts and economists, it is already an obvious given, that a crisis is a cyclic occurrence, which we are faced with every 10-15 years. The sad thing is, however, that mostly we hardly ever learn from the previous. Despite these signals, those who are in fact the experts, are also the ones who deliberately create the next crisis. What did we learn from the hedge-funds? Nothing: We just jumped into a similar empty bubble.

Ever since the rise of Liberalism there is a group of people (mind you: wealthy people), who somehow are trying to find a way, to become more wealthy. And mostly at the expense of others, and to be more exact: the poorer masses. I am definitely not talking of solutions like those by Karl Marx (although, in the light of miserable poverty during the industrial revolution era, quite understandable). When we just take a look at the Great Depression of the 1930s, where through thorough government interventions of President Roosevelt, the United States were able again to slowly crawl out of the ditch. As we compare later the total opposite political programs of the let's say Reagan and the Bush (Jr) administrations, we see again sharp declines. And although Republicans complain about the Democrats, who - in their view - have a devastating economic policy, it is exactly the Republican administrations that cause soaring huge state deficits and an ailing economy, while the Clinton administration has left the White House with the biggest surplus in history.

History clearly showed, that Reagonomics, Thatcherism and other laissez-faire inclined politics have led our world economy to the edge,by becoming so greedy, that those empty bubbles (like the internet bubble, the finance bubble) were the obvious result of uncontrolled money-hording, which slowly has become a norm. Our society is hardly interested in culture or arts anylonger. What is cool nowadays, is a big jeep, a big house (with a number of rooms, you hardly will ever use yourself). Now that joy is over. And the crisis is again - like a catharsis - showing us a mirror, giving us a change - to cleans ourselves where we should earnestly ask; "what have we done?". Mind you that those CEOs or CFOs, who were heading with these companies into this mess (and they should have known in the first place), are - at worst - leaving the almost bankrupt companies with a multi-million severance package, while those, who were down the ladder face perhaps long-term unemployment, losing everything they have. Should we just tolerate such??? Well, we agreed somehow to let loose the control mechanisms, as we were so eager to reap the seemingly unlimited profits. Lulling ourselves into a comfortable worriless sleep. Another question springs up in my mind: Since economic theories - in their whole extent - can hardly withstand time and prove to be fully invalid after a number of decades, how can some Nobel-Prize winners seriously be convinced of their theories - knowing that economics is no dogma - or is it because they get the benefits of it too (as was the case in the LTCM crisis)?

It is perhaps time, finally to wake up and to reconsider our values; that perhaps we really don't need a jeep to bring our kids to kindergarten or for going to the supermarkets. Maybe other values in society - e.g. to enjoy reading, art galleries, concerts, are contributing far more to our character-building than that what we have been doing for the past years, by consumption-materialism beyond belief. Perhaps, this can be a good starting point to re-design our societies; to prioritise again, and choose for more sustainable values in life.

MS

Bio-Music...

A few days ago, while I was somewhat hastily shopping in our local supermarket, I stopped pondering over the choice of buying a box of regular tomatoes, or the (much more expensive) biologically grown equivalent. As we prefer tasty, fresh, Mediterranean delicacies, my choice was easily made. Sorry for the bleak, cheaper-produces, glass-house tomatoes from Holland. This time it was not only a matter of "better taste", but also the knowledge that one would not be chewing some chemical residues or pesticides along with it. At the same time, an older article by Christian Holst crossed my mind, where he made a striking comparison between strawberry flavoured Bio-yogurt and an artificially modern manufactured flavoured strawberry yogurt as a metaphor for recordings of Rene Jacobs and those of Herbert von Karajan. As I am - personally - not very much inclined to Karajan at all, nevertheless I do try to make the choice between the modernistic approach and the Historically Informed Performance practise. And, as Christian Holst correctly mentioned: "The modern artificiall strawberry jogurt may taste more-strawberry-like, yet it does not make it a better yogurt". Why do I expand on this right now?

