I would like to show you an example of what classical music currently represents in "global" culture.
What thirty years ago was still, in some respects, elite, today is commodification in its most squalid state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngDA9eSo84s
Now, I won't delve into the merits of the performance or of Dudamel: I only want to highlight that today, with all the means of information and knowledge we have, thinking of "classical music" as the usual nineteenth-century grind—with a bit of Mozart, Haydn, and Bach on the side—some Italian opera (always nineteenth-century) for dessert that perhaps alternates with a Ravel concerto—is truly mortifying.
These people like Dudamel, who stand there taking part in events that have no cultural sense, I wonder what pleasure they derive from doing their job.
You only look at the result of these operations: hundreds of thousands of views and comments like "Beethoven is God, Rossini is Jesus..." or "...and Roger Waters is 'The Holy Spirit'"
A few days ago I was listening to Uto Ughi on Rai 3, observing how, unlike in the past, today the performer stands in front of rather than behind the composer.
The performer, today, is much more important than the music they play. Every "classical" production is built around the latest virtuoso of the moment who then, most of the time, "bends" the piece to satisfy the urge to give an interpretation that is forcedly different from those (perhaps excellent and philologically correct) that have already been heard in the past (just as an example, this is the impression I get from the Bach concerts recorded by Ramin with Chailly).
It's always the same banal truth: what doesn't sell doesn't exist, and to sell one must build "myths" (commercial)...
