Grrr….

Voice 1—Give it up, Marc. You’ve written about it before. Everybody’s tired of it. Find something new!

Voice 2—Why does it make me so crazy? He’s 32, he’s an adult, and if he wants to cross over from classical to pop—why is that such a sin? Why not let him?

Voice 1—Hmmm, jealousy maybe? Do you secretly wanna do rock?

Voice 2—Come on, I don’t even listen to it. But look, the guy, David Garrett, spent years at Juilliard and the Royal College of Music. He’s got an amazing technique on the violin. He was given a Stradivarius when he was eleven. The jerk is 33 and has gotten more awards and done more first than anybody around. Look what he can do!

 

Voice 1—That is pretty amazing.

Voice 2—Yeah, and look what he does with it!

Voice 1—Ummm, yeah… Pretty bad….

Voice 2—Pretty bad? Pretty bad? That’s an atrocity, that’s a slaughter. Look, I don’t mind playing Bach with exaggerated vibrato or a hokey style. But why add stupid drums? Why make it sound like Muzak? But there he is, with that huge screen behind. At least he appeared in a concert hall—other videos have him in football stadia…

Voice 1—See? We don’t believe in stadiums….

Voice 2—Nor auditoriums…

Voice 1—Look, what’s the problem?

Voice 2—Joyce DiDonato said it best: why are we so insecure about what we do,—and what we’ve spent years learning to do—that we have to dumb it down? Why not own it?— This is what we are, this is what we do. No, I’m not going to jazz up Bach to play down to your level. That’s an insult. To both of us. And you know what? It doesn’t fool anybody—nobody is going to hear this rhinestone gaudy arrangement of Bach and then decide, ‘hey, let me just sit down and listen to the Well-Tempered Clavier!’

Voice 1—OK, so what’s the big deal? If he wants to use his talent and his Stradivarius to making money—oh, and also making people happy—is that a crime? Elitism, Marc?

Voice 2—Guilty as charged. Look, maybe we should just come out and say it. There is nothing wrong with going into new areas of music, of forging new types of music. If Garrett had wanted to do something like Laurie Anderson—hey, no problem!

Voice 1—So?

Voice 2—Look, will we ever do rock better than rock stars? Who are we kidding? And you know what? Beyond the flash, how much of a musician is there here? Because I heard him doing Bach and I heard him doing Schubert, and guess what? It was the same rich, throaty tone. And it might have worked in the Schubert, but the Bach?

Voice 1—OK, so what is it?

Voice 2—you know, there are a lot of good violinists out there. Hey, I came to Garrett through Philippe Quint, who was playing the hell out of John Corigliano. There’s Hilary Hahn, and Sarah Chang and a LOT of good musicians out there. And guess what? They’re not out there doing crossovers. They’re out there presenting and furthering a long and distinguished tradition. Isn’t this selling out? Isn’t this a child prodigy who’s hit a wall? There’s a limit to fast technique, you know. I mean, an hour and a half of fast, flashy music is unsustainable. There’s also such a thing as musicianship….

Voice 1—Wow, harsh words, Marc. And by the way, isn’t Yo-Yo Ma also a crossover?

Voice 2—Dunno, maybe…. But there’s something different. Ma’s Silk Road Project takes music from many cultures and fuses, producing something new and traditional at the same time. Quite different from putting snare drums to Bach, or playing a rock song on a violin.

Voice 1—Not letting go, are we, Marc! Bite ‘em, boy! Bite ‘em!

Voice 2—OK, maybe it’s purely irrational. Maybe it just rankles to see a 32-year old kid, pretty enough to have modeled his way through Juilliard, getting all this fame and attention when other musicians are laboring away, one concert after another.

Voice 1—Ya,  Marc—give it up…

Voice 2—Grrr….