Mike McLaughlin:

>Ever since I first saw that horrible Pepsi commercial with Beyonce
>Knowles spoofing Carmen, I've been thinking a lot about something and I
>wanted to see what everyone here thought about it.  What do you think
>about classical music being used in commercials?

I think classical music can take just about any treatment and survive.
When I was very young, I used to listen to a radio serial called The
Search for the Golden Boomerang (this is Australia, remember), whose
theme came from The Nutcracker.  It was some years later that I made
that connection: at the time I listened to it, I had no idea what it
really was.  About the same time, I'd sometimes hear Spike Jones and
his City Slickers in a piece about a horse race won by a nag called
Beetlebomb, I think it was.  This used the William Tell Overture, with
someone *gargling* the cello solo.  I've been able to listen to the
overture without believing that Jones's manic and, it must be said,
clever treatment of it had destroyed it forever.  Probably Walter (as
s/he was then) Carlos's Switched-On Bach album brought some people of a
later generation to the fold.  So if a piece of CM is used in a commercial,
I don't think it's going to ruin it.

>...if they associate the "Blue Danube Waltz" with Avon,

I've always loved the way Stanley Kubrick used this in "2001: A Space
Odyssey".  Not only did it complement beautifully the space scene in
question, the film was edited to fit the music, not, as is so often the
case, the music to fit the film.

I think it's quite likely that someone will hear a piece of music in a
commercial or a film and be interested enough to find out more about it.
Years ago, I saw a film about a bank robbery which very effectively used
part of the second movement of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion
and Celesta, a work I was unfamiliar with at the time.  I'd probably
have discovered it in some other way eventually, but this was a good
catalyst.

Classical music seems to be most often used for commercials for upmarket
items such as top of the range cars, watches, perfume and so on.  The
subtext appears to be that classical music is for the sort of people who
can afford very expensive items.  Those of us who actually listen to it
know better.

Richard Pennycuick
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