Long Hair for Crew Cuts

If you were asked whether you preferred classical, that is, Long-hair music to popular tunes, the odds are in your favor that you would answer, “No”. Or, if asked whether you even liked listening to the Classics at all, the chances are you would probably still say “No”.

But how do you know that you mean No?

For it’s an almost sure bet that if you have been exposed to the juke boxes and hit tunes on radio and TV for over a period of a year you will have been listening to one or another of the Classics. And liking it, too. Five gets you eight, it will even have been a hit tune.

For instance, in early 1955 when the song “Here” WIJS launched on the juke boxes and air waves, it was popularly and painlessly received. Not as one of the Big Hits, but still a hit. Yet, if we look into the ancestry of “Here” before it came here, what do we find? Why, note for note, it is none other than the “Caro Nome” (Dearest Name) from Verdi’s Rigoletto! The tempo is practically unchanged; the arrangement hasn’t warped it too much out of line. Major difference is that, while the “Caro Nome” in Rigoletto was written for a soprana ari a, in the “Here” version it is clipped of some frills and trills and brought down to earth for the male voice.

And in 1954, – and this time a big BIG Hit, – one of the most pleasing-and coherent popular tunes to assail our ears was II Stranger In Paradise”. But where does the “Stranger” come from? Well, it has been lifted bodily out of the “Polovetzian Dances” from Borodine’s opera “Prince Igor”.  And it has suffered no bodily harm in the lifting.

Now; is this bad? Well, legally, no. While this sort of pilfering might seem to be a musical form of plagiarism – and of the rankest kind – it is entirely ethical. Once a composition has reached the “classical” status, and the composer is reasonably defunct, his music enters into what is known as the public domain. And, as such, is therefore available for body snatching, no holds barred.

Thus, in 1950, we had ” Whisper a Word of Love” which stemmed directly from the “Meditation” from Massanet’ s opera, Thais, But the biggest and most successful grave robbery took place in the 1930’s with ” Tonight We Love”. It was an instant smash hit. And it had come from Tschaikowsky’s Piano Concerto in B Flat Minor! It became such a “popular” success that, many times it was requested, the swing title was overlooked, and the customers of the audience actually asked for II Tschaikowsky’ s Concerto”, or simply II The Concerto”. Not only had we swallowed the pill of a “classic”, but we found that surprisingly a classic might be good listening, too. Thus an inadvertent boost and a belated orchid to Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.

The Thirties produced a rich slew of these classic-to-pop transfusions; “The Lamp is Low” (from Ravel’s Pavanne), “Revery” (from Debussy’ s Reverie), and ” Moon Love” (from one of the themes of Tschaikowsky’s Fifth Symphony), to name but a few. Then whole slabs were lifted out of Rimsky-Korsakow’s Scheherazade and Chopin’s Etudes for the ready-to-wear trade. And the Forties saw “Full Moon and Empty Arms” spring from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto straight into the popular arms. It is interesting to note that Serge Rachmaninoff was not yet defunct but very much alive at the time of this wave of acclaim. The “Pop composers” were indeed scrabbling in all the musical corners for material during this era. All was grist for the ‘millions’.

If you are old enough to have roared during the Roaring Twenties, you will have sung, whistled or played “Yes, We Have No Bananas’.” You will certainly have heard it – and plenty! This song rocketed over the country with flaming and fruity success long before the Juke Box Age; indeed, while radio was still in its infancy and TV was as yet unknown. But from which musical hat had this rabbit (or plum) been plucked? Why, almost intact from “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” from Balfe’s opera, The Bohemian Girl,

There were other popular successes to a lesser degree in the Twenties; ” Cho-cho-San” (From ” One Fine Day” in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly), “Song of India (from the ” Chanson Indorie” of Rimsky-Korsakow’s opera Sadko) and “Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella” (from a theme in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major).

Again, is this bad? No, I don’t think so. It is true that every now and then you will hear a protest from a Long-hair purist about thus violating the sanctity of the Classics. But does it actually violate, Surely it rather makes accessible to a vast public the lovely arias from operas and brilliantly beautiful themes from symphonies that this public would otherwise never have heard. There are many, many instances where such Popular exposure led to a genuine interest and a deeper searching of the Classics in quest of treasures.

What, after all, is Popular? What is Classics? A popular melody is one that the large body of the public likes. A true classic might be defined as such a work that has been popular long enough for it to stick.

Beethoven’s later Quartets and the music of Bela Bartok, Paul Hindemuth and Virgil Thomson fall into the “classical” category. But it is not to be supposed that, without a grounding in classical background, you should jump in cold and be immediately wowed by these offerings. Yet you can (as in liking olives) acquire a taste for the later Beethoven, even for Bach on unaccompanied violin. The point is, Bach and Beethoven have been “in” long enough to stick — for several centuries, in fact. But will we like Bartok, Hindemuth and Thomson in that length of time? Will we EVER like them? Will they hit the headlines in 20 years? 50 years? Or will they be strictly “for the birds”? Time, and only time, can tell.

Meanwhile, there are still plenty of fish in the sea for popular consumption. Why, for instance, have they overlooked the very lovely and haunting opening of Brahms  Fourth Symphony, or the 3rd Movement of his Third? And the lush beauty of the main theme from Rimsky-Korsakow’s Antar Symphony? Or the Berceuse from the closing moments of •Strawinsky’s Firebird? Or “Micaela’s Air” from Bizet’s Carmen? They would all make decent hits, even with Class B lyrics.

The strongest argument in favor of this pilferage is, that if you want and must listen to juke box music, let it be GOOD!

And I don’t really think that the composers would turn in their graves at this CARTE BLANCHE system of popularizing their arias and themes. It is only unfortunate that these same good composers cannot in some way share in the royalties.

So when you are asked if you like Classical music, a safe answer might be, “Yes — with reservations,” Even if you are a Crew-Cutter!