Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Valentine's Day

Music for most listeners, it seems, has a lot of romantic content. I use a small "r" to mean music that has a romantic feeling in the everyday sense as opposed to music from the Romantic period. But oddly, most musicians probably don't have these associations to any significant extent. Are we just cold-hearted professionals? Or do we find our work, music, to be more of a distraction when it comes to personal relationships?

The most blatant use of music in a "romantic" context, by which I mean a sexual context, might have been the use of Ravel's Bolero in the movie "10" to accompany a liason between Bo Derek and Dudley Moore:


As I recall, that wasn't very successful. A scene in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Willow is attempting to seduce Oz is accompanied by Barry White:


For classical music buskers, who try to create a romantic vibe, the three big tunes are the Adagio from the Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo:


The Romance anonimo for solo guitar:


And possibly Memory from Cats by Andrew Lloyd Weber:


Another good one, if you are a flute player, is the Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck:


So tell me, what is your favorite romantic music?
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2 comments:

  1. Marc in EugeneFebruary 16, 2017 at 1:42 PM

    Well, my own experience has been that there is music associated with different relationships; I don't know that I'd characterise Nanci Griffith's Other Voices, Other Rooms as 'romantic music' at all but any time I hear one of those songs, I'm immediately taken to that ancient and irrecoverable place; the same goes, e.g., for Preisner's soundtrack to a couple of films in Kieslowski's Dekalog.

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  2. Bryan TownsendFebruary 17, 2017 at 8:58 AM

    The most romantic music in my personal biography is a couple of pop songs that are both associated with relationships gone wrong! The first one dates back to my late teens: "Don't Let Me Down" by John Lennon. The other from a particularly unhappy breakup in my early 30s: "Every Breath You Take" by the Police. I don't seem to recall any happy romantic music...

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