Given the big event set for January 20, it seems fitting to start off SNLC 2009 with the 1st of 2 diaries related to the city of Chicago. However, given 3CM's pointed/lessly obscure tastes and well-known predilection for music of a certain stripe, the Chicago theme here is not populist or important in terms of current issues. Two major Chicago institutions are involved here, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ("CSO"; big surprise given the diarist), and the Chicago Tribune. With that...
If a given US city has a symphony orchestra, said group is most likely be the biggest classical music organization in town (unless the place also has a full-time opera company, but let's keep it simple). So any newspaper's classical music reporter would devote a lot of attention to that orchestra in feature articles, but mainly in regular concert reviews. At the Tribune, the main reporter and critic on the CSO is John von Rhein ("JvR" for convenience), who’s been at the Tribune since 1977. Since Wynne Delacoma retired as classical music critic of the Chicago Sun-Times in 2006, JvR is the only official full-time classical music critic for a major Chicago paper. (The Sun-Times has Andrew Patner as their "critic-at-large" who does the lion’s share of CSO reviews for them, but not as their "official" full-time classical music critic.)
In reading JvR's CSO-related Tribune pieces, self has noticed the recurrence of a certain phrase to refer to the CSO. A Google search dug up earlier examples. Excerpts from a slew of his Tribune pieces follow, where you'll easily catch the phrase (note: just gloss over the obscure names):
July 14, 2002
"In both works Alsop led the CSO with a natural command and musical integrity not often achieved by newcomers under Ravinia's impossibly tight rehearsal schedule. She energized and refined our orchestra."
April 5, 2003
"Insomnia is a highly charged, ingeniously wrought piece that rejoiced in the sonic testosterone of our orchestra. Salonen the conductor nobly served Salonen the composer, and the crowd was clearly exhilarated."
March 4, 2006:
"The things Haitink expects of an orchestra are not necessarily the same things Barenboim asks of our orchestra; and so there were a few moments of edgy ensemble playing, nothing that cannot be corrected later on, and surely will be."
May 13, 2006:
"Then it was on to Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks. The Strauss tone poem has been one of our orchestra's signature showpieces practically since it gave the American premiere in 1895."
May 14, 2006
"We need a music director who will use the greatness of our orchestra to advance the music above career and ego.
Nov. 17, 2006
"One could only marvel at how the score's coloristic variety, impeccable craftsmanship and bracing vitality were reflected in the sweep, intensity and incisiveness with which the CSO players threw themselves into the score. Lutoslawski could have written it with the brassy bite of our orchestra in mind."
Jan. 12, 2007:
"Any CSO conductor tackling Respighi's two most popular tone poems, The Fountains of Rome and The Pines of Rome, labors in the mighty shadow of Fritz Reiner, who made the benchmark recording of the works with our orchestra for RCA Victor nearly 48 years ago."
March 10, 2007:
"Roberto Abbado isn't exactly the first name that springs to mind when considering conductors to become music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. But the splendid results he elicited from our orchestra Thursday night at Symphony Center suggested that he deserves, at the very least, a regular berth on the guest roster."
March 18, 2007:
"But with a different visiting maestro – several of them viable candidates to succeed Daniel Barenboim as music director – waving a stick in front of our orchestra almost every week this season and next, it's not easy to tell the casual dates from the serious marriage material."
"The interesting question is what this passing parade of batonsmiths portends for the well-being of our orchestra."
April 7, 2007:
"Dudamel is for real, a serious musician through and through, the most gifted and exciting newcomer to make music with our orchestra in a very long time."
May 8, 2007:
"The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is back in the commercial recording business, which turned its back on our orchestra following 2003 sessions with Daniel Barenboim and pianist Lang Lang."
July 18, 2007:
"Chailly's big – and perhaps decisive – advantage over his Italian rival is that he has a significant history with our orchestra."
Sept. 2, 2007:
"For it was Solti who took the CSO on that first, historic tour of Europe in 1971 that convinced the world as well as the folks back home that our orchestra had no rival in the world."
Sept. 17, 2007:
"The news over the weekend from Symphony Center couldn't have been better. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has a new labor contract, and Riccardo Muti and our orchestra have found each other again, after more than 32 years."
November 3, 2007, about the German conductor Christoph von Dohnányi:
"That the eminent German maestro and our orchestra have achieved a fine working chemistry in their collaborations of recent seasons was clear from the program he conducted Thursday night at Symphony Center."
October 7, 2008, about the Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden:
"The 47-year old Dutch conductor, who is taking over this week's CSO subscription performances of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony from the indisposed Riccardo Chailly, is without doubt the first conductor ever to have played as concertmaster under both the man he is replacing, Chailly, and our orchestra’s principal conductor, Bernard Haitink."
If you haven't moved on to the next diary by now, you've found the common phrase: "our orchestra". Now, if you work for the CSO, using that phrase is OK, and you might even be seen as "not a team player" if you didn't. In fact, Philip Huscher, the CSO’s program notes writer, has used it often, like in the notes for a May 2008 concert which featured the first CSO performances of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, previously been performed in Chicago by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in March 2006:
"(Bernard Haitink, who was in the Chicago audience, quickly made plans to program them with our Orchestra.)"
Likewise, in a program booklet for some November 2008 CSO concerts, one article from the CSO's President, Deborah Rutter, says:
"Our Orchestra serves as a sort of musical magnet, attracting the world's greatest talent with its own."
Alternatively, if a blogger who's a classical music fan, but who doesn't work for the CSO, uses the phrases "our orchestra" (or "our own orchestra") as an expression of civic pride, that's OK too.
However, when a journalist uses that phrase, that crosses the line from journalism to advocacy, IMHO. If you're reporting on the CSO or whatever orchestra for a newspaper, magazine, or on-line publication of record, and you're supposed to do so objectively, both the good and the bad, you're not supposed to sound like a shill for them. So 3CM the delusional loser thinks. I'll admit that I haven't checked if, for example, Tribune sports writers use phrases like "our Bears", "our Black Hawks", "our Bulls", "our Cubs", or "our White Sox". You can correct me if this is the case.
Regular SNLC'ers know that I'm a huge classical music fan, so it makes sense that one of my hobbies is following classical music reporting, which the internets make so pleasantly easy. So I certainly understand anyone who takes pride in their local orchestra and wants it to do well. At heart, I think, that's the case with all classical critics, and not just for mercernary reasons simply to keep their jobs, but because they love the music and organizations that give the music live (not Memorex). But again, there are boundaries to observe, depending on what hat one wears.
In the big picture, this is very minor. This certainly is nothing like shilling for an administration which advocated bombing a nation that did not have WMD's and was not a sovereign threat to us. I'm also quite aware that:
(1) JvR won't drop the use of this phrase in his work.
(2) No one at the Tribune will read or see this. (They have much bigger issues to deal with now.)
I don't live in Chicago, so I have no vested interest here. Sometimes, however, if something gets one's goat, even if in an academic way, one just has to vent, even if nothing happens as a result. (That's why this diary is loser, besides the diarist himself.)
Totally bored? :) Well, 'tis done, so to start Loser's Club 2009, your loser stories of the week welcome below. Bonus points if New Year's Eve embarassment is involved :) .