Sky News: Classical music is the new cool
mainSome desperate young PR team worked several pairs of socks off on getting this report into a weekend slot and it would be terrible if no-one ever got to hear of it because ‘people like us’ don’t watch Murdoch.
Watch/read here.
Warning: You may not have heard of anyone in this report, apart from Bach and Chi-chi.
If you’re going to expand the definition of “classical music” to include virtually anything well, yes, it’s going to become more popular.
On that basis, it has always had a reasonably wide following. The fact remains, councils are still using traditional classical music to repel the “wrong” people in public spaces, so it can’t be that “cool”, can it?
Oh dear me, the great unwashed who watch Sky. Why do we tolerate such faux people? Time to give them a lesson in real values of tolerance, aye!!
Having read the article, and thinking about this for a few minutes, I can’t think of a down-side. In fact while they’re at it perhaps it’s time to address some things in classical music that could do with modernisation, such as male musicians looking like they’ve come from the 1920’s, technology improvements in terms of lighting and effects, perhaps a relay screen so one can see what the pianist or other soloist is doing. Bottom line for me is that if more people love Bach and Beethoven the world has to be a better place!
If classical music has to be enjoyed with visuals, opera offers the best option. If it has to be experienced for what it is: the language of interiority and emotional attention and concentration, visuals will distract. An audience sitting still and quietly listening to what a group of people, carefully arranged at the podium, are producing under the waving arms of the only musician who does not make any noise, and the entire scene discretely lit, is an excellent format to best experience the interiority of the art form. If people find this too difficult, they should opt for other forms of spending their evening, there’s enough around: cinema, jazz clubs, pubs with live pop music, or lonely walks in the park.
Old cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbuMXyzouJQ