Is fashion the enemy of great music? What are the driving forces behind music being ‘in’ or ‘out’ of fashion? Award winning composer, writer and broadcaster, Andrew Ford, poses these questions in a special six part series, ‘Music and Fashion’, which will be heard on Radio National this month.
The series will be broadcast weekly on ABC Radio National’s ‘Big Ideas’ program from Sunday 17 July at 5pm. Written and presented by Ford, Music and Fashion looks back over 11 centuries to ask why certain types of music have been fashionable at certain moments in history.
In the programs, he will identifiy what shapes these fashions and the implications for how we appreciate music.
Known principally as an award winning composer, Andrew Ford has also excelled in his other professions: he has written five books on music. In 1998, he won the prestigious Geraldine Pascall Prize for critical writing.
His radio series, ‘Dots on the Landscape’, was shortlisted for the Prix Italia and won an Australian Music Centre Award – and he still finds time to present ABC Radio National’s ‘The Music Show’ each Saturday at 10am.
The programs in the series are:
1. Dirty Dancing. Sunday 17 July, 5pm, repeat Tuesday 19 July, 1pm
Queen Elizabeth I danced the volta and created a scandal; the waltz was once considered outrageous. Are the biggest fashions in dance always the “dirtiest”?
2. Heaven on Earth. Sunday 24 July, 5pm, repeat Tuesday 26 July, 1pm
What sort of music is appropriate for God? He might be unchanging, but religious music has been as subject to fashion as any other sort of music.
3. Showtime. Sunday 31 July, 5pm, repeat Tuesday 2 August, 1pm
Handel’s operas were 18th century London’s equivalent of ‘Cats’. So, how did he become a great classical composer? How did he go from being popular to “worthwhile”?
4. Fame. Sunday 7 August, 5pm, repeat Tuesday 9 August, 1pm
Fame isn’t always linked to talent. Youth and beauty help. So does being blind (eg: Andrea Bocelli) or mentally ill (eg: David Helfgott). Death is the ultimate career break for some – think Hendrix and Eva Cassidy – but death can also lead to musical obscurity: Bach’s music might have been lost forever if it hadn’t been resurrected years later by Mendelssohn.
5. The Colour of Money. Sunday 14 August, 5pm, repeat Tuesday 16 August, 1pm
They say classical music is dead. Was it the fashion obsessed recording industry that killed it? Recordings have popularised a lot of music – like the blues – but at what price?
6. Stardust Memories. Sunday 21 August, 5pm, repeat Tuesday 23 August, 1pm
Nostalgia might be the very opposite of fashion, but it creates new fashions. Nostalgia for a time when the world still
times ever really exist?