# Camp in classical music



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Because of the European Song Festival I (re)read Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp":
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html

The European Song Festival seems to be the ultimate celebration of bad taste, of travesty and ridiculous theatricality, thus of Camp. According to Sontag "The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to "the serious." One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious." So perhaps you would think that classcial music which is serious music and high art can not be Camp. yet Susan Sontag mentions also examples of classical music which is Camp: Swan Lake and Bellini's operas (in general ballet and opera are Camp-genres), "the operas of Richard Strauss, but not those of Wagner", "La Traviata (which has some small development of character) is less campy than Il Trovatore (which has none)" and even Pergolesi and "much of Mozart".

What do you think of this (and of Sontag's article)?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I think she may be assessing Swan Lake as camp 'after the fact' and putting that interpretation on it where it was never intended in the original. 
I've read a lot of essays like this. The last was an essay about the 'parodic intent' in Satie's humorous period works. With distinctions between 'true parody', 'genuine parody' and all sorts of other ideas about the uses of humour. Also to 'dethrone the serious' and to undermine and move past a fossilised artistic authority.

Some of the ideas in these essays are good, but the method of expressing them wears me out. All the 'dimensions', 'counter-hegemonic forms of discourse', 'historicity', 'hermeneutic and formalist styles of criticism'.... help! Good, but fairly comprehensible ideas suffocating under a layer of unnecessary jargon.

To me camp means _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_,_ Dick Emery_, _Kenneth Williams_, _corny musicals. _But I'm just a cultural barbarian (that's an example of humorist intentionality).


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)




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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> I think she may be assessing Swan Lake as camp 'after the fact' and putting that interpretation on it where it was never intended in the original.


I think Susan Sontag adresses this issue: "The pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious." The best Camp is always Camp in retrospect. As I understand her the working of time is often crucial: through the passage of time we become less involved so what was serious in his own time we can not take seriously anymore. We only see extravagance, a failed attempt to seriousness. So:

"Thus, things are campy, not when they become old - but when we become less involved in them, and can enjoy, instead of be frustrated by, the failure of the attempt."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

One concept of camp, more modern than Sontag, is where the the complexity and difficulty of the means exceeds the ends so much that some sort of irony is unavoidable. A very clear example of this was on French TV recently, where some top French pastry chefs were asked to rise to the challenge of making a Jaffa Cake by hand.









I think quite some Mahler would fit this definition of camp. Mahler 6 for example.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I think Susan Sontag adresses this issue: "The pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious." The best Camp is always Camp in retrospect. As I understand her the working of time is often crucial: through the passage of time we become less involved so what was serious in his own time we can not take seriously anymore. We only see extravagance, a failed attempt to seriousness. So:
> 
> "Thus, things are campy, not when they become old - but when we become less involved in them, and can enjoy, instead of be frustrated by, the failure of the attempt."


Well I think she's wrong. Who are 'we'? Some people or one artistic point-of-view may become 'less involved', while others don't. Who decides? What she is describing is 'ironic detachment' better known now as postmodern irony.

Many things in the arts have been intentionally 'camp', not later becoming so through loss of serious involvement. The Eurovision song contest has simply had a lot of strange contestants over the decades who are selected by each country and thus must be 'entertained' as 'serious' entries. The modern approach to Eurovision reflects the now very common approach to almost everything which isn't overtly serious (e.g. death, bad news) which is a comedy approach.

I think she confuses 'camp' with simple embarrassment masked as irony and reborn as 'cult' popularity. This is not camp.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value...That's appalling 
...I read a bit of the article and thought it was entertaining.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

"Camp: something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate, or out-of-date as to be considered amusing; a style or mode of personal or creative expression that is absurdly exaggerated and often fuses elements of high and popular culture."

OK, now I'm taking the subject too seriously.  But I think of the Bellini operas that Sontag mentions as beautiful singing rather than as "Camp". I believe that true Camp is intentionally playful and free of the intent of malice, ridicule, and exaggerates its excesses out of love and affection. Is the Nutcracker Suite Camp or is it fantasy, especially for children? Would they see it as Camp?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I think quite some Mahler would fit this definition of camp. Mahler 6 for example.


