May I Say …

03. April 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Ramble

I really hate this commercial. Makes me want to never visit Lowe’s.

Maybe no one else cares. I dunno. But it just bugs me.

2 Comments

  1. igilen
    April 3, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    I feel so strongly about this that, despite previous (and subtler) urges to leave a comment in the few weeks I’ve been following your blog, this is what triggered me to make an account and do it. What bothers me is not only that they trivialize Beethoven’s 9th by using it in a gardening commercial, but by the passage they use…to me, it demeans the emotional climax I experience as a listener, having anticipated it for the (almost) hour preceding it in movements I-III and then some…Lowe’s voids the Ode of Joy of all meaning and feeling this way, which I don’t want; it has to remain rare and poignant, and preferably live of course. Same feeling at LA Phil’s Shostakovich 7 a few weeks ago, where they played the entire finale at the pre-concert talk – I readily admit that’s still so much more acceptable than a Lowe’s commercial though. So anyways, I do care, perhaps for very different reasons than you though (you may simply hate that they interrupt the passage, which is annoying enough in its own right indeed)…anyways, keep up the good work!

  2. Patty
    April 3, 2008 at 10:05 pm

    I don’t like it for a variety of reasons. My first and main reason would be the trivialization of the work. I think we are on the same page with that. But it’s trivialized not only due to its use in a commercial, and the abominable interrupted passage, but because, as you mention, it is the conclusion of a much larger work and the build up to that portion is pretty darn incredible. That snippet, while glorious when the symphony is played in full, is not nearly the “all of it”. Not nearly so.

    I also just don’t understand the why of it. In an advertisement I assume that, when choosing something everyone will recognize, there is some very good reason for using the tune.

    Or … okay … I know that’s entirely untrue! I just WISH there were a good reason! (Having heard so many advertisements using classical music only because “if it’s classical it my be classy”.)

    Thanks for your comment and kind words.