Art, Durable Good

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Procter and Gamble, maker of brands like Gillette and Tide, is the biggest corporate presence in Cincinnati, where I live, and they are a huge supporter of the arts here. Recently, I performed and spoke at two P&G offices on behalf of Artswave, the Greater Cincinnati region’s local arts agency, which is beginning its big annual fundraising campaign.

Many people view what P&G does and what I do as completely different – they make things people need, and I give them something that’s nice to have, but not essential.

A perfect example of this kind of thinking was in this morning’s New York Times, in a column by Frank Bruni. In an otherwise superb defense of liberal arts education, he called his own “transformative” encounter with Shakespeare as an undergraduate student “a luxury,” and that he “can’t think of any bluntly practical application for it.” Say what?

You can read Bruni’s column and my online comment here – my point is that even someone who was profoundly impacted by the power of words, and wound up a writer himself, allows the “art isn’t necessary” crowd to frame his argument, and that’s a shame. Even if art doesn’t lead you to your profession, as it did for Bruni, it adds to the whole person you become, and should not be viewed as optional.

This brings me back to P&G. I am sure that many who were at my Artswave presentation were not “transformed” by it, but I also talked to some for whom it clearly had an impact, and I at least got most people listening and thinking differently for a little while. That’s enough for me – I’m content to play the long game, as P&G does.

Incidentally, I also made an ad pitch that morning – with his 20 kids, Bach would make an excellent Pampers spokesman. Haven’t heard back about that one yet.

Companies like P&G support the arts in no small part because we help people become more creative and engaged, which makes them more valuable employees. And yes, it’s also good PR – those of us in the classical music world could learn a thing or two from them!

We can take another lesson from P&G, too – if you want to be successful at something, you need to be relentless in pursuing your mission, and constantly re-evaluating yourself to make sure you’re reaching your goals.

Well, my mission is to make people feel great music is essential. I am not naive enough to think that Bach cello suites will ever have the ubiquity of Crest toothpaste, but I firmly believe that caring for your soul is as important as caring for your teeth.

Procter and Gamble has been around for 175 years. Bach’s music has been around for 300 years plus – strong evidence that his music is a very durable good indeed.

Till next time,

Nat

Monday playlist – And another thing…

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Yesterday, I played on a concert of opera favorites with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the excellent soprano Sarah Coburn. The program included the famous Rossini overture to “The Barber of Seville,” which frankly is hard for me to get through without giggling – I can only think of Bugs Bunny torturing Elmer Fudd – “Ehhhhhhhh – next!”

Besides being the soundtrack for perhaps the greatest cartoon of all time, the overture features the famous “Rossini crescendo” (aka “Rossini rocket”), where a passage is repeated several times with new voices joining each time, until the orchestra is playing full blast.

From Ravel’s Bolero to Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the gradual buildup is one of the most powerful forces in music, and it’s the subject of today’s playlist. Bach, The Who, John Philip Sousa and King Curtis are among the artists on the list – please add some more of your own! What’s your favorite buildup?

Till Wednesday,

Nat

 

 

Monday morning playlist – Cover Your Tracks

In a post last week, I talked about Time for Three. They play tunes you don’t expect classical musicians to, like The Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” They also do mashups, where Grieg’s Holberg Suite morphs into Led Zeppelin and Justin Timberlake (and goes back too – a neat trick).

Now, playing other people’s music well is not easy – anyone who’s heard a third-rate band ruining their favorite song at a frat party knows that all too well. But these guys bring the same level of artistic integrity to their covers that they do to the Bach Double Concerto.

Check out tf3’s version of “Little Lion Man”, and compare it to the original by Mumford and Sons. I like tf3’s version even better, and that leads us to our new playlist – music that’s been “covered” and arguably improved.

Bach did this all the time, taking pieces by Vivaldi and other composers, and making them his own. Ravel (along with Emerson, Lake and Palmer) did much the same thing with Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Jimi Hendrix did it too – Bob Dylan stopped performing his own song “All Along the Watchtower” once he heard Hendrix’s version – high praise indeed. Ray Charles was a master of this. Miles Davis, too – check out his “Someday, My Prince Will Come” on the playlist.

Sometimes these reworkings aren’t so successful – Mahler’s re-orchestrations of Beethoven’s symphonies don’t get played much. Shostakovich re-worked the Schumann Cello Concerto, to no one’s approval I’m aware of. Here’s a list from Rolling Stone of some pretty bad ones from the rock world – I vote for William Shatner’s rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

So, what’s your favorite cover, or your least? Classical, rock, r&b, country – whatever. Post your favorites to the comments and add the music to the playlist – both the original and “improved” versions if possible!