This reminds me of the prevailing view of Mahler in Britain as vulgar before he became fashionable in the late 1960s. It isn't a view I share.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The recent sale of Jeff Koons' _Rabbit_ for $91,000,000 brings the subject of kitsch into a discussion of camp, as the two attitudes may show a strange relationship. Roger Scruton here writes of artists today creating "pre-emptive kitsch" in order to evade the charge that their art could be interpreted as naïve kitsch. But Scruton notes that it's working for some--that's where the money is.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30439633


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> This reminds me of the prevailing view of Mahler in Britain as vulgar before he became fashionable in the late 1960s. It isn't a view I share.


I mentioned it because when I was a kid I went to a concert with Mahler 6, or maybe it was Mahler 5, I can't remember. Anyway there were these enormous bells hanging from a frame and I was fascinated and I couldn't wait for them to be played. Time passed, the bells just hung there, and I could hardly control my impatience.

And then, at some point quite late in the proceedings, some bloke took a stick, climbed on to a chair, and tapped one of the bells. And there was so much other music going on at the same time you could hardly hear it.

This seems to me an example of the means exceeding the end and hence an example of my post-Sontag definition of camp. The Symphony of 1000 would be another, for obvious reasons.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There are a whole cluster of related ideas here: camp, kitsch, vulgar.

The one that interests me a bit is _gay_. There does seem to be a connection between people of the gay persuasion and camp kitsch vulgarity.

Can we say that Mahler 6 is a gay symphony?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

FYI: For those too young to remember, the word "camp" in this meaning did not exist until the mid-1960s, when it was coined expressly to describe things like the Adam West "Batman" TV series and the song "Winchester Cathedral." It was extended to apply to such things "mod" clothing, artworks by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and other things that at the time were thought to be on the borderline of art and nostalgia and kitsch. That it became the subject of pedantic essays was inevitable, but amusing nonetheless.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Can we say that Mahler 6 is a gay symphony?


It is such a brutal work so it might have to be gay of the uniformed S&M variety?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Giving it some more thought, I think camp requires some intention. Plastic flamingos are kitsch, but only campy if deployed in the right way. Tiny Tim singing "Tiptoe through the Tulips" to a ukelele is camp, Don Ho isn't. Perhaps one synonym might be "professionally amateurish."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> FYI: For those too young to remember, the word "camp" in this meaning did not exist until the mid-1960s, when it was coined expressly to describe things like the Adam West "Batman" TV series and the song "Winchester Cathedral." It was extended to apply to such things "mod" clothing, artworks by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and other things that at the time were thought to be on the borderline of art and nostalgia and kitsch. That it became the subject of pedantic essays was inevitable, but amusing nonetheless.


I always thought that this was a paradigm of camp


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If kitsch and camp are to be lumped in together, then there are numerous works by Michael Daugherty which fit the bill. For a start, the opera _Jackie O_, especially the early scene depicting a party at Andy Warhol's Factory.






Then there's _Dead Elvis_ for bassoon and chamber ensemble, which includes a snippet of the song _It's Now or Never [O sole mio]_:






Amongst others:

_Le Tombeau de Liberace_ for piano and orchestra
_What's that Spell?_ for two 'Barbie' sopranos and chamber ensemble
_Snap!_ for orcheatra - a homage to James Cagney's tap-dancing


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Agamemnon said:


> examples of classical music which is Camp: Swan Lake


and The Nutcracker is not?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Question: Is Tchaikovsky's _1812 Overture_ kitsch? Is the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth?


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> There are a whole cluster of related ideas here: camp, kitsch, vulgar.
> 
> The one that interests me a bit is _gay_. There does seem to be a connection between people of the gay persuasion and camp kitsch vulgarity.
> 
> Can we say that Mahler 6 is a gay symphony?


A big part of why the gay community enjoys camp is that it's taking something that's potentially oppressive (heterosexual culture) and finding the elements in it that are unwittingly expressive in a way that might not be acceptable to the overarching straight culture (i.e., buttoned-up, inexpressive, obsessed with the "correct" displays of emotion). As long as gender roles dominate emotional expression, camp can function as a spade that turns that system over and finds the betrayals.

Something interesting here is that Sontag is addressing camp in opera and ballet from the perspective of 1964, which was _prime time_ for camp. I imagine opera and ballet in the 60s was a great place for people who were very into the idea of continental elitism, which is a prime example of camp. Lolita is a perfect send-up of this attitude - Charlotte is so obsessed with European ideals that she overlooks Humbert's designs on her daughter because she's too busy gushing over his accent.

