No Vivaldi in the Garage: A Requiem for Classical Music in North America [Paperback]

Sheldon Morgenstern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 13, 2001

A memoir of a lifetime in the performing arts--and a forthright commentary on the rapidly deteriorating state of the performing arts in North America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Whether or not you agree with his words, Sheldon Morgenstern offers an entertaining view of his professional experience in classical music. He is not afraid to offer his provocative, seldom-heard perspective on the music world today." (Wynton Marsalis ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

6 x 9 1/4 trim.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern (September 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555534937
• ISBN-13: 978-1555534936
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,241,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eye Opener for Volunteer Boards, November 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: No Vivaldi in the Garage: A Requiem for Classical Music in North America (Paperback)

Every volunteer board member for any arts organization in the US (especially those related to classical music) should read this book before voting on anything at their next meeting.

Morgenstern tells us the behind-the-scenes truth about the business of making classical music in America and casts some dire predictions about its future. He documents that symphonies in particular are in danger of going the way of the dinosaurs without a complete revamping of the manner in which America deals with the arts, its professional musicians and the musical education of its MTV age children.

The book is grounded in Morgenstern's lessons learned as music director of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC which he founded and lead for 35 years as conductor of the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra before his move to France, where he now guest conducts regularly in Europe's more hospitable musical climate.

Morgenstern gives both the layman and the professional alike a seldom seen glimpse into dealings with the prima donnas and bureaucrats, the geniuses and drudges, the students, volunteers, financial backers and paper-pushers who populate the classical music world and are collectively sitting silently by as it lies on its last sickbed.

The book is full of personal stories about the best and worst of the famous, from Leonard Bernstein to YoYo Ma; but he also gives the reader some sense of the joys and frustrations he experienced at the EMF summer festival where he happily served as teacher and mentor for thousands young classical musicians over the years, many of whom have played with major orchestras all over the world.

Every serious music student, professional musician or conductor will recognize in these collected rememberances familiar stories about the beauty and difficulty of a career in music-making. In a trumpet call for unlikely government support, Morgenstern leaves us a stern prediction that without strong European-type subsidies and a renewed dedication to music education in our schools, we may all soon discover that we will no longer be able to find any Vivaldi in the garage, or the local concert hall, on NPR or even on a CD at the mall for that matter.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Morgenstern, Savior of the World, October 31, 2003

By 

C. Wright (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Vivaldi in the Garage: A Requiem for Classical Music in North America (Paperback)

Or at least, that's how Sheldon Morgenstern views himself in his book, "No Vivaldi in the Garage". The book claims to be a critical evaluation of the state of affairs in the classical music world, but is really a set of dull memoirs, in which Morgenstern is the Hero (note the capital H). He is harshly critical of people (the more famous, the more critical), but mostly only if one of those "superstars" declines a gig offer from Morgenstern, or makes more money than Morgenstern himself.

He takes great pains to list all of the famous people he's worked with, and all of the famous alumni of the Eastern Music Festival. He is trying to put himself on the map with this book, since he never enjoyed the fame he condemns others for enjoying.

The book is filled with double standards, condemning behavior in others while relating stories of his own similar behavior with a wink and a nod. At the same time he criticizes people for taking advantage of the system in some way, he relates stories of how he took advantage of a landlord in NYC who offered lower rent to struggling musicians who would use the apartment as a studio for private lessons (Morgenstern wasn't offering private lessons). Wink wink.

His condemnation of Yo Yo Ma as someone who doesn't care about children and music education comes not from Yo Yo's direct involvement with kids, but because he declined to play in a concert that Morgenstern put together for the cellist Leonard Rose. Morgenstern never asks why, he just condemns if people don't follow his plans.

He complains that the US allocates a miniscule amount of funds for the arts, but then relates stories of how board members run their orchestras under by squandering the funds they do have. Many of his stories outline symphony orchestras who got back on their feet by restructuring their board. Do you want to pay more taxes so that incompetent boards can waste your money? Or would you rather have orchestras take pains to select a successful board? He doesn't know what the solution is, but he just wants to rail on what the solution isn't.

He complains about board members who meddle in artistic affairs, when often they have no qualifications for doing so (other than being a listening audience member, and Mr. Morgenstern knows the audience's opinion is certainly of no value). Yet, he doesn't mind, being artistically trained himself, meddling in the business affairs of the board.

