A buxom, fiddle-playing beauty poses nude in Playboy, while, at the opposite end of the moral spectrum, a sweet-voiced Welsh teenager exudes angelic wholesomeness on automobile commercials.
What is going on here? Has the music industry taken leave of its few remaining senses?
No, it’s merely a sign that the industry is glomming onto anything and everything it can market as Crossover Flavor of the Week.
Crossover recordings, once a low-risk, easy-profit cash cow that the big classical companies employed to subsidize more serious and expensive recording projects, have become a primary lifeline for those firms now that sales of classical recordings have flattened. But as the stakes grow higher and the new releases pile up, the debate about crossover flares anew. Is it a healthy means of bridging the gap between the classical and non-classical public? Or a crass ploy to kick new life into a sagging market?
Smaller independent labels are still releasing worthy recordings of classical music, but the commitment of the majors to what is termed the core classical repertory has waned. One by one, big European-based recording companies such as Sony, BMG Classics, EMI and Universal (which includes the blue-chip labels Decca, Philips and Deutsche Grammophon) are slashing their classical divisions to the bone, gutting their artist rosters and devoting increased attention to crossover projects, soundtracks and the latest quick-buck hope.
In their desperation to turn a speedy profit, some labels have descended to astonishing levels of vulgar commercialism. Consider these recent crossover events:
– EMI recently released a disc of violin miniatures by “the blond musical sensation,” Linda Brava. The busty Finn’s main claim to fame is that she appeared nude in Playboy, posing with a fake gold violin in a layout titled “Brahms Bombshell.” But she is only a passable violinist, and her performances on the CD are thoroughly mediocre.
– Delos, the record company that last year released compilation discs titled “Baby Needs Beethoven” and “Baby Needs Bach,” has just brought out two more crossover CDs — “A Day in the Life of Lucky: Classical Music for You and Your Dog,” and “A Day in the Life of Leo: Classical Music for You and Your Cat.”
– From BMG comes a new RCA recording that holds 10 different versions of Ravel’s “Bolero” played back to back, including arrangements for synthesizer, pianos and brass ensemble. This is the same company that this year is expected to downsize its classical recording operation and to cut back classical releases to a measly 10 per year.
– Last year Sony brought out a disc titled “Abba Pater” containing chants by Pope John Paul II dubbed over New-Agey tunes, recorded and released with the pontiff’s blessing. Is nothing, well, sacred?
No longer. Indeed, if not for such phenomenally successful crossover stars such as the blind Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli (who has sold 9 million albums in the U.S.) or the cherubic Welsh warbler Charlotte Church (whose two albums have soared to platinum heaven) anchoring their rosters, it seems unlikely that even such once-mighty recording companies as Philips and Sony would be in business.
When a respected classical recording label puts its corporate muscle behind a Playboy Playmate, this is either 1) a symptom of big-time desperation in a troubled industry; or 2) a sign that the classical music business is reinventing itself to keep up with shifting demographics and listener tastes.
The answer is, of course, all of the above. And, as the saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
There is, of course, nothing new about crossover, the name given for a recording by a classical artist venturing into a non-classical area of music such as rock, jazz or world music and one that is aimed at consumers who would not normally buy classical albums. George Gershwin was probably the first crossover musician America produced. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops made millions of dollars for RCA Victor in the 1950s and ’60s with their many albums of what were then termed “light classics.” Then came the late 1970s and crossover as a distinct genre became a major phenomenon for classical record companies like CBS (now Sony Classical), Angel (now EMI Classics) and RCA. Major classical musicians like flutists Jean-Pierre Rampal and James Galway jumped on the crossover bandwagon; violinist Yehudi Menuhin played ragas with sitarist Ravi Shankar.
With the early 1980s came the compact disc boom. The record companies flooded the market with new products and reissues of their back catalog material, as collectors rushed to replace their old LPs with remastered CD versions. Crossover discs continued to be made and released — DG’s successful “opera singer” version of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” conducted by the composer, was the poster child for crossover at the time. But classical music seemed to be on the rise as a market phenomenon.
The industry’s euphoria gave way to gloom as retail bins became glutted with classical products — the standard repertory duplicated over and over. “The people who were already in the classical market were the ones converting to CDs,” says Christopher Roberts, president of Universal Classics and Jazz. “Not enough new people were coming on.”
A panic mentality set in. Gradually, the big record companies replaced executives who were knowledgeable in and committed to classical music with people from their pop divisions whose allegiance was only to making a profit, and fast. Stepping up production of crossover discs and soundtrack albums seemed a way out of the morass.
But what may appear to be a huge upsurge in crossover in today’s retail bins is a mirage brought on by an industry-wide course correction, insists Roberts. “We were just too heavily weighted in classical for the real market demand,” he explains. “It’s not just that the marketplace became sated — I don’t think the companies tried very hard to reach people with classical music. They thought it was enough just to stick it out there on the record-store shelves. If people wanted it, they would buy it; if not, it would sell over time — no problem.”
But publicly held companies like Sony must post big profits — hence Sony’s huge investment in crossover projects such as “Appalachian Journey” (with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Edgar Meyer and country fiddler Mark O’Connor) and 13-year-old Church, who thus far has released two platinum-selling albums. Sony also is pouring a great deal of working capital into soundtrack recordings, thanks to the staggering worldwide sales — more than $28 million and counting — of its “Titanic” soundtrack. Says Peter Gelb, president of Sony Classical, “We believe the future health of classical music requires an infusion of new ideas and a non-isolationist approach.”
