[lg policy] Musical Language Barriers: Foreign Titles Intimidate the Uninitiated

[Harold Schiffman]

Language Barriers: Foreign Titles Intimidate the Uninitiated

I have written often about the various ways in which classical music
has managed to distance itself from the public, including potential
new audience members.  Focus groups over many years now, when talking
to people who go to the theater and to museums, and even opera
performances, have found that those same people resist attending
symphony concerts because they feel intimidated. Phrases such as
"well, I don't know enough about that music to appreciate it" are
repeated over and over again.

There are many ways in which the classical music business has done
that, but one of the most obvious--and easiest to fix--is the language
we use when giving the titles of pieces of music.  This isn't as
simple as it sounds--but I have noticed that some orchestras and
presenters have a practice, if not an official policy, of listing all
titles in their original language.

When I managed the Chicago Symphony (and I believe it is still the
case there) our policy was to use English unless the piece was so well
known in the original language that it necessitated using that
language.  Debussy's La mer would be an example of the latter.
Obviously, that is a judgment call, but I would urge always erring on
the side of English.  For example, "A Hero's Life," rather than Ein
Heldenleben.  If you don't know classical music, and are reading an ad
in a newspaper, or hear an ad on the radio, or have even managed to
get yourself to the concert and are reading the program page, you are
likely to ask "What's a Heldenleben?"  I would much more welcome an
all-English policy--even to the point of rendering Debussy's work as
"The Sea"--than an all-original-language policy.  The point of
printing titles is to render information, not to show how smart we
are.

Whether we want to admit it or not, this use of foreign language
titles is an act of distancing: it creates a barrier, a sense that you
need extra knowledge to even understand the name of the piece of
music. Le nozze di Figaro, Ein Deutsches Requiem, La gazza ladra--all
of these are titles known to already committed music lovers, but
incomprehensible to people who feel left out of this art form. In
other cases, the original language might even befuddle some
experienced concertgoers: Tableaux d'une exposition is far less clear
than "Pictures at an Exhibition," and the same is true of "Nights in
the Gardens of Spain" vs. Noches en los jardines de España. I cannot
see a single rational justification for insisting on using
foreign-language titles, other than to demonstrate the line between
those "in the know," and those not. We need to think about everything
we do, every way in which we speak about and present music, and
examine whether what we are doing is taking down barriers, or erecting
them.

http://www.artsjournal.com/ontherecord/2009/08/language_barriers_foreign_titl.html

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