A great example of camp is the two old people I sat next to at the symphony who made a huge theatrical fuss about not applauding the Berg piece. They felt the petty, childish need to broadcast to everyone around them just how dissatisfied they were with it, and they both clasped their hands between their knees. They had the air of two people who felt that they owned their right to air their frustrations, which is camp precisely because of the assumption of respect and dignity, when there could be nothing less dignified or silly than their reaction.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> There are a whole cluster of related ideas here: camp, kitsch, vulgar.
> 
> The one that interests me a bit is _gay_. There does seem to be a connection between people of the gay persuasion and camp kitsch vulgarity.
> 
> Can we say that Mahler 6 is a gay symphony?


From Susan Sontag's article:

"51. The peculiar relation between Camp taste and homosexuality has to be explained. While it's not true that Camp taste is homosexual taste, there is no doubt a peculiar affinity and overlap. Not all liberals are Jews, but Jews have shown a peculiar affinity for liberal and reformist causes. So, not all homosexuals have Camp taste. But homosexuals, by and large, constitute the vanguard -- and the most articulate audience -- of Camp. (The analogy is not frivolously chosen. Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.)"

She calls homosexuals "aristocrats of taste". Her biographer Benjamin Moser writes "In gay aesthetics, she saw "a criticism of society," a "protest against bourgeois expectations.". I think this is paradoxal. She compares the campy gay to the Dandy: the essential difference is that the Dandy despised the (bad) taste of the masses but Camp embraces mass culture. Camp is the modern and democratic form of dandyism. So I guess homosexuals are not so much the new aristocracy as the vanguard of our democracy in matters of taste.

I think the egg-and-chicken-question remains whether homosexuals became camp because camp is the effective way to rebel against bourgeois society which oppresses homosexuality or that homosexuality itself has inherently an aspect of love of extravangance and a preoccupation with style (heterosexual men usually don't care how they look and are uninterested in fashion unlike many homosexuals). In the Netherlands there is a Pride Parade every year which celebrates our tolerance of homosexuals but which is also notorious for it's extravangance which 'camp' repels some people. It is quite common to hear in the Netherlands: I don't mind if someone is homosexual as long as he acts normally (and a lot of 'normal' homosexuals complain that the extravagant homosexuals makes tolerance for homosexuality harder to achieve). In my country the saying goes: 'please act normal because then you already act crazy enough'. But I've always wondered if true tolerance of homosexuals should imply tolerance of extravangance thus of camp.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> Agamemnon: "I think the egg-and-chicken-question remains whether homosexuals became camp because camp is the effective way to rebel against bourgeois society which oppresses homosexuality or that homosexuality itself has inherently an aspect of love of extravangance and a preoccupation with style (heterosexual men usually don't care how they look and are uninterested in fashion unlike many homosexuals).


The phenomenon of extravagance these days seems to go well beyond the gay culture, in the culturally recent prevalence of obvious body piercings, studs, nose rings, and extensive tattooing now seen on both men and women. It has continued the trend of expressing one's individuality in such ways as to establish yet another stereotype into which one can be categorized.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

MarkW said:


> Giving it some more thought, I think camp requires some intention. _Plastic flamingos are kitsch_, but only campy if deployed in the right way. Tiny Tim singing "Tiptoe through the Tulips" to a ukelele is camp, Don Ho isn't. Perhaps one synonym might be "professionally amateurish."


Michael Daugherty composed a piece about those as well.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I always thought that this was a paradigm of camp
> 
> View attachment 118563


I think it does. Also I have the Kenneth Williams diaries and the word is used pre-1960s.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

For me the idea of camp and gay conjures up images of a certain type of actor, a _luvvie_. When I first moved to London people used to say that the centre of the camp universe was a pub called The Cambridge on the Charring Cross Road, and indeed it was stuffed to the gills with luvvies on a Saturday night.

Here's Kenneth Williams on very good camp form. Full of 1950s London gay slang, there's some of it which I can't understand myself.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> If kitsch and camp are to be lumped in together, then there are numerous works by Michael Daugherty which fit the bill.


I think camp and kitsch are related but in a way they are opposites. To me, kitsch is anything that pretends to be (high) art but isn't (usually because it imitates an older style); camp uses kitsch or low culture consciously and transcends it to high art.

I think proper classical music can easily be camp but cannot be kitsch easily (because classical music is high art). I think e.g. Richard Clayderman is kitsch.


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