Specs & Pricing

Editorial
Guest
Classical Ringtones and the Commoditization
of Music: Nothing New and Maybe Not So Bad
Three years ago this past
August, I returned from a
greatly anticipated pilgrimage
to Richard Wagner’s Bayreuth.
Wagner’s operas are among
the most important music
there is for me, so it was a dream-come-true to
attend the annual festival in southeast Germany
devoted to the composer’s music dramas and,
as an audiophile, to hear the singular acoustic of
the famed Festspielhaus. For nearly two weeks
I’d immersed myself in all things Wagnerian.
I saw seven operas, spent a few afternoons at
Wahnfried, Wagner’s home in Bayreuth (and
now a museum devoted to his life and work),
and visited other sites associated with the great
musician. I flew home on a Sunday, tired but
fulfilled.
The following Tuesday, I found myself
in a prototypically American fast-food
establishment, one whose name promises a
hamburger of regal quality. I was just about
to chow down when, a few feet away, a young
woman’s cell phone went off. The ringtone was
“Ride of the Valkyries.”
There was so much I wanted to ask her. Did
she know who wrote the music Did she know
the name of the piece Did she know who the
Valkyries were and what they did for a living
And I wanted to know why she picked that
ringtone. I never got to ask. Twenty minutes
later, I’d finished my 2000-calorie supper but
she was still gabbing away.
Had it been possible to quiz her, there’s a
good chance she couldn’t have answered all my
questions. Recently, I started asking people at
work to hear their phones in action and the first
few with classical ringtones didn’t know what
they were hearing, and didn’t especially care. One
thoughtful middle-aged hospital case-manager
told me she figured hers was “a minuet” (it was
the first movement of “Spring” from Vivaldi’s
The Four Seasons; a 29-year old physician couldn’t
identify Für Elise by Beethoven). “It sounded
nice and calming.”
Is this yet another instance of the decline of
civilization, thanks to rampaging technology
The soul-crushing commoditization of art, the
reduction of music to “content” in this Götterdämmerung of a digital age Actually, it’s nothing new.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, loads of popular Wagner tunes were available on
mechanical instruments including music boxes and player pianos. (A fascinating CD on the Oehms
label, Wagner méchanique, holds fifteen examples.) Lots of classical material has been absorbed into the
mass cultural stew over the years, separated from the original context and the identity of its creator.
How many people know the opening “Sunrise” section of Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra only
as 2001: A Space Odyssey Or—while we’re on the subject of dates—Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture as
the Quaker Oats commercial
We’re now just so much better at disseminating shards of music than we used to be. In the realm
of hip-hop, digital sampling has become commonplace, with today’s rap consumer frequently
unfamiliar with the original soul, R&B, or rock song from which the sample was lifted. Cellphone
ringtones are an example of the further flowering of this cut-and-paste mentality. There are dozens
of Web sites offering thousands of downloads, either “polyphonic tones”—cheesy, synthesized
rings—or “real tones”—actual excerpts from recordings. There’s plenty of Wagner. One site I visited
(unlimitedringtones.com) had around 75 “real tone” choices for the telecommunicating Wagnerian,
from Parsifal to the Wesendonck-Lieder.
“Such uses of classical ‘content’ help
to prevent the chasm between popular
and high-art forms from getting wider,
and to keep timeless musical monuments
in everyday parlance”
No, this isn’t a new phenomenon, and it isn’t necessarily a terrible thing either. Such uses of classical
“content” help to prevent the chasm between popular and high-art forms from getting wider, and
to keep timeless musical monuments of all musical genres in everyday parlance. Beyond ringtones,
the Internet has continued to expand as an effective way to distribute music, evolving in just a few
years from the outlaw culture of Napster to the entrepreneurial iTunes present. In the classical world,
Universal Music Group has started providing new releases on-line to be downloaded by reviewers
and radio stations. Tellingly, there’s an audio option superior to the standard VBR algorithm (which
isn’t bad) available for these downloads—an uncompressed higher-resolution alternative that I can
confirm is, indeed, of CD quality. In the not-too-distant future, even sound-conscious music lovers
may not have to compromise if they choose to obtain their classical “content” with their computer.
My own ringtone I’ve decided to get “Ride of the Valkyries” myself—I found a snippet from an
old Herbert von Karajan performance at one of the on-line sites. But first, I have to figure out how
to get rid of Nelly’s “It’s Gettin’ Hot in Herre,” which my teenaged daughter, in a mischievous mood,
downloaded onto my cell a few months ago. Until then, please don’t call me.
Andrew Quint, Senior Writer
December 2006 The Absolute Sound 17