in the background
functional CDs for the proletariat
by patricia hammond | november 1999
(chocolate or peanut butter? musical wallpaper or something a little more focal?
Ultimately, it's your choice, just please choose quality...)
Classical CDs often fall into two categories: those that are put together with the goal of making money, and those that are put together to introduce people to interesting music.
Well, I suppose some do both. It depends on the circumstances. EMI's "Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World...Ever" (a slogan EMI now has rights to) is most definitely a CD that's there to make as much money as possible, but if Joe and Ethel from Spusum have never heard Bach's "Air" from Orchestral Suite No. 3, it could be said to be introducing Joe and Ethel to some interesting music. In fact, it is such circumstances that keep me from going insane at my job. Everyone has to start somewhere, and if it is a crassly marketed repackaging of all the slow bits from various potboilers that gets people to start listening to Bach, I'm all for it.
"I concede that musical wallpaper does have a place. (But) one doesn't have to rely on cheeeesy compilations (to find it)."
But the CDs in the second category are all those wonderful things you find on the smaller labels, like cpo, MY favorite little label. Thanks to cpo, you can now hear the complete symphonies of Ture Rangstrom, a sort of bombastic and tuneful little Sibelius who is remembered for a couple of little songs rather than his symphonic output. Before cpo, there was only one recording of Rangstrom's symphony #1, on LP, and a briefly available one at that. These symphonies are not exactly going to be programmed at your nearest Symphony anytime soon, so bravo to cpo. They have a fascinating catalogue. Perhaps I'll devote an entire article to them sometime.
For obvious reasons, it is difficult for these smaller labels to survive. Where I work, we have a rather Darwinian duty to perform twice a year called "Returns". If a CD's pricegun code says that it has sat on the shelf for a certain amount of time, back it goes. I hardly need to say that the vast majority of returns are of interesting, small labels, of things like Loewe songs (another great cpo series, with excellent singers including a couple of baritones who give Fischer-Dieskau a run for his money), Krenek string quartets, Boccherini symphonies, Martinu operas, etc. They eventually get deleted, and put a smile on the face of the curious collector and music lover when they see them in the cutout bin for a fraction of the original price. It only makes me sad.
But I digress (nothing new in that).
One look at the Bestsellers wall in the Classical Department tells you that the majority of people are not interested in taking home a piece of art. "Bach's Adagios," "Mozart's Adagios," "The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World...Ever," "Agnus Dei: Music of Inner Harmony." All these are compilation albums, carefully chosen groupings of music--all excerpts from larger works--designed to sound the same, from the first track to the last. That's kind of like making a collage of all the most attractive faces Leonardo da Vinci painted.
If the consumer gets too tired from all this relaxation, no problem! Decca has a compilation called "Classical Thunder!"
Really, if someone wants this kind of thing, that's fine. But what I don't like is how this marketing technique preys on peoples' insecurities. Ed is bored of Pink Floyd, and wants to explore some of the vast iceberg that is loosely termed "Classical." He is scared, though, and doesn't want to look like an "idiot" and ask the advice of a salesperson he doesn't necessarily relate to. All he knows is that he once went to a concert and heard the local orchestra play some Mozart symphony or other rather limply and without inspiration, and had been bored. He thought that the only way to avoid that experience would be to buy something like "Classical Thunder". Poor Ed has no way of knowing that if he bought Schubert's (so-called) Unfinished Symphony played by the Vienna Philharmonic under Carlos Kleiber, he wouldn't be bored. Listening to, and then anticipating the changes in mood as the work unfolded, Ed could find an activity both new and rewarding. Then, he could discover Prokofieff's symphony #5 with Dorati conducting, and hear a completely different sound world again (and plenty of thunder. Lightning too).
But despite all my babble above, I do concede that musical wallpaper does have a place. And one doesn't have to rely on cheeeesy compilations. No sir.
