Poor old Antonio. I know, I know, he practically defined the idea of a concerto and was one of the first to use such vivid sound pictures with his music - the calling of the cuckoo, a barking dog, the distant rumble of thunder, the icy rain. I agree that that is particularly clever. It's just that it's all a bit annoying and, thanks to Nigel Kennedy selling two million copies during the 1990s, cliché.
Oho! There it is. I'm a classical music snob! Heavens, I hope not! I hope I like what I like because it sings to me, not because it's unknown and a bit bohemian.
You know what I mean - it happens in all the genres. Some out-there radio station picks up a fresh new band and a few people get their music. Then, when people ask them what music they're into, they say dismissively, "Oh. I listen to a lot of Electric Shed and erm, Threefold Hiatus... have you heard of them?"
And the answer's always 'no' because Electric Shed and Threefold Hiatus are always 'out there' on the fringes, being all cool and moody and unheard of.*
Months later of course, the growing underground popularity movement means everyone's suddenly heard of these preposterous bands and they're raking it in with festival appearances and chats on Radio 1 where the likes of Fearne Cotton pelt them with inane banter.
It's a slippery slope from Radio 1. It's not too long before a smug-looking electioneering politician slips them in to some interview somewhere in a clumsy attempt to be 'down with the kids'...
"What do I have on shuffle on my iPod? Well I'm really into the Electronic Sheds at the moment. I think they're really rockin'"
... misunderstanding how the whole idea of 'cool' is supposed to work of course and causing an entire nation to cringe into stupefied embarrassment.
By this time, someone else is all cool and unheard of and anyone who's anyone is listening to them while Threefold Hiatus cry into their cereal bowls and the cool-kids out there on the fringes of mainstream pap are getting into Firetip Supersky or whoever, and showing off about it.
Um, what was I talking about? Classical music, yes. I hate Vivaldi. Yes - but not because it's mainstream! (cheers Nigel). I don't like it because it's all the same - strings, basso continuo, harpsichord, violin... and it gets on my nerves. I don't want to pick holes in something I could not have done - and there's no doubt that I could not have done it - but honestly Vivaldi, what was wrong with a bit of woodwind? Even a timpani or a piano somewhere would have shaken it up a bit. It's not like those instruments weren't invented in the 18th Century!
Of course at this point, all the real classical music snobs have worked out that I know next to nothing about baroque - perhaps that I've missed the whole point of it and that I'm an uneducated fool who doesn't know what he's talking about. Fair enough. I know what I like though, oh great ones, and the jingly jangly stylings of a baroque ensemble, plucking, pizzicato-ing and painting their way through the seasons is not it, and besides, oh enlightened few, you didn't have to listen to it coming into assembly every day for three years at Primary School where it reminded you of the humiliating time you were asked to stop the record player and you accidentally scratched the record because you didn't know how the needle worked and you got told off in front of the whole school now did you?
I've got issues.
*I made them up.
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