Last night, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter performed on David Letterman to celebrate the release of her box set, which Dave called, “the ideal hamster habitat.”
Earlier in the evening, Dave discussed crack and freebasing with Samuel L. Jackson, and a girl could only dream that he and Miss Mutter would cover the same topics. Mutter played with long-time collaborator, ex-husband, and Knight of the British Empire Andre Previn, and looked damn good in her little red dress.
Why musicians feel the need to play songs-they-think-people-want-to-hear on national television rather than Real Classical Music, I will never understand, but Mutter chose to perform, “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from (THE GERSHWIN’S, h/t Sondheim) Porgy and Bess. It just seems like a wasted opportunity, and the unwashed masses are drawn to virtuosity in any field more than we think.
Regardless, congrats again to Mutter and her team. More classical music on the TV, please!
And speaking of classical musicians on TV, Gustavo Dudamel and Kim Kardashian are in a commercial together. I can’t hardly wait for their joint Sears clothing line.
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Hi Amanda,
Nice post. Love your blog and especially the strapline. Here’s something I’ve always thought – would be interested to know your views. Go into the visual arts world or the theatre world or arthouse cinema or just about any other area of culture and the newest, most ‘challenging’ things have a completely different audience from the ‘classics’. Nobody thinks this is weird and everybody markets, say, an edgy exhibition in a downtown gallery differently from a Renaissance show at the Met. Now look at the classical music world. Go to a concert of difficult new music – or even not that new, think (early) Bartok. Where are the trendy young students with their embarrassingly self-conscious narrow ties and second-hand crushed velvet jackets? They’re not there, because nobody thought of marketing to them, because everyone assumes that the audience for this is just a really small subset of the Mozart audience. They’ve probably gone to a gallery opening instead where somebody who understood a bit more about how to help people feel pretentious has marketed their show properly. Sometimes in the classical music world we are so busy complaining how difficult it is we don’t think of ways to make it easier on ourselves. Some ensembles and venues are slowly waking up but I really think that there is a long way to go in presenting things in the most helpful way and reaching an audience that is, in fact, out there but might not know it yet.
Orpheus