Politics at the Philharmonic

Democracy has never had much of a place in the concert hall. Conductors and music directors jealously guard their ironclad rule over what to play. And as long as they satisfy the paying customers consistently, they get away with it. Currently, though, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is conducting a three-week experiment in participatory democracy as applied to programming. So far, the results suggest that dictatorship in taste may have its virtues.

Starting out at a campus concert at suburban Cerritos College, the orchestra invited the audience to pick the second half of the program from 23 classics. Among them were the Mahler First Symphony and Beethoven's Third, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth. Even though the audience was composed largely of supposedly hip students, the winners were Ravel's hoary Bolero and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet overture.

The experiment soon led to a bit of unseemly partisan politicking. At one concert at U.C.L.A., members of a local "Schroeder Society" demonstrated for Beethoven, while lads and lasses in Mahler T shirts joined the good-natured battle by passing out "Vote for Gustav" leaflets. When the dust had settled, Mahler was the victor--by a single vote. Analysts pointed out that Beethoven might have triumphed had not his supporters split their vote among the four symphonies.

Taking a rather cool view of the whole contest, members of the Philharmonic are running a daily pool on first and second place.

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