Proponents of crossover insist it is creating new audiences for classical music, while critics argue that it merely fuels the demand for more crossover. This writer has been attending operatic performances for most of his life and has yet to meet any audience members who said they became opera subscribers because they were turned on by the Three Tenors. And, in truth, these shlocky, heavily amplified stadium extravaganzas have struck anything but a blow for populism in opera: With tickets scaled from $50 for rafter seats to $600 or thereabouts for prime-location seats, all but the rich and privileged are excluded.
When the Three Tenors — Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras — first sang together in Rome in 1990, no one could have expected that the subsequent “original cast” album on London (now Decca) would go on to become the best-selling classical recording of all time, more than 2 million to date. This phenomenon was both a blessing and a curse for the classical recording industry. By demonstrating that the right classical album can sell as dramatically as the latest ‘N Sync CD, it fueled unrealistic expectations on the part of label executives and set the stakes so unreasonably high that no one — not even the aging, overpaid singers themselves — could win. If you want to blame anyone for sucking the life out of classical recording, blame the Three Tenors.
This did not, however, stop other “singing sensations” from surfacing on disc. None has proved more phenomenally successful than Bocelli, the mere mention of whose name sends some fans into paroxysms of delight, as if he were Caruso reincarnated. Crossover sensations like Bocelli and Church might do wonders for a label’s fourth-quarter profits, but what artistic capital can they accrue over the long haul? For all his popularity via CDs, videos, stadium gigs and PBS pledge-week specials, Bocelli is no Pavarotti. He owns a smallish if pleasant voice, with weak high notes, as his unfortunate debut in the title role of Massenet’s “Werther” with Michigan Opera Theatre last October proved.
Church would appear to be even more of a flash in the pan. The teenager, with her weak, piping treble voice, is too immature to be recording heavy classics such as the Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria.” Assuming she is still singing five years from now, will anybody want to hear her?
To be sure, for every dubious crossover “discovery,” there are major classical artists — cellist Yo-Yo Ma; singers Bryn Terfel, Dawn Upshaw and Thomas Hampson; violinists Leila Josefowicz, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Joshua Bell, to cite some of the most prominent examples — who enjoy venturing into non-classical repertory and have released some worthwhile crossover albums.
Artists such as these personify the contention of Lisa Altman, senior vice president for crossover music at Universal, that most of today’s younger musicians do not want to live in a stylistic vacuum. From a marketing standpoint, she says, “Crossover addresses the widest array of listener sensibilities. This is an ever-growing demographic because Boomers are looking for alternatives in the music they listen to.”
Upshaw, who will make her Lyric Opera debut this fall in John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby,” says crossover is used by many as a pejorative to accuse artists of “jumping into an area of music where we don’t belong. Actually, I treat that music as seriously as my purely classical repertoire.”
Asked why he thinks crossover continues to click, violinist Bell — who stars on composer John Corigliano’s Oscar-winning Sony soundtrack to the 1999 Francois Girard film “The Red Violin” — says it’s because many listeners who are inclined toward the classics find much of today’s new music harsh and unappealing. “A lot of composers today are out of touch, and their music [is] in a language only they can understand,” he says. “It’s not always a bad thing to have the audience in mind.”
His fiddling colleague Kennedy — formerly known as Nigel Kennedy — agrees. The punk-styled violinist was one of the first classical soloists of his generation to look for ways to free himself from pigeonholing. “I’m interested in music, period,” he says. “There’s nothing I like better than playing Beethoven with a symphony, straight-ahead jazz with a great jazz group, or . . . top rock music with a great musician like Robert Plant . . . I like music to be an adventure.”
Not every classically trained musician, however, feels that playing crossover is a seemly role for a performer who values his art.
The gifted Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff recently traded barbs with Kennedy on the subject in the Guardian, a British newspaper. “People say that Kennedy misbehaves but that he plays like a god; but I think he misbehaves and doesn’t play like a god,” Schiff sniffed. “You can find violinists like that in every music school.”
Kennedy retorted by citing Schiff as a prime example of the snobbism he is rebelling against. “Maybe he should listen to some of my records. He’d learn something about classical music playing he obviously doesn’t know yet . . . If he’s got some exclusive club and thinks some people aren’t the right class to listen to the music he’s playing, I’m afraid he’s living in another age.”
“It seems to me today that we don’t want to accept the fact that classical music will always be for a minority,” Schiff later said in rebuttal. “Just like a great wine, classical music should not be diluted just to sell more of it.”
One may agree with Schiff’s defense of “elitism” while conceding there is a place, artistically and commercially, for well-conceived crossover recordings by musicians who genuinely believe in what they’re doing — and who perform at the highest level.
Label executives such as Roberts are staking their stock options on that hypothesis, as Universal’s release plans suggest. Next month Decca will issue an album called “Two Worlds” in which soprano Renee Fleming, violinist Gil Shaham and cellist Julian Lloyd Webber will collaborate with jazz musicians Dave Grusin and Lee Rittenour. For DG, mezzo-soprano Anne Sophie von Otter has taped an album of Elvis Costello songs slated to appear early next year.
What next? Cecilia Bartoli singing duets with Britney Spears? As the present, try-it-you’ll-like-it record industry mind-set suggests, anything is possible.
“I don’t think crossover is going away at any time soon, simply because it has always been there,” says Roberts. “Sure, there are big problems in the business right now, including a lot of provincialism on both the classical and popular sides. The way to tackle the problems is not just to do crossover stuff — we still invest far more in the core classical side — but to maintain a healthy balance of recording, without compromising our integrity.”
Tell that to the folks who brought us Linda Brava and “A Day in the Life of Lucky.”
