All,
With the possible exception of jazz, classical
music is confronted with a uniquely problematic
practice right now that prevents it from becoming a
successful commercial item: its made up of the same
_exact_ stuff over and over. To use Pachelbel as an
example - outside of specialists, who knows any other
piece of music by JP other than the infamous
"Variations Over a Ground Bass in D Major?" Yet there
is a whole body of work by this guy including organ
works, choral music, etc. Why is it that we don't
hear more? There are a number of complex issues such
as audience expectations and promotional issues, but
the core responsibility lies with the fact that
performers themselves just don't play JP's other stuff
very often.
Look at pop music (I use it in a very broad sense
of "not classical") on the other hand. Covers exist
but most acts are always presenting _new_ music.
(This music is, of course, not new stylistically - it
consistently follows rather narrow formulae.) If our
genre is going to survive, classical musicians need to
at least delve into some of the great unknown
repertoire out there more often.
Discovering neglected gems was the operative
philosophy of the Early Music movement when it first
began, but now we too have largely ossified into
predictable patterns of the same pieces by the same
composers again and again. Just look to see how many
different recordings of Dowland are out there. Now
look to see how many recordings of the music of, say,
Buddy Holly, you'll find by people other than Buddy
Holly himself. Undoubtedly you'll find folks
recording a Holly song here or there, but when its
done it is rather like an added spice that makes up
the meal of one's career built on other, previously
unheard, songs.
Yes, all of this concentration on a few items was
at the urging of record companies who saw that it was
easier to package, market, and sell classical albums
to the consumer if they were classified by
recognizable-name composers and "greatest hit"
repertoire. That was in the past. But now - look at
the serious trouble that record companies are in today
because of this narrow corporate mindset! Performers
need to lead the charge into other modes.
Here, I'm mainly talking about what already exists
in the back-catalog. I haven't even mentioned the
utterly unholy option of performers championing newly
composed music.
Chris
--- David Rastall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ho! Ho!
>
> Here comes the voice of the big elitist: the worst
> possible thing
> for classical music is for it to become popularized.
> In the world of
> pop culture, to loosely paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the
> only thing worse
> for classical music than *not* being talked about is
> for it to *be*
> talked about. ;-)
>
> David R
>
>
>
> On Jan 20, 2007, at 9:54 AM, Daniel Shoskes wrote:
>
> >
> > On Jan 20, 2007, at 9:39 AM, EUGENE BRAIG IV
> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> lushly lifeless interpretation of Pachelbel's
> Canon directly into
> >> their brains.
> >
> > With the Canon's new fame??
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > To get on or off this list see list information at
> >
>
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> www.rastallmusic.com
>
>
>
>
> --
>
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