the old and the new
I was just reading an article whose first paragraph goes like this:
Every single reference is to something centuries old — a hymn or term or cliché — except one, which is a reference to a 1970s TV show. And yet that one, the most recent reference in the list, is the one the author knows will communicate to her audience that she is older than 27.
This reminds me of some guests we had several years ago. The American Boychoir was in town, and its members stayed in music-lovers' homes for a night or two. Catherine and I had five boys stay with us. They were looking all up and down our CD shelf, commenting on this and that, and naturally the comments were the kind of thing you'd only hear from classical-music-loving 14-year-olds:
"Oh yeah - the Mahler 3! I sang that in New York with Bernard Haitink." "Awesome."
"Britten's Gloria, done by a men's chorale? That's interesting."
"Hey - Bartoli - the Vivaldi album. She's amazing."
"Backstreet Boys! Backstreet Boys?!?! Man, that is old school!"
These kids were talking about music from a century ago, or many centuries ago, and to them it was something present and living; meanwhile, music from just a little over a half-decade back could be considered "old school," a relic.
Part of that is the simple teenage phenomenon of rejecting one's recent childhood and its accoutrements. The Backstreet Boys would have been associated in their minds with second grade, and they'd probably forgotten all about the group. Meanwhile, they'd been awakened to the world of classical music more recently, reading and rehearsing and performing it just that week.
But I think part of it is that the older music was more pitched to the ages than the moment. As delightful as the Backstreet Boys are, their music is a delicious soda, fizzy and sugary and peppy, and gone in a flash. If any of their songs are performed 75 years from now, it'll be by artistic performers who have completely reimagined them. Meanwhile, Mahler and Vivaldi and (to a much lesser extent) Britten are more like wine: certainly delicious, certainly not lacking in temporal pleasures, but something deeper is going on that brings a different satisfaction.
Soul music. Then sings my soul. Soul searching. I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest. Put some soul into your singing. Deep in my soul. Soul Train. (Wow, I've dated myself with that one!)Besides continuing the tradition of beginning an article with a pseudocatchy paragraph that could be profitably eliminated, the author is doing something interesting here.
Every single reference is to something centuries old — a hymn or term or cliché — except one, which is a reference to a 1970s TV show. And yet that one, the most recent reference in the list, is the one the author knows will communicate to her audience that she is older than 27.
This reminds me of some guests we had several years ago. The American Boychoir was in town, and its members stayed in music-lovers' homes for a night or two. Catherine and I had five boys stay with us. They were looking all up and down our CD shelf, commenting on this and that, and naturally the comments were the kind of thing you'd only hear from classical-music-loving 14-year-olds:
"Oh yeah - the Mahler 3! I sang that in New York with Bernard Haitink." "Awesome."
"Britten's Gloria, done by a men's chorale? That's interesting."
"Hey - Bartoli - the Vivaldi album. She's amazing."
"Backstreet Boys! Backstreet Boys?!?! Man, that is old school!"
These kids were talking about music from a century ago, or many centuries ago, and to them it was something present and living; meanwhile, music from just a little over a half-decade back could be considered "old school," a relic.
Part of that is the simple teenage phenomenon of rejecting one's recent childhood and its accoutrements. The Backstreet Boys would have been associated in their minds with second grade, and they'd probably forgotten all about the group. Meanwhile, they'd been awakened to the world of classical music more recently, reading and rehearsing and performing it just that week.
But I think part of it is that the older music was more pitched to the ages than the moment. As delightful as the Backstreet Boys are, their music is a delicious soda, fizzy and sugary and peppy, and gone in a flash. If any of their songs are performed 75 years from now, it'll be by artistic performers who have completely reimagined them. Meanwhile, Mahler and Vivaldi and (to a much lesser extent) Britten are more like wine: certainly delicious, certainly not lacking in temporal pleasures, but something deeper is going on that brings a different satisfaction.
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