Laudator Temporis Acti

Last night Mrs. Laudator and I went to a concert by the always splendid St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. My peeve is the custom of putting a piece of discordant contemporary music in the middle of an otherwise enjoyable program, in this case Schnittke in company with Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. If the entire concert were devoted to Schnittke and his ilk, hardly anyone would buy a ticket, so they resort to this contemptible subterfuge in order to "educate" us Philistines and expose us to contemporary music. It reminds me of the trick described by Lucretius 1.936-939:

When physicians try to give bitter medicines to children, first they smear the rim of the cup with the sweet golden liquid of honey, in order to deceive the unsuspecting children.

sed vel uti pueris absinthia taetra medentes
cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum
contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore,
ut puerorum aetas inprovida ludificetur.

At the end of the Schnittke piece, the score calls for most of the musicians to march offstage and stop playing, while the conductor and a couple of musicians remain. Finally, all of the musicians stop playing, while the conductor keeps on conducting in silence. Many years ago I played in the University of Maine orchestra, directed by the late Clayton Hare, who liked to tipple on occasion. At one concert, Hare was conducting under the influence and we came to the end of a piece. He kept waving his arms for several more seconds. We weren't playing Schnittke.