I was teaching the Ken Loach film My Name is Joe today - probably my favourite Ken Loach film. After some talk about the limits of realism and the problems and possibilities of critical naturalism, we looked at a sequence from the film for close analysis - the passage from the scene in which Joe asks Sarah out to the scene in which he tells her why he stopped drinking. One crucial element is the use of the slow movement of Beethovens Violin Concerto in D Major, which one student described as upper-class music. Another student pointed out - sensibly - that the film needed a plausible narrative to accommodate Joes love of this piece of music. But while classical music does connote upper class, its very strange that it should be so. While most classical music was not created by working-class people, it has never been the exclusive preserve of upper-class people who tended to treat composers and performers as servants, albeit highly regarded ones. (I exclude the occasional upper-class composers, such as Gesualdo.) Moreover most classical music is accessible - and classical concerts and performances (even operas) have seats which are much cheaper than entrance prices to such supposedly working-class entertainments as football matches and pop concerts. When Im economising, I can usually manage a few classical concerts but not, alas, football matches. Nor is most classical music difficult to enjoy; while my parents were never experts in or particular enthusiasts for classical music, we had classical records in our flat and enjoyed them, and this wasnt uncommon. So how have we reached a stage in which classical music - freely available on radio and cheaply available on CDs, through downloads and often at performances - is fenced off as an upper-class area? None of the students I spoke to found the Beethoven music difficult to enjoy - nor did they find it improbable that a working-class person would enjoy it if s/he heard it - yet for them it clearly connoted upper class as if there were great keep off signs around classical composers. My knowledge of classical music may be wretchedly unsystematic but Im grateful that bloody-mindedness and rule-breaking led me to the discovery of Radio 3 and thus to the proms, where the cheapest tickets are still £5. Here is the music though not the recording used in the film. youtube/watch?v=m8q4A38uNLM
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 20:21:26 +0000
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