The Well-Tempered Ear
Why did obituaries for pop star Eric Carmen omit Rachmaninoff?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The American songwriter and pop singer Eric Carmen (below) died in his sleep at 74 last Sunday. The cause has still not been revealed.
I haven’t checked out all the obituaries for Carmen, who fronted as the lead singer for The Raspberries before striking out on his own prolific and profitable career.
In the obits I did sample, I heard how the 2001 movie “Bridget Jones’s Diary” used Carmen’s “All By Myself” (1975) — with Renée Zellwegger on drums in the staring role — at the beginning of the hit film.
I heard how Céline Dion scored a huge hit with her version of the same song.
I heard praise quoted from the American superstar horror author, and sometimes amateur rock band member, Stephen King.
But all the obituaries thatI read on the web, saw on TV and heard on the radio omitted a central element of Carmen’s career in soft rock: his “theft” or “borrowing” — depending on what you think of his justification and the results of the lawsuit he lost — of music by Sergei Rachmaninoff (below).
Indeed, Carmen’s two biggest hits owe their irresistible melodies and harmonies — their tunes, if you will — to the Russian late Romantic composer (1873-1943).
Carmen — who was a trained classical pianist — certainly had a good ear, as his year-to-year, back-to-back hits demonstrated.
And he wasn’t ashamed to use what that ear heard and what he liked.
“All By Myself” uses a theme from the second movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1901). The main melody of the last movement also gave rise to the often recorded popular song “Full Moon and Empty Arms.”
Carmen’s “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again” (1976) uses the main theme from the slow movement of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 (1907).
If you liked Carmen’s songs, you just might like the original Rachmaninoff works, if you don’t already know them.
Here is a link to a story by Cynthia Dickison for yourclassical.org that not only recounts what happened with the lawsuit but also — with YouTube videos — offers comparisons between the original Rachmaninoff and Carmen’s reworkings.
https://www.yourclassical.org/story/2024/03/12/eric-carmen-sergei-rachmaninoff
Chances are very good that you will also hear the complete Rachmaninoff works on radio stations and in live performance a lot sooner and certainly a lot longer than you will hear Eric Carmen’s music.
Did you know about Eric Carmen’s “use” of Rachmaninoff?
What do you think of it?
What do you think it was ignored in obituaries?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Why do we like sad music?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Why does sad music — or sad art — appeal to so many of us?
One psychologist and brain researcher — Matthew Sachs of Columbia University (below) — says it serves an evolutionary and social purpose by eliciting empathy for other humans and purging us of negative emotions, according to a story and interview on NPR (National Public Radio).
To The Ear, the explanation sounds a lot like the ancient Greek philosophy of catharsis that was the cornerstone justification for the public staging of great ancient tragedies by writers such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and of course the famous tragedies of Shakespeare such as “Romeo and Juliet,” Hamlet” and “King Lear” that were famously popular dramas as well as great masterpieces of Western literature.
Consider the case of Samuel Barber’s often-played “Adagio for Strings,” analyzed at length in a book called “The Saddest Music in the World.” Or perhaps the “Pathétique” piano sonata by Beethoven and the “Funeral March” piano sonata by Chopin. Or the requiems by Mozart and Brahms.
Or consider the music “Beautiful Sadness” by the contemporary composer Cliff Masterson (below). You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Here is a link to the NPR story that discusses “the rules of musical melancholy.”
You can read it, or take four minutes to listen to it:
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/06/1173993223/understanding-the-joy-that-many-find-in-sadness
Do you find solace in sad music?
Does sad music make you feel better?
Do you have a favorite piece of sad music?
Or maybe a favorite tragic play, opera or work of art?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #YouTubevideo, Adagio for Strings, Aeschylus, Ancient Greece, appeal, arranger, Art, Arts, audience, Bach, Baroque, beautiful, Beethoven, blog, Brahms, Brain, Britten, catharsis, Cello, Chamber music, Chopin, choral music, Classical music, Cliff Masterson, Columbia University, composer, Concert, concerto, conductor, contemporary, cornerstone, discuss, Early music, emotion, empathy, Euripides, evolution, evolutionary, explanation, Facebook, favorite, feel, funeral march, great, Greek tragedy, Hamlet, happiness, happy', Hollywood, human, interview, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, journalism, Joy, justification, King Lear, link, literature, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Matthew Sachs, melancholy, movie, Mozart, Music, National Public Radio, negative, news, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, pathetique, philosophy, Piano, play, pleasure, popular, psychologist, psychology, purge, purpose, Radio, Requiem, research, rid, Romeo and Juliet, rule, sad, sadness, science, scientist, score, Shakespeare, share, social, solace, Sonata, Sophocles, soundtrack, story, symphony, tag, The Ear, tragedy, Tragic, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Western, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work of art, Writer, YouTube
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