As we find it nowadays necessary, in general, that we inform people about health hazards and being conscious about our weight, dietary habits, etc., yet the promotion of early music in Slovakia is not always regarded as being nonsensical, unnecessary, even up to the extent of being perhaps blasphemic. And while the rest of the world already accepts Historically Informed Performances, the Slovak Culture Ministry - including the Bratislava Music Academy - seems to smother every serious attempt to have early music thoroughly researched and studied. Moreover, the Ministry of Culture holds back grants, referring to the already active music repertoire of early music of the Slovak Philharmonic. The times that - let's say - the New York Philharmonic or the Philadelphia Orchestra played e.g. Bach or Handel are way back in the past, and no serious conductor would dare to put these compositions with such orchestras on the bill, since it does require a bit of a different apporach. Yet the Slovaks have still the idea, that they live in a time-capsule; we still live somehow in the 1960s, and that Bach can still equally be performed à la Karajan, Ormandy or Stokowski.

A few weeks ago, the Slovak violinist Juraj Čižmarovič (currently concert-master at the West Deutsche Rundfunk Orchestra) was playing - together with befriended musicians/quartett players - Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons in the historic building of the State Opera in Bratislava. What was so sad about this action: This was not Vivaldi. Even if Mr Čižmarovič and his colleagues have no interest at all for the permormance of baroque music, he even showed off in front of the camera his virtuoso-techniques... by not even being able to play the correct notes, playing the ones left even embarrassingly out of tune.

If this is the level, how an instrumentalist is still being hailed (despite the embarrassment he demonstrated so publicly) as almost "the greatest Slovak violinist", it says a lot about the audience as well as the arrogance of a certain group of (colleague)musicians and their political patrons. Ignorance and arrogance is widely ruling, and they have become - thanks to the label of playing under the Slovak Philharmonic, Opera, or whichever institute - thoroughly and utterly complacent. But still: you may prefer the artificially flavoured jogurt, just because your taste-buds are spoiled by mere chemicals, the only truth about which product is truly of better quality is very obvious. Perhaps to think whether we should invest more into the musical bio-strawberries before they completely die out.

MS

Culture is not about just being old-fashioned...

Writing a blog is fun to do; it gives you an opportunity to analyse your own thoughts, it saves time as potential customers can scan your opinions (or let's say; free advertisement) and you don't have to go through time-consuming publishing processes. When placing a web-counter/stats application it gives you also a feedback of who is reading your blogs and ... for what reason.

For the past few months, I have analysed my page hits, and come up with an odd finding: whether readers are from India, Nigeria, Canada or the UK... I can see remarkably many search requests for "is culture static/dynamic?". Scaringly similar! And although financial crisis or not, whether a certain political coalition is favourable to culture or not, it seems that there is a universal quest for finding out whether culture is something that is static (stiff, unchanging, conservative) or dynamic (subject to changes, flexible...). And it makes you think even more about exactly these search queries.

When taken only at our modern setting's outlook, we consider perhaps modern mass-media culture as being dynamic. In my case, I am referring actually to culture as not being MTV-spots but to culture of music traditions. Music from the Renaissance, Baroque, Cassicism, Romantic period... Music of our forefathers - therefore long long ago,.. thus "static". Yes, music of our forefathers, but nevertheless so much alive and exciting to fathom. Why fathom? Because through time, to a certain level, we have lost touch with it. Now, in our modern era of almost unlimited access thanks to internet, we can re-discover the dynamism of early music even re0invent the clear sound of late-romanticism, which we have unfortunately polluted with overly-zealous vibratos losing cristal clear intonations and harmonic cleanliness, making the music more alive and appealing.

A few weeks ago, I have invited some friends - who would hardly ever go to a classical concert - to a concert of the ensemble Musica Aeterna. Playing French baroque music, this would perhaps be a different planet to them. Although they would never tune their radio to a classical station, or buy a CD with Pinnock, Gardiner and whoever else, they were much astonished about the vibrant vivacious nature of the performance, even intrigued to the very end.

Pursuing research regarding old manuscripts, performance practices, is usually an exciting quest -almost an adventure. You blow off the century old dust and find out about the lively emotions of musicians of centuries' ago. And discover that we do hardly deal with stiff two-dimensional painting like figures but true people living through all strata of human feelings, which resemble ours. When approaching early music with such a "jazzy" attitude, it can be demonstrated that even "early music" is hardly a kind of dinosaur skeleton in a dusty museum, but a exciting encounter with our forefathers who are exactly... like us. It shows us, how wrong we have perceived their lives. Culture is hardly from static; it is dynamic and fully alive.

