Bridgerton makes stars of UK string quartet
NewsIf you’ve watched more than ten minutes of Bridgerton – or are forced to admit it under torture – you will be aware that the background music to the early-19th century social events consists of a string quartet playing Haydn-like arrangements of recent pop hits.
The music is the work of violinist Conor Woodcock and his Ebor Quartet. Woodcock 28, and his partners live in Yorkshire. The farthest they have ever travelled is London.
But bookings are rolling in for weddings, parties and restaurants: ‘We are finding that people are specifically [requesting] Bridgerton-style songs, can you play Yellow by Coldplay because it was in season three, or Thank You Next because that was in season two.’
Interview here.
And all they needed for success was a bit of entrepreneurial acumen, musical creativity, genre blending, and the support of a transnational, multi-billion dollar streaming corporation running their promotions.
I mean… I don’t think I would complain if a transnational corporation promoted my chamber music group.
I might need an extra shower now and then…
But dollar bills (or pound notes) make excellent tissues for drying tears (or so I’ve heard…)
Trust that they cleared the rights with the publishers. These would seem to be arrangements, not covers. But correct me if I’m wrong.
Not that many notes to play.
Oh I love this!! You immediately feel part of 17C culture.
Sally
Setting aside how nauseatingly woke and ahistorical this show is – my wife watched it for some time, but it got too disgusting even for her so she stopped – one of my biggest pet peeves is calling pop music “classical” just because it’s played by a symphony orchestra or a string quartet. It’s still pop crap, regardless of the instrumentation.
Interestingly, often nowadays TV series or movies with a historic theme are accompanied with pop music, as to make sure contemporary audiences will be drawn-in. No attempt to use the music of the period, while int he same time no costs no efforts are spared to make everything visually as authentic as possible.
I’ve never watched a minute of Bridgerton as I utterly oppose its seeming raison d’être — a soap opera offering revisionist history via in-your-face “woke” casting. But surely something by Coldplay in their score is as disconcerting as blacks where blacks never were? (Coming soon: to Anglo-Saxon England, either to fight or be the conquerors, or both).
You must really hate Shakespeare, then. Revisionist history, tick; gender- fluid casting, tick; interracial marriage, tick.
“Seeming” is the word, there – as you haven’t watched it you have missed the fact that it’s not revisionist at all, it’s a fictional alternative history in which a black queen caused the sudden entrance of lots of black families to the aristocracy. The programme explores what might have happened in such a situation, and it’s not claiming to be historical, its purpose is entertainment.
Bridgerton isn’t pretending to ‘rewrite’ any facts; many find it entertaining.
Genuine history is teaching that there were many more people of colour involved in events from which eugenicist historians airbrushed them, from both WWII and WWI, and back through the 19th century conflicts.
To find that talented black actors are appearing in ‘fantasy’ scenarios (which were in reality often originally funded by proceeds of slavery) ‘disgusting’ is quite disturbed.
Those country houses in which the gentry and aristocracy gambolled (and probably gambled!) were expensive, and often built on funds from plantations and the slave triangle. Even when Wilberforce & Co slowed down the trade, the companies were massively compensated by the UK Government; ‘debts’ that took decades to pay out, and was only completed in 2015. Uncomfortable facts for some, but facts nonetheless. Even Gladstone via his slave owner father (and his descendants) benefitted – just one example of many. They were paid £106,000; adjusted for inflation after 170+ years, that is over £12 million. Therefore, allowing a few actors from different backgrounds a good role doesn’t seem such a big deal. Good gig for the quartet, too!
I understand the dilemma: there have not been sufficient opportunities for talented black actors, and that has resulted in some controversial casting choices (the compulsory mixed-race couple in every Midsomer episode, etc.).
But don’t shows like Bridgerton, which I daresay most intelligent people know is sheer fantasy and understand the principles on which it has been cast, make it look as if the history of black people in the UK is better than it actually was?
Does the colour-blind casting announced for the forthcoming series on the Conquest, align with the makers’ stated intention to teach the British audience more about the conquest than the dates? Making the history of white people in the UK seem very different to what it actually was?
It may be better to suggest that the history of black people in the UK was better than it was, than to obliterate that history altogether — which, until comparatively recently, was the case. It is being rediscovered, in part because of the “wokeness” you so unthinkingly detest.
But the actual orchesteral playing in the show is fake, and a bad fake at that. Why couldn’t they use real musicians?
Lighten up, folks: it’s an entertaining historical fantasy whose costumes are as fantastical as the social milieu they decorate. Unless you happen not to find it entertaining, which is also a perfectly legitimate option.
As for the music: it should be noted that genuine classical music is also played here and there (mostly fragments of Haydn or Mozart); it’s not all pop arrangements. Of course, it’s easy to tell the one from the other…
Yeah, maybe take 2 minutes to actually read the local news article and realise it wasn’t them on Bridgerton.
And maybe take another 2 minutes to look into the world of function quartets and realise that the vast majority of them have been pkaying this type of music for the last 15 years.