The more I listen to so-called “classical” / “high art” music the more of a snob I become about it.
And I guess that’s not surprising, after all I am a gigantic music snob (though I would argue that I am much less of a music snob – having let hooks into my life at least a little – than I was in, say, 2003) but it is still a little weird, given that I can’t play an instrument (unless you count my wonderful singing voice), I can’t read music, and I can barely express myself when talking about the differences between performances of the same piece.
But I am getting worse (pfft Mozart pfft). Perhaps this review is evidence.
What we have here is a series of orchestrations of Debussy pieces. And I can’t help but find them all a little bit over done. They reek of muzakality.
When I first heard the snobbery associated with orchestrating piano pieces I was a little shocked. My prized “classical” (read: romantic) possession was a CD of orchestrated Mussorgsky and I honestly thought that’s how it was supposed to sound. (I still have a fondness for that stuff, because it was the earliest “classical” music I listened to on a regular basis.) But I have come to understand it. There are two problems.
- The first is that orchestration reeks of arrogance. The orchestrator is saying “I can do this better.” And I guess that’s what happens every time someone covers something, but orchestrations are more adaptations than straight up covers, and moreover nobody publishes their covers and makes money off them. (Well, most people don’t.)
- The second is that orchestration reeks of greed. Large ensembles need someway to pay the bills and smoothing out a piano melody into something soft and palatable is a good way for the orchestrator and later the orchestras to make money.
And so I do feel a little justified in disliking this so much. I do feel like the honest way to treat these pieces would be to reinvent them in unconventional ways, if the piano was not the preferred performing vehicle, instead of creating muzak out of them.
Debussy was, after all, one of the most radical composers of his era. You don’t get that at all when listening to these anemic arrangements.
5/10
Which is better?
This?
Or this?