The Girl With The Rose Tattoo plays Chopin

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by ADpianist

also, I would like to add I love fashion and consider that as part of performance

Aren't you talking pop music or opera rather than concert hall classical music? Lady Gaga, for example, is wonderful, and grounds her career on melding fashion and pop music. She's also politically important, infuriating the loony American "religious" right with her pro-gay propaganda. The barking-mad Westboro Baptists call her a She-Devil!

I think female classical musicians have it more difficult than men, lacking the anonymous tuxedo uniform tradition. Men can hide behind it, so attention focuses naturally on the music.

Edited to add: YAY!!! -->>

[Tarantella]

There is much wisdom in what you say, "Phil", about men hiding behind the "tux". Yes.

And I know nothing about Lady Gaga - except that in my country "gaga" means 'barking mad'. How seriously need we take THAT as a name?

Speaking of mad: Newt thinks we should "occupy the moon". Last time I looked it wasn't 1960. Talk about the "loony religious right"!!

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Tarantella

There is much wisdom in what you say, "Phil", about men hiding behind the "tux". Yes.

There's a (less powerful?) tradition of female classical musicians dressing down, covering up flesh (long sleeves, long dresses, high collars) so attention is taken off the body and onto the music.

But from a marketing point of view I can see why that tradition is under attack. Sex sells, as everyone knows, and within Western capitalism the female form is worth more than the male.

So in strictly capitalist terms -- obtaining an edge in the market place -- I can see the pressure on young, female, classical musicians to travel the soft-porn route. They're young entrepreneurs getting ahead with Bach + cleavage + lip-gloss.

A bit of me says "Good luck to them!" I'm not a prude or a puritan. I'm also not a sexist and am keen on women having the same opportunities as men. But I still think something's being lost. Is Bach improved by having photoshopped cleavage stuck in his face? Maybe he is....

Originally Posted by Tarantella

And I know nothing about Lady Gaga...

Here you go. She starts off with some Bach. I think she's great.

[Kubalivre]

It should be said that we aren't talking about the music because there's nothing wrong with it. Or is that not the case?

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Kubalivre

It should be said that we aren't talking about the music because there's nothing wrong with it. Or is that not the case?

It's outside my period of expertise. If it was Brandenburg 5 (+ lip gloss) that would be different. But plenty of Chopin experts here. They're free to state their opinions. I suspect she's pretty good. But would be interested to read an informed analysis.

One of the great things about the baroque HIP movement is it's always been dominated by men with big beards, little round glasses made out of twigs and women who look like they make their own dresses from second hand curtains. It's wonderful! Very hard for a marketeer to smear such people with soft-porn. They must drive their agents crazy!

[Kubalivre]

Originally Posted by Philidor

It's outside my period of expertise. If it was Brandenburg 5 (+ lip gloss) that would be different. But plenty of Chopin experts here. They're free to state their opinions. I suspect she's pretty good. But would be interested to read an informed analysis.

One of the great things about the baroque HIP movement is it's always been dominated by men with big beards, little round glasses made out of twigs and women who look like they make their own dresses from second hand curtains. It's wonderful! Very hard for a marketeer to smear such people with soft-porn.

I'm sitting in for the devil's advocate, even though there is no devil in sight. I recall previous discussions of this issue, I understand why you brought it up, and I can spot your always present good natured spirit.

She, the newcomer and the young artist exposing her work, might not.

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Kubalivre

She, the newcomer and the young artist exposing her work, might not.

I agree. If I didn't think she was a toughie I would have kept quiet. But musicians who bolt fashion or youth culture or the softest of pornography (call it what you will) onto classical music can expect to get a reaction. Except for opera -- which has always involved such things -- they're doing something relatively new. They seek to incorporate classical music into mass consumer capitalism, using the professional marketeer's box of tricks. It's not a sin to challenge that process, courteously and with good humour.

