Anne-Sophie Mutter on tour

[Amalie]

For years some people have been saying that there is a vast untapped market out there of adherents of pop and rock music who can be converted to the more satisfying and longer lasting pleasures of classical music.
This may well be the case, and I certainly for one hope it is. But I wonder. We are still waiting for this great change over to take place. There was a programme recently where a young female chorister at Cambridge University changed places for a week with a girl in a rock band. The Cambridge girl seems to have made a real effort to embrace rock culture, but the extraordinary thing was, that the rock chick was utterly lost and at sea in the Kings College Chapel Choir. The Cambridge girl said she was glad to get back to the choir and found rock music appallingly trivial. The rock chick clearly found classical music far too challenging and the Cambridge girl said she found it impossible even to communicate with her on anything outside rock music and not just classical, where as she was prepared to discuss anything. In this case, are we dealing with closed minds?. One of the things about classical music surely, is that is opens the heart and mind to the universe, whereas rock music seems to be locked in its own world.
It may be that classical music is just too challenging for the head-bangers.
I mean, let's face it, if someone is really turned on to Beethoven, surely the pleasure they can get from any rock music has got to be extremely limited. I like watching the odd Hollywood movie, but really, it could sink into a swamp as far as I am concerned, after I have watched a good performance of a Shakespeare play. The point is that rock music and poor art is just blown away by classical music and great art.


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 09, 2004).]

[Chris]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
It's been a while since we addressed this topic, but I found this news item today from your side of the pond, Chris, and I thought it was on point. You might (but probably not) be amused.
http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm? objectid=13777614&method=full&siteid=50003

Sigh...

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by Chris:
Sigh...

Yeah, couldn't have put it better, somehow the Brits have a way of coming up with this stuff that's just staggering. We slouch in comparison!


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Opus131]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Why do we not look at a recording by some young man and say, he probably just got there on his looks?

And so it goes :
http://www.weareduel.com/site.html

In anycase, the reason why wemon are more often subject of this phenomena is based on the rules of attraction, which works differently for both sexes.

For a man, attraction is based on looks ALONE. Attraction for a woman is a lot more complex than that, and looks defenatly plays a smaller role.

Upon that, women themselves seem to relate on attractive perfomers of both sexes, whilst men are more likely to repute an attractive male.

Just a few thoughts...

[Pastorali]

I'm not very much afraid about this phenomena. This is life as it happens around the planet. Art is abused in many kinds. It's a lot of bussines and show in this crazy world. But I don't care. It's not that monkey bussines with CM and at the end, quality survives. For example: I can not say Vanessa May is uggly, but is this a reason to buy a cd of her? Not at all.

Even if she would marry for 24 hours...

[urtextmeister]

Originally posted by Amalie:
For years some people have been saying that there is a vast untapped market out there of adherents of pop and rock music who can be converted to the more satisfying and longer lasting pleasures of classical music.
This may well be the case, and I certainly for one hope it is. But I wonder. We are still waiting for this great change over to take place. There was a programme recently where a young female chorister at Cambridge University changed places for a week with a girl in a rock band. The Cambridge girl seems to have made a real effort to embrace rock culture, but the extraordinary thing was, that the rock chick was utterly lost and at sea in the Kings College Chapel Choir. The Cambridge girl said she was glad to get back to the choir and found rock music appallingly trivial. The rock chick clearly found classical music far too challenging and the Cambridge girl said she found it impossible even to communicate with her on anything outside rock music and not just classical, where as she was prepared to discuss anything. In this case, are we dealing with closed minds?. One of the things about classical music surely, is that is opens the heart and mind to the universe, whereas rock music seems to be locked in its own world.
It may be that classical music is just too challenging for the head-bangers.
I mean, let's face it, if someone is really turned on to Beethoven, surely the pleasure they can get from any rock music has got to be extremely limited. I like watching the odd Hollywood movie, but really, it could sink into a swamp as far as I am concerned, after I have watched a good performance of a Shakespeare play. The point is that rock music and poor art is just blown away by classical music and great art.


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 09, 2004).]

I would just like to say that I have known many people who have taken both the low-brow road and the high-brow road and enjoy both worlds. Christopher O'Reilly is an excellent example (he is a well-known pianist in this country and host of "From the Top," a national radio program that features teenage classical musicians. I have a friend who started as a rock guitarist, changed to classical cello, is now a top-notch soloist and teacher, but plays with a jazz/folk group and loves it.
Maybe the problem for the "rock chick" was that she didn't have the training in her background to appreciate the repetoire. One has to take the effort to LEARN about classical music in order to enjoy it. It is the same with Shakespeare, ballet, etc. They are not always immediately accessible.
Personally, I think pop culture is fun, but sometimes I do overdose on it and I desperately need some Beethoven or Shakespeare or Dickens.

[Amalie]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
I would just like to say that I have known many people who have taken both the low-brow road and the high-brow road and enjoy both worlds. Christopher O'Reilly is an excellent example (he is a well-known pianist in this country and host of "From the Top," a national radio program that features teenage classical musicians. I have a friend who started as a rock guitarist, changed to classical cello, is now a top-notch soloist and teacher, but plays with a jazz/folk group and loves it.
Maybe the problem for the "rock chick" was that she didn't have the training in her background to appreciate the repetoire. One has to take the effort to LEARN about classical music in order to enjoy it. It is the same with Shakespeare, ballet, etc. They are not always immediately accessible.
Personally, I think pop culture is fun, but sometimes I do overdose on it and I desperately need some Beethoven or Shakespeare or Dickens.

Urtextmeister,
I totally agree, people have got to make an effort.
The point about great art is that a little effort brings enormous rewards. One of the best films I have ever seen, in my opinion, was the brilliant performance by Ian McKellan in Shakespeare's Richard 111. Not only was it a great artistic production, it was fantastic Cinema entertainment and I simply defy anyone who is unaware of Shakespeare's work to watch it and simply be blown away by its power and dramatic force.
The late great U.S. film producer Sam Wannamaker recognized this when he built the Globe Theatre in London, which truly packed to bursting point at every performance with people from all over the world.
It just kind of slightly saddens me, and no offence to the Rolling Stones who are hugely amusing and entertaining, that there tickets are an astonishing $300 dollars or more to go to see them in concert, when for a fraction of that price you could buy a fantastic edition of Shakespeare's plays, a clutch of good DVD's and go to the Globe as well. And I am sure you would get far more out of that than watching Mick Jagger and Keith Richards recycling songs that your grandfather knew. But then that is the free market and I am not knocking it, just saying people have the choice out there. But it does seem strange to me that people pay such sums of money for such relatively trivial fare.
This is of course a personal point of view as I never was much a pop fan anyway, and was mystified at what people saw in the Beatles.



[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 11, 2004).]