Monday, Apr. 05, 1971
Enclaves of Harmony
San Francisco has a new tradition: street musicians. Along with the cable cars, that famous bridge, the bay and the sourdough bread, the city now has a sweet sonic oddity: strains of Bach, Mozart and Telemann being tootled on street corners. The players are young, serious and usually talented. Without exception, they are determined. It takes tenacity to concentrate on a fugal entry as cable cars rattle past, stray dogs water the violin case, and an "occasional drunk keeps insisting on pop tunes.
Explains Ken Cramer, 23, a blue-denimed, long-haired flute player out of Rochester's Eastman School of Music: "This way we can support ourselves, practice continually and keep on playing. Otherwise we'd be washing dishes instead of learning repertory."
Stirred by the pinch of musical unemployment and the urge for personal freedom, San Francisco's corps of street minstrels has now grown to a score or more regular performers, mainly on the flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin and viola. All have become remarkably knowledgeable about what kinds of groups, sounds, and even sites are best for competing with the daily cacophony of a busy city.
In general, 18th century music prevails* Quartets are least successful; the players tend to lose their places because they can't hear the inner parts. But trios work fine. Adagio sections have to be dropped or cut because of distracting street noises. The repertory varies with the location. "The people by Doubleday's dig Beethoven more than the people in front of Macy's," says Violinist Robert Dubow. "Bach is too intellectual for the street," reports Bassoonist Greg Barber. "Besides, his line is long and threadlike. It can easily be lost when a truck roars by." Adds another street musician: "Everyone understands Mozart." Of the all-string works, Haydn's "London" trios get the biggest audiences and make the most money.
Street musicians leave a violin case open for contributions, and though Americans are usually awkward about public handouts, enough coins and bills customarily make it into the case to provide the musicians with up to $40 a day apiece. They all look young and healthy, so they do not threaten or depress passers-by as many beggars and blind accordion players, who get spare change and sympathy but rarely an audience, do.
Individual pop musicians--folk singers, guitarists--tend to create merely a competing and attacking noise in the city's soundscape. But the new minstrels are proving that a classical trio creates a sweet enclave of harmony in the midst of confusion, which draws a respectful audience and melts the hostility of even the edgiest urban refugee.
Uncaptive Audience. If official proof of popularity were needed, it came early this year when San Francisco police ran in two groups for "willfully and maliciously blocking the street" and "accosting persons for the purpose of soliciting alms." Charges were dropped before trial, in part because San Francisco's culture-loving citizens protested. Now the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau officially lists "classical violins on the street corner" as one of the "unexpected" joys tourists in the city will encounter.
Most of the players have been well trained--often at Eastman and Juilliard. A few are even moonlighting from the Oakland Symphony Orchestra--which pays them approximately $1,800 a year. Besides bringing in money, pavement performances sometimes produce offers to play for private parties, coffeehouses and restaurants. But a tenacious small core of the street musicians do not want to give up entirely the freedom of making spontaneous outdoor music. "You can play when you want and what you want," explains one. "And the people who do listen really want to listen. Let's face it, we have the most uncaptive audience in the world."
* A good deal of the music of that period, including many serenades and cassations, was composed to be played outdoors. Cassation, in fact, is often thought to derive from the German word Gasse, meaning street.
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