To give some examples, I would say that a wonderful source of Thinking Man's Background Music is the liturgical music of the Renaissance. Lovely, intricate, multilayered musical textures performed by voices alone, and when sung by such a group as the Tallis Scholars, seamlessly with no audible vibrato. No one intrudes, all is balanced. Just about any recording by the Tallis Scholars is admirably suited to the task of creating a nice space to do your thing in. The sound is always perfect, and the music they sing is at a high level of quality. Then, there is always Flute and Harp. Some CDs with this combination are of avant-garde music, though, and you must watch out for them. They woudn't be good for our purpose here. Two discs on the Naxos label look like a good deal, and have some lovely pieces on them. Another pleasing instrument is the cello, and lots of cellists have arranged discs for themselves where they play one beautiful tune after the other. The king of beautiful tunes is surely Mischa Maisky, a formidable artist with a glowing sound, and either he's a sappy guy or he has an eye for sales. His discs, "Apres un Reve," "Songs Without Words," "Cellisimo," "Adagio," are all tastefully compiled Encore-type pieces or arrangements of songs where the cello "sings" the vocal line. The liner notes tell you that he has studied Lieder and Art Song for many years. Similarly, Vancouver cellist John Friesen has recorded two discs of song transcriptions with pianist Rena Sharon, an expert in Art Song if there ever was one. Whenever we play these in the store, we always sell out in short order.
Now for some ANTI-Background music. Stuff that is obnoxious and twisted enough to make your neighbours pray for the good old days of Death Metal and one trusty dynamic level to cope with.
A compilation CD called "Earquake" wins a prize for the tackiest CD cover...ever (whoops. Sorry, EMI. Don't sue me!) and yes, it is made of "bleeding chunks" yanked from larger works. But the selections are so unusual and the performances so great that I can't help but think it's a good thing. Where else is the casual buyer going to find out about the symphonies of Howard Hansen? Or hear the massively pulsing tone poem by Jon Leifs depicting Iceland's largest volcano ererformupting? And the latter, by the way, is not an excerpt. This collection is on the Finlandia label.
For sheer angst, it's hard to top the symphonies of Allan Petterson. They go from brooding angst to pain to screaming angst. When I was discovering him and playing his symphonies a lot, it was in the middle of a long, depressed stretch in the Eleventh Symphony that my then-boyfriend snapped "Oh Allan, lighten up!" The Seventh Symphony, on the BIS label, is a good place to start.
One composer who makes people burn calories from repeatedly getting up to change the volume level on their stereo is Giya Kancheli. He'll hold you suspended with beautiful, sad, haunting pianissimos, then suddenly unleash a storm from the orchestra that won't relent for several minutes. Then it's back to being haunting again. Somehow it works, and I believe that he's one of the best living composers.
One of the most exciting things to come my way in a long time is a recent recording of two cantatas by Sergei Prokofieff, one to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution, and the other to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution. They are full of aural depictions of war, loud brass, sirens, youch! Just hear it for yourself. It's on a tiny label called "Beaux" and distributed in Canada by Allegro. The performances, by a bunch of angry Russians, are amazing. You wonder what they must think when singing "The first word my baby will say will be "Stalin." and "The sun shines so beautifully because it has touched Stalin in the Kremlin." These quotes come from the last piece on the disc, a small choral work in honour of Stalin's 60th birthday. If you want subversive, this is it. It's sarcastic, snide and brutal...but evidently not enough for old Uncle Joe to catch on. Ironically, Prokofieff and Stalin died on the very same day. It's been said that Sergei heard the great news, jumped up for joy and fell back dead. I'll bet that happened to a lot of people with weak hearts that day.
And, on the Russians, it has to be said that Dmitri Shostakovich produced a couple of symphonies that would make rotten choices to play in Dentists' Waiting Rooms. Particularly the 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th. And if they're performed by Soviet orchestras, with good folk like Mravinsky, Rozhdestvensky, or Kondrachin leading the proceedings, well, that dentist isn't going to stay long in business, unless she grabs some George Winston FAST. Or Tallis Scholars.
 | Patricia is a classically trained mezzo who now lives and works in the UK. For more information about her, visit patriciahammond.com. |
