Jessica Duchen's Classical Music & Ballet Blog. Novelist/journalist JD writes for The Independent, London
Monday, October 16, 2006
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Here's the thing I wrote for the Independent about McCartney and Sting's latest classical efforts. It's been slightly cut, which means there's less of a sting in its tale (sorry, couldn't resist that!!), but the gist of it still comes across OK.
I suspect both of these albums are pretty poor fare. Classical and rock do mix, but very, very, very, very rarely. Jon Lord's stuff is embarrassingly bad. Leonard Bernstein stormed out of the studio when he heard Keith 'ELP' Emerson's first piano concerto. Tony 'Genesis' Banks wrote a horrid thing called Seven a few years ago. Steve 'Genesis' Hackett has done OK with some stuff for guitar and ork. There's tons of it out there, including a CD of Genesis for Two Pianos. Awful. The most successful attempts seem to be rock bands - The Enid in particular - using classical dynamics and voicings and creating their own voice.
BTW just to add- I entirely agree - it's good these guys are at least having a go. My blog should see a long article on the subject v. soon. Well done, JD!
This evening I spoke to a couple of colleagues who took part in Sting's LSO St Luke's concert on October 8th (they were performing as the 'backing group' Stile Antico). They've been taking part in a video record of Sting's work to bring this album to fruition, which probably includes upcoming concerts to be given in Paris and Berlin.
Additionally, I'm lead to understand that the premiere of Paul McCartney's Ecce Cor Meum is also likely to be recorded for the purposes of a DVD release.
This information is of no use whatsoever to the debate about the music's worth of course, but I thought I'd get the gossip out there while it's still fresh in my tiny little head.
I have been following your debate on classical music and the crossover to rock/pop. Whilst I think it is rare for this to be successful, it can and does happen. I've posted a few examples on my site,http://lifeofamusicain-Robinhill.blogspot.com which include Chick Corea, Benny Boodman, Rick Wakeman and John McLaughlin. I'm really looking forward to hearing Sting's and McCartney's latest works.
Intrigued to hear about Mr Boodman, since I understand Boodman [Budman?] was the name of my maternal ancestors from Pinsk, down the road from Minsk. Or did you mean Mr Goodman, perhaps? :-)
Thank you for pointing out my error. It should have, of course, been Benny Goodman. Mr. Boodman was a far inferior player of the Tasmanian nose trumpet, which never quite caught on in the same way.
6 comments:
I suspect both of these albums are pretty poor fare. Classical and rock do mix, but very, very, very, very rarely. Jon Lord's stuff is embarrassingly bad. Leonard Bernstein stormed out of the studio when he heard Keith 'ELP' Emerson's first piano concerto. Tony 'Genesis' Banks wrote a horrid thing called Seven a few years ago. Steve 'Genesis' Hackett has done OK with some stuff for guitar and ork. There's tons of it out there, including a CD of Genesis for Two Pianos. Awful. The most successful attempts seem to be rock bands - The Enid in particular - using classical dynamics and voicings and creating their own voice.
BTW just to add- I entirely agree - it's good these guys are at least having a go. My blog should see a long article on the subject v. soon. Well done, JD!
This evening I spoke to a couple of colleagues who took part in Sting's LSO St Luke's concert on October 8th (they were performing as the 'backing group' Stile Antico). They've been taking part in a video record of Sting's work to bring this album to fruition, which probably includes upcoming concerts to be given in Paris and Berlin.
Additionally, I'm lead to understand that the premiere of Paul McCartney's Ecce Cor Meum is also likely to be recorded for the purposes of a DVD release.
This information is of no use whatsoever to the debate about the music's worth of course, but I thought I'd get the gossip out there while it's still fresh in my tiny little head.
I have been following your debate on classical music and the crossover to rock/pop. Whilst I think it is rare for this to be successful, it can and does happen.
I've posted a few examples on my site,http://lifeofamusicain-Robinhill.blogspot.com which include Chick Corea, Benny Boodman, Rick Wakeman and John McLaughlin.
I'm really looking forward to hearing Sting's and McCartney's latest works.
Intrigued to hear about Mr Boodman, since I understand Boodman [Budman?] was the name of my maternal ancestors from Pinsk, down the road from Minsk. Or did you mean Mr Goodman, perhaps? :-)
Thank you for pointing out my error. It should have, of course, been Benny Goodman. Mr. Boodman was a far inferior player of the Tasmanian nose trumpet, which never quite caught on in the same way.
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