Is Classical Music Dying--Again? Or Not?

The articles and stories keep coming: classical music is dead, it's on its way out, it's passe, not relevant, boring, and perhaps worst of all "elitist," whatever the person flinging that accusation might actually mean by it. Are financial problems connected to declining attendance at concerts and decreasing music sales bringing it down? Or, is it rising from the ashes like a phoenix with creative new ways of presenting concerts and getting the music out there so it can invigorate the soul, reveal eternal truths about human nature that will make it always relevant, and is it sometimes just plain fun? As we're approaching the end of the year and Thanksgiving is almost here, I think back to the Washington Post column by music critic Anne Midgette from the beginning of this year, "Classical music: dead or alive?" in which she takes issue with another article in Slate Magazine written by Mark Vanhoenacker announcing, "Requiem, Classical Music is Dead in America." According to Vanhoenacker,"classical music has been circling the drain for years."  While at the very end he hopes it can make some kind of comeback, he doesn't sound too convincing. Just yesterday, The New York Times confirmed in "Roll Over Mahler: U. S. Orchestras Are Shrinking," that many of these institutions are to some degree or other facing difficulties, but most orchestras are also coping with the changes, and a few are even thriving. So, among the things I am thankful for this season, I continue to hold out hope that despite the many real challenges the art form known as "classical music" faces in our culture today, all is not lost, the love of good music will not die. A possible resurgence of interest  and involvement may not be as dramatic as the mythological Phoenix, but there is the idea in that image of a cyclical recurrence; it keeps coming back and ascending in a new incarnation. We are the ones who go to concerts, buy the music, and tell anyone who is willing to listen why we think it's great. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven (and all the rest of the great composers) will continue to be with us, but we collectively determine what form the love of their music may take this time around, and what its fortunes will be, whether it is going down the drain, or soaring upward in an ascending spiral.