I know this because a couple of years ago (long before I knew about the Companion or anything like that), I tried an experiment where I invited round to my home half a dozen friends who knew nothing about classical music but were willing to have a listen.

I handed out sheets that explained the music and broke it down in sonata form, themes, etc. with descriptions matched to paticular times on the CDs we were going to listen to. I wasn’t sure what to expect the first time, but to my amazement, I watched as this bunch of novices not only grasped the form of the music, but were absolutely rivted listening to an entire overture, Mozart violin concerto and Beethoven symphony. Half an hour long pieces, and they followed the whole thing!

Let me tell you, it is the most exhilarating thing in the world to see someone’s eyes open to music.

I think the biggest problem that we face in reproducing this in the concert hall is not the technology but:

a) Existing audiences (who’ve been fortunate enough to learn music, etc.) get very particular about what goes on in concerts and usually aren’t keen for new things. (e.g. “What’s those flashing lights on in the concert hall? Highly distracting.”) Granted, these people would have killed off surtitles as well, and in my opinion, they’re the greatest thing to happen in opera for years.

b) You can only explain so much music while it’s on the go. Really, you need about half an hour beforehand to explain to people the big picture of musical structure (sonata form, movements, etc.). Ideally, this would be perfect for a pre-concert talk. But how many good pre-concert speakers are there nowadays? Not many.

c) Far more serious, there is a severe shortage of writers who can explain music to the layperson in an interesting way, so even if you had a running commentary, would it make the music exciting or just boring. (For examples of how to make music exciting, I suggest reading George Groves’ “Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies” or David Hurwitz’ “The Mahler Symphonies: An Owner’s Manual”.) If those guys (well, George has been dead for 100 years) wrote for the Concert Companion, it would probably still be running today.

It definitely seems like a mid-concert, in your face projection type dealie is not the way to go. It’s more the kind of thing that would be interesting when you can go through a piece at your own pace, maybe replaying sections and movements. I feel like if it’s done in a concert hall environment then chances are it’s going to be happening too quickly if you don’t know the piece, and if you do know the piece it will mostly just be annoying.

MM: It’d be fun to try and put something together. Incidentally the financial tree stuff seems like a logistical nightmare from what i can work out :)

ACD: It looks like you had the same idea as I, except of course you beat me by two and a half years…

Yvonne: I sort of like it when they do that – but it’s often oddly out of place. They’ll do it for one piece but not the others, and then there is a confusing mix of levels of detail.

John: I wonder if there is software which does exactly that for classes. If there is it should expand out of the classroom.

From time-to-time, I do come across liner notes for CDs that insert timing indications in the analytical portion of the text. (Earlier this year, I found a recording of Elliott Carter’s Cello Sonata that did this.) So when the writer describes something you know that it happens at 4:32 or between 5:16 and 6:46, and so on.

Not interactive, but along the lines you mention.

It does run the risk of the program note becoming bogged down in blow-by-blow analysis and perhaps losing sight of the forest… But for certain pieces it would be a really interesting exercise.

http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2005/04/transforming_a_.html

Background on just what Concert Companion was and was intended for originally can be read at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_Companion

ACD