Mac Donald vs. Sandow

There seems to be an awful lot at stake in the ongoing battle of words between Heather Mac Donald, who argues that we are in the golden age of classical music, and Greg Sandow, who claims that classical music is in a dangerous period of decline and redundancy. Here's a rundown of the articles from each writer:

• Heather Mac Donald's Classical Music's Golden Age  
• Greg Sandow published five responses to Heather's initial article: Cockeyed optimist, Off in the clouds, Still in the clouds, The poor dead horse, and One last thought.
• To which Heather responded with The Unsustainable Declinism of Greg Sandow.

Other well-known classical music bloggers have also weighed in on the debate:

•  Interesting Times from AC Douglas in Sounds and Fury
• An Ugly War of Words from Drew McManus in Adaptistration
• Pamphet Wars from Maura Lafferty's La ci darem la mano
• Pull up a Lawn Chair from Lisa Hirsch's Iron Tongue of Midnight

My opinion on the matter?

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, this is a tremendously exciting time of renewal for not only classical music but for the arts in general, with all sorts of new growth brought on by multiculturalism, technology, and the sizable entry of a new crop of brilliant emerging professionals each year. The standard of playing is getting higher and higher, and not at the expense of artistry.

But at the same time, there are serious flaws in many institutions, which need to be addressed. Rare indeed is the classical music organization that has arrived at the winning combination of artistic agenda, audience engagement, and business plan without jeopardizing one for the other. There are plenty of people in positions of power who just don't get it.

But who the hell are we to predict a future that will eventually be determined by those who come after us? As arts professionals, all we can do is work to the best of our abilities to figure out which processes new and old are the ones that have the greatest impact, do our best to make them work, educate those that come after us, and then pass the baton to the next generation.

The ultimate destination of the ecosystem known as classical music simply hasn't been discovered yet.