Speaking of poor solutions, he says it's a waste to have marching bands in high school and college, and that these schools should invest in a guitarist with a large amplifier. Nevermind that fewer students would be participating in music. My brother and sister aren't musically inclined, but they both spent time in the color guard and marching band, and received worlds of good from it, even if they don't play the kind of music Mr. Morgenstern appreciates. But like I said, if you're not enjoying music in the way that Mr. Morgenstern likes, then you shouldn't be involved in music.

Which brings me to another point which truly upset me. He rails on audiences and musicians who don't like Bartok's music or the music of his friends like Gunther Schuller. He praises Beethoven's rebellious nature and the fact that, for quite some time many regarded his music as unintelligible (this seems to be one of the things Morgenstern enjoys about Beethoven). Yet, he devotes an entire chapter to condemning all composers after Bartok, pretty much a blanket condemnation. "Where did all the melodies go?" he asks, and then offers up a dimwitted and naive view as to why composers nowadays are merely trying to create obnoxious noise (in his view, anyway). Mr. Morgenstern, the type of bickering, whining and complaining you employ in your book is one of the main reasons people are losing interest in the classical music world. If classical musicians spend all their time condemning each other on a whim, without researching facts and trying to understand where someone else may be coming from, how can we expect others to be interested? It's like expecting people to want to become members of a dysfunctional family.

I am happy to say I checked this book out of the library. I'm glad I didn't waste a penny on it.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The U.S. cultural wasteland, January 1, 2002

By 

Paula Swepston (Ferney-Voltaire, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Vivaldi in the Garage: A Requiem for Classical Music in North America (Paperback)

No Vivaldi in the Garage
Sheldon Morgenstern

Music Day in my elementary school in North Carolina was always an adventure. Two boys would be sent down the hall to roll the little piano into our classroom, and someone fetched the big carton of "rhythm instruments". This was a collection of things my folks called "noisemakers" at home - tambourines, triangles, cymbals, sandblocks, and wooden sticks. At the appointed hour either Miz Crystal Bachtell or Miz Margaret Marsh would arrive for our lesson. Miz Bachtell was a dignified lady, with blue eyes and blue hair, and she wore sober gray suits with silk blouses and a discreet strand of pearls. Miz Marsh was young and snazzy, and dressed in leopard prints and cat-eye glasses decorated with rhinestones, and her hair was a different color every time we saw her. Both possessed the formidable talent of making Stravinsky's "Petrouchka" realer to us than Walt Disney's "Pinocchio". We were taught to read music, to sing in harmony, and to bang things in time to a piano accompaniment. We loved it.

Each spring, when the North Carolina Symphony came to town, we were given a special course to acquaint us with the orchestra's program. After a few weeks of listening to recordings and learning about the composers' lives, we were taught proper concert comportment: the symphony has four movements, don't clap between them; wait until the conductor turns and bows before applauding; don't sing along; and don't chew gum during the performance. That was how I first heard "The Firebird" and Dvorak's "New World Symphony", when I was ten years old. It was an experience that set me on a lifelong path of concert-going and paved the way for my own professional music career.

Sound like a lost paradise? Well, it was a very long time ago, about 40 years, and judging from reports of my nephews' and nieces' schooling, things have changed a lot today.

In Sheldon Morgenstern's "No Vivaldi in the Garage" we are shown a heartbreaking picture of the growing wasteland that is the current U.S. cultural scene. Lack of government funding for the arts, bureaucratic managements, overpriced soloists - all are taking a toll on the availability of performing arts to the American citizenry. When I was growing up, music lessons were not considered a luxury. They were a part of one's general education, as much as biology or football, and from our high school orchestras and choirs came the fine musicians who are being thrown out of work today, as one orchestra after another goes bankrupt.

This book is a "must" read for all who love the arts. In addition to spotlighting the precarious situation of symphony orchestras, music festivals, and theatres in today's cultural landscape, it offers the delightful portrait of a truly formidable educator. Every page that Mr. Morgenstern writes breathes love for the many students he has helped to professional careers, and pride in their achievements. Would there were more like him, and more money to go around to realize their teaching goals!

What is it about music that provides us with such a powerful link to our better selves? Immediately following the September 11 tragedies, the nation and the world found enormous solace and inspiration in music, above almost anything else. It united us in expressing emotions we could not reach with words, it gave us courage, it allowed us to grieve. It is there for everyone. But who is there to stand up for music itself? For the composers and artists?

If you have ever thrilled to a Brahms symphony or a Schubert string quartet or the "Nutcracker" ballet, if the final movement of the Beethoven Ninth moves you to tears of joy, do these things in the New Year: support your local symphony or opera company, write to your congressman, and READ THIS BOOK!

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