What the World Needs Now, Is Songs, Sweet Songs

Someone brought in violinist Sarah Chang's recording of Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, and a comment about her dress sparked an interesting exchange.



The comment was related to an observation about the marketing of young classical musicians in the mid-1990s, with women often dressed in "sexy" evening wear, or in a few cases, nothing at all. Part of this was the attempt to make these artists appear as "edgy" as their rock n' roll counterparts.



The exchange then centred around the different expectations audiences have for classical vs. rock musicians. In the classical musical idiom, the emphasis is on technique and conveying emotion, not songwriting. There is little expectation that a musician as talented as say, Chang, would be equally talented as a songwriter, and Chang can comfortably expect to make a living essentially by playing covers. In rock however, a musician who played primarily covers would be scoffed at, especially early in their career (please note this expectation is different in pop music), or at least would rarely be considered "elite". The expectation for rock n'roll artists is clearly that they write their own material, with the subtext being that the music somehow reflect the "spirit of the age". This was articulated by famous rock critic Lester Bangs in his reaction to early 1970s "prog rock" (perhaps not so ironically the moment when rock stars started to consider themselves the equal of classical musicians, such as with Deep Purple's Concerto for Group and Orchestra) in large part perhaps because rock emerged during periods of social change and has often served as the soundtrack to that era in our collective consciousness.



Few us quiver in our aristocratic boots at the playing of Figaro these days.