The Rieualisation

Congratulations to Emma Ayres on ABC FM this morning when interviewing Andre Rieu.

That she could do it without throwing up is amazing in itself.

While I generally feel that people should be allowed to do what they want, the real problem is what happens when this impacts on others. Almost everything we do impacts on others.

What Rieu does, it seems to me, is to diminish Classical Music by turning it into Muzak...such a point was made by Maestro Tognetti on the Music Show last week. He does not play music, he flattens it out into 'easy listening'.

That program is wildly catholic in its music; presenter and composer Andrew Ford refuses to be locked into genre politics (see fulsome praise here http://stephenclarks.blogspot.com/2006/02/do-yourself-favour.html)

He once made the comment...who says music has to be 'easy' to listen to...as an art form it should really demand something of us.

Rieu's crime, it seems to me, is to make powerful music meaningless. It is an artistic travesty.

You can argue that people should be allowed to listen to garbage if they want.

But that impacts on others because it makes our culture weak when we think music is just meaningless.