[Tarantella]

I disagree about the apparel of the HIP musicians. I've never seen them decked out as you describe - in Europe anyway. I don't recall English Baroque Soloists/Gardiner looking like that either. Concentus Musicus definitely doesn't. In fact, while I was living in Vienna last year I noticed younger female musicians from many of the world's most famous orchestras who had quite a bit of exposed 'cleavage'. This surprised me because it WAS a distraction.

When I was a high-school teacher and the students had a uniform-free day (usually to raise money), many of the girls turned up with plunging decolletage and looked decidedly 'inappropriate', so its unsurprising that 'raunch culture' should be pervasive with female musicians.

All you need to do is read "The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations" (Christoper Lasch) and it will explain everything!! I love this little gem: "...a society that demands submission to the rules of social intercourse but refuses to ground those rules in a code of moral conduct"(p.12). Through the joys of American hegemony this attitude is now prevalent in the entire western world. In my country we have a magistrate who dismisses charges of anti-social behaviour saying, "There's no such thing as 'community standards' anymore". I actually buy into that.

[Mambo]

i can always take Chopin. He was a favourite composer in my
early piano playing.
and what are these x's framed by a box for the youtube clips - did that function get tired
hey Tarantella - Tina Fey / Sarah Palin endorsed Newt!
maybe i'll write in Sarah -

[Despina41]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Despina: you're expert on hair-flicking male classical musicians -- -- Are "hot totty" bloke musicians also using sex to shift CDs and downloads?

Sorry I'm so late to this thread. I saw the title, and assumed it would be trash!!!!


AHEM,

YES, male musicians market their looks ALL the time. Obviously, some will be more successful than others, depending on the combination of physical attractiveness and actual ability to play music --- not mutually exclusive, but the ear and eye can get confused it would seem....!


Look at this nonsense:

He's quite terrible, but he has a posh accent and he models, so people listen to him. gag me with a spoon (And we have the male version of Lola.)




This one ain't so great either:

But don't tell his fans that.. especially the ones who write for the Guardian.





As for "more serious musicians," they are under a lot of pressure to sell albums in any way possible. How much of that is the marketing of the Performer Himself? We were laughing that Deutsche Grammophon decided to have Ingolf Wunder "twirling around like a giddy schoolgirl in the rain" --
Say what???

But really, it's not as funny as much as sad.




How about DG prettying up Yundi Li?

Benjamin Ivry was complaining about exactly this years ago..




As for our favorite pianist, yet another DG recording artist, Lang Lang isn't marketing "hotness," per se, but he is certainly marketing a particular image. Look at him back in the day:
"clean cut Chinese kid"



Now he's rocking the Lang Liberace look:

The spiked hair, the glamour scarves, the outrageous colors...(what, no sequins here?) And we complain that his playing is too theatrical... well, points for consistency.




And speaking of Action Hair, let's not anyone actually believe that Trif is somehow naively unaware that he looks like something out of the nineteenth century. This is not an accident:

"Oh, gee, I was so busy worrying about my spleen (awwghh) that I forgot to get my hair cut and somehow it grew out to this ideal length for flipping about when I hit big chords.... huh!"


It's META marketing to go around in a state that somehow coaxes every other critic into noting that you are pale and skinny and have long hair (aka, the classic "Franz Liszt" look), yet pretend to have no idea this is going on (aka, "I am an artiste: I only live for the music itself") ---yeah right, that's like doubling down on the nineteenth-century image!





But all the older musicians lament, "the classical music world is so different these days... the pressure..." -- pressure to be something new, pressure from companies to record what they think will sell, etc. You wonder why Shaham started his own label after DG dumped him for the younger, prettier Hilary Hahn!

So yes, I'm not answering your question as much as rewording it: It's not just the females who suffer.


But then we like our artists suffering, right? ("Struggling to produce Authentic Art against the capitalist machine and the Philistines who support it!!!") Very nineteenth century - Trif's on to something.