Separating the medium from the message

Marshall McLuhan presciently warned of the dangers when "the medium is the message". His prediction has come true today, with media such as MSN News offering content of exclusively AI-generated clickbait trash. We now live in an age where are lives are defined by the media, and examples where the message is no longer subordinate to the populist message are disturbingly few and far between. 

But one interesting example can be found in the arcane genre of early Franco-Flemish polyphony. Back in the 1970s the Westminster Gold label famously exploited the click bait potential of album graphics, years before clickbait became the media norm. Then half a century later the curiously titled vocal ensemble Beauty Farm very effectively played the same card - see examples above and below. 

Beauty Farm are a sextet of male singers from leading European early music vocal groups. Based at the former Carthusian monastery of Mauerbach, Austria, they record on the independent Fra Bernardo label. The group was formed in 2014 and specialises in recondite Renaissance Franco-Flemish polyphony. And before this post itself is dismissed as just more Slipped Disc-style click bait two important points need to be made.

First, although the album graphics can, arguably, be described as homoerotic art, they are in fact the work of Muntean Rosenblum. This longstanding Vienna-based artist duo is composed of Markus Muntean from Austria and Adi Rosenblum from Israel. They create their graphics by repurposing subjects from art history and contemporary popular culture. 

Secondly, although the graphics and ensemble name may be attention bait, there is absolutely no populist compromise in the music. Meticulous scholarship is combined with meticulous musicianship in performances of remarkable insight and commitment. The double CD of Pierre de a Rue Masses seen above consists of four world premiere recordings recorded with exceptional clarity in the sacred acoustic at Mauerbach.

Populist demands of shortening attention spans and the demands of instant gratification mean that classical music must adapt to the new media to retain a meaningful constituency. But repurposing the message, the music itself, as click bait as exemplified by the Classic FM/BBC Radio 3 genre of easy listening - "De-stress and wind down... with a mix of soothing and reflective music" - destroys the raison d'être of great art. 

The big problem facing the creative arts today is how to adapt to the demands of contemporary media without fatally compromising the message that uncompromised great art is uplifting and life-enhancing. It may be just one very small example, but the Beauty Farm ensemble have shown that the medium can be separated from the message. Would I have written this post and would you be reading it if Beauty Farm called themselves Schola Mauerbach and the sleeve graphics were reproductions of Franco-Flemish religious art?