A happy and musical 2009 to you all!
MS

Stürmisch bewegt... discussions on Mahler con brio

My current schedule in the last few months leaves me with little time to be able to follow all interesting publications. During some hasty breakfasts, I quickly browse my RSS-feeds to get at least a glimpse of what I am missing. While two conducting colleagues on their blog give their respective opposite - but both evenly interesting to read - experiences on conducting Mahler's 5th Symphony. Obviously as a Mahlerite myself, I do find it worthwhile to read critics of his music, most of all to take once in a while a distance and reflect on my own position towards his compositions. So far for the light reading: A couple of days ago, suddenly articles appeared on Gilbert Kaplan's Mahler's 2nd performance in New York. Having known Mr. Kaplan's devotion to Mahler's 2nd Symphony for a couple of decades, this was not quite new to me, until I glanced over a few comments going with the respective articles...

What caught my (professional) attention, was the large variety of different opinions, especially from professional musicians, on conducting itself. To repeat all the pros and cons from the whole discussion would be too boring, I guess, but with some amusement I do read the most fervent argumentations. What most strikes me, is that when thinking about the whole discussion, and if taken out of context, many arguments are evenly be applied to any other conductor. Mr. Kaplan's non-professional conducting background is highly being criticised (I must admit, I never had the chance, seeing him perform myself). Yet, all the described "faults" and critique could be used at many professional colleagues conductors, who (thus) are supposed not to make such mistakes... a contraire. Many professional conductors should never have gotten into this business, but circumstances decided otherwise - and it was obviously not always their excellent talent nor skill.

This makes perhaps this job of being a conductor so mysterious: aside from the point who got the job, if taken a truly great Maestro under the magnifying glass; none of them resembles the other... There's never (and never will be) a universal recipe how to be a good conductor, and even the greatest maestros have orchestra members in front of them, who will never like them. It's not about beating time, it's not about being an eloquent charismatic generalissimo leading them to the battle.

But after all; isn't it fun to have so many flavours? Imagine a world with a uniform time beating robot... Let's give room to all the available variety. And what a joy to realise that the composing conductor Gustav Mahler himself is unleashing such interesting discussions.

regards
MS

Some links:
Slipped disc
New York Times
Abu Bratsche
Sticks and drones

Opera blues

It's in the news already: while having heard the first rumours from insiders a while ago, last Thursday the first server informed the public about the resignation of the renowned Ms Gabriela Beňačková as the director of the Bratislava's State Opera. Hardly half a year in function (only!), this move - which was foreseeable - is another blow; not only for the Opera's existence, but is sadly enough proving the fact that management is out of control. Or maybe is in fact in control to pursue its own directionless course and thus disregarding the interests of an opera to be met.

What is most disappointing about the whole matter, is that Ms Beňačková is the third director to in a row leave within a year - she has the sad record of even less than half a year. How can it be explained, that an institution like a state owned opera experiences such frequent re-shuffles, while none of the directors have managed to extablish a clear strategic vision to lead such an organisation. Especially the dubious record of Oliver Dohnányi, who initiated first the death blow programme to the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovak Radio, has left another organisation unmanaged again when Ms Beňačková stepped in.

Her coming seemed a turning point. Her internationally gained experiences would be the necessary tools to uplift the Opera's future. It soon turned out ot be mere wishful thinking. In her interviews, Ms Beňačková kept on stressing her international fame. She had great concepts in her mind, without hinting at any possible direction, soon to be revealed... Ms Beňačková forgot to realise, that she was not hired to repeatedly reminding us her stardom, only to be going into depths of her irrelevant anecdotes. She behaved like a diva, and like a diva only. Her so proudly hinted great plans and visions have however remained only in her head, never to come out; without any consultation with relevant people around her at all, without working anything out. And we were hoping to hear a manager speak.

Her resignation is shrouded (again) in mistifying secrecy: She refused to tell the public the reason for her decision. That the job was difficult to do was obvious. An institution needs a director for at least a year or four to get on track - where the new manager would need first to get the feel of the organisation and fathom all its issues, a path which takes at least a year or two to accomplish. An institution in turmoil even the more. Now another director has prematurely left the ship, only to pout about the fact that she felt a hostile team around her. Being a responsible manager is a bit of a different job than being a celebrated opera star. I am afraid, Ms Beňačková has, despite her always self-proclaimed experience, deeply grossly underestimated this role.

