Last month, I blogged about Jon Batiste’s interpretation of Beethoven and how many may not like it. Well, he released another video of his creative and beautiful interpretation of Beethoven.
This time, Batiste takes on the theme of the 5th Symphony and adds blues, jazz and ultimately, his own interpretation to the work. The feedback I saw about his take of “Fur Elise” and even some of the reactions I got to my blog post by many classical musicians and teachers was as I had expected. Not exactly seeing the beauty and creativity in the work.
Art is subjective. It’s why many people like country music, but dislike rap music. Or pick whatever genre, song or singer in that sentence. The interesting thing in all of this is seeing the beauty and creativity in the work whether or not you see the reasoning for doing it as valid or not.
One of the challenges with taking on an idea like this is that it could be seen as messing with one of the classics. Movie and TV show remakes usually don’t turn out very well. The same could be said with reimagining or reinterpreting music. I think because the blues and jazz style that Batiste is injecting into Beethoven’s work does work. I think it is so different and a contrast from Beethoven’s style. I think it is highly creative, imaginative and works great. I’m looking forward to hearing more of these interpretations.
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