Mozart Should Sell Shoes?

I noticed St. Olaf is now selling Nike shoes. They're using the Mozart Requiem to do it with.

Can anyone think of a less appropriate piece of music to sell shoes than the Lacrymosa?

The message: losing a basketball game is as serious as death and if you don't buy the right shoes you will be condemned as an outcast for losing the game.

I tried to find a graphic for this blog on the internet which showed Mozart's hand written opening of the Lacrymosa with a tennis shoe or dirty shoeprint on top of it, but fortunately had no luck. I count that a silver lining.

I thought perhaps those going ga-ga over the ad might come to their senses seeing that stained copy, precious enough to have been preserved for so many years, displayed next to the smelliest, most over rated consumer product on the face of the earth. But maybe not. If the first 5 seconds of the ad didn't make you gag, there is no hope of finding a juxtaposition more inappropriate than the ad itself.

Yes, I read the article. St. Olaf didn't hatch this idea. Someone approached them from Nike. Still ...

Over the years I've watched my beloved Motown artists used to sell everything from soap to Sara Lee. 'Hip' electric ad libs (I am being kind) of Porter and Gershwin play daily in 30-second looped versions which never make it to the bridge. These don't bother me so much. Those artists and songs were born in a popular culture niche and commercialism was the midwife which delivered them. Boys listen to their mothers.

Classical composers have provided cartoon music to accompany Captain Crunch for decades, but many of the kids who watched were exposed to the same music in a context more suited to foster respect. That's what made the cartoon versioin of the music funny - the canons of the 1812 Overture were painstakingly synchronized with Bugs Bunny's bops on the head of Elmer Fudd - good stuff.

But will today's listeners hearing the Lacrymosa, chopped up almost beyond recognition, used to sell a sports shoe forever tag it contextually as "music for commercials" if that's the only place they hear it? The fact that most won't even notice it or be able to identify it answers that semi-rhetorical question. To pretend that choral musicians should be glad such a wide audience is being exposed to it are bonkers. Context creates or denies respect.

There was a car commercial two years ago with Rutter's lush "What Sweeter Music", a Christmas piece, fer cryin' out loud, playing in the backgound. Did Rutter approve that?

And the last straw for me I guess, pre-Nike, was the Honda Civic Choir which doesn't even have a name past the product it is selling and doesn 't sound like any choir I've ever heard. What they do is remarkable and I've returned to watch the video online many times but why didn't they name it the Honda Human Noise Machine or something?

Must we sell out the art we make to just anyone who asks it of us? Is the profession so desparate for recognition that we would count use of such music as a plus because lots of people hear it? Is there anything left that Madison Avenue can use to offend the informed listener? Robertson's setting of "The Lord's Prayer" promoting gas relief?

It seems the ones least able to financially access our own art are choral musicians, due to ever-restrictive copyright laws and the cost of print media. Coupled with that, we are now the ones left holding the "Is this proper use?" bag. No one else seems to be worried about that, even in our ranks it appears. Nike can afford to promote Mozart while some choirs can't.

I wish whoever signed that Nike contract had weighed that bag a little more carefully. Maybe they'll donate the residuals to a Mozart museum somewhere. Yeah, right.

Sometimes, we should just say no, you can't have our work for that purpose.

http://fusion.stolaf.edu/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsDetails&id=3781