The lack of any possible transparency within the management of the State Opera has met with much criticism - in and oustide the Opera, which for a great part can equally be attributed to the general director, Ms Hroncová herself, who has still the final responsibility for these management-quirks. Frequent interviews were only to be answered with empty phrases, even only in writing(!), where either Ms Hroncová and Ms Beňačková would only answer those questions that suited them, cleverly evading the unpleasant ones. The cherry on the cake was, that even the spokesperson of the Opera, when asked by journalists, refused to give a reaction on Ms Beňačková resignation. The fact that the "focus was on the premiere of Gluck's Orfeo and Eurydice", the lady wasn't able to answer (you will ask yourself; is a spokesperson paid to give management-related information to the public, or to stick posters on billboards or even sing the leading part in the premiere-to-come?! Perhaps my job-description of a spokesperson is outdated already, but this fact really makes your jaw drop from disbelieve).

Unfortunately, it proves even the more two things: Old corrupt practices are still very influential - a success from the communist era, but second, in a society that has still somehow moved further in time, these practises are becoming self-destructive. The question is; when and who will finally break through this sad circle of wasting chances and resources? I have the feeling that Slovakia should perhaps be deeply ashamed by this.

MS

Financial crisis' doom scenarios

Each day, we get mixed reports on the current financial crisis. Though with frequent intervals, the major world's stock markets close with a plus, to be followed by another day in the minus. A roller coaster ride it is. As economy is not only a matter of money, it is mostly (if not: always) lead by... emotions. The major given for investors to decide whether to invest or to pull out is their trust in the business. A slight hiccup and a profitable business can turn bankrupt almost overnight.

As the news on the crisis goes on, the first waves of redundancies were detected, alas. Economical analysts give their views - sometimes totally contradictory - making them mere fortune-tellers looking at their magic crystal, adding oil on the fire of the said people's emotions.

In such a scenario, we tend to become cautious; keep our purse closed. Not just in the individual households, but also fundraising and sponsoring is visibly affected. Music and arts in general are as if squeezed out even more than before. A logical consequence? Perhaps not: We all know how in 1945 Europe lay in ruins. People's first priority was to survive. Living among rubble, not knowing where to get food to make it to the next day. And yet, in those times it was e.g. that the Salzburg Festspiele was reboosted. The post-war era was the time, where our present-day big-and-famous orchestras were (trans)formed into beacons of fame and wealth.

Fortunately, we are not living in ruins in Europe at this moment, we are just panicky, because financial institution greedily were selling their credits in order to earn their bonusses, found out that in their greed they have uncontrollably created a soap-bubble which has burst now. We will get out of it - in fact, it's their problem to solve it. In the meantime, let us remember what new opportunities were launched just after 1945. Let's try to give arts a new accelleration again. We did it before, and why shouldn't it work now. It's all a matter of emotions.

MS

Culture in crisis (II)

The news goes on - stocks exchanges all over the world go up-and-down. A roller-coaster ride so to speak, which is definitively not a pleasant one (especially for those at the bottom of the ladder).

What intrigues me is this; when I apply for a mortgage or a credit, my bank is poking into my private life, trying to find out every single detail, to assure them that I will be able to pay them back (plus all the extra fees, interest rates and all). I have to meet certain criteria - what assurance is it that I have a contract now, while my boss can get bankrupt by next week anyway? - well, so be it.

When we apply for a concert project to the Ministry of Culture (government)!), we need to prepare the most irrelevant paper work and requirements (even submit proof of insurance of the individual musicians). Yet what we get is sometimes just small fraction of the needed budget.

Now the banks are in trouble; but governments pump in billions of Euros - and against what assurance? None? So bank-managers are at least able to get their millions in bonuses paid. Great; what a relief!!! I was already getting worried that they were not able to afford their Bahama Christmas this year.

Aren't we becoming a part of a bizarre Kafka plot? So far one good thing has happened - Last month, the Culture Ministry increased the own contribution from 5% to 15%, giving several ensembles a death-blow. Last Friday, due to this crisis, the Ministry has decided to reverse this decision. Whether the remaining projects would still be feasible is still to be seen.

MS