Crossover is music from an unexpected source. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (a clumsy title) doing Blue Suede Shoes would be one example. I’m not sure if the Queen, overheard singing Magic Roundabout, would qualify. But you get the idea.
Crossover at its most notorious occurred when Leonard Bernstein forced José Carreras and Kiri te Kanawa to do the vocals in West Side Story, presumably to make money. The disc was a best-seller but who bought it I can’t guess. José especially was an unlikely New York boy gangster. There’s also a telly programme of the rehearsals with Bernstein bollocking José, perhaps for being too old.
I normally avoid crossover. But comparing performances of Mozart’s aria Voi che sapete I was offered Nana Maskourian and Charlotte Church. Since I’m repeatedly accused of being a snob – not least by myself – I played them. Both failed. Naturally I’m used to hearing the aria sung by trained voices and they don’t just hit the right notes they dig out the emotions. Because:
You who know what love is,
Ladies, see if I have it in my heart
… a feeling full of desire
… by turns delightful and miserable.
I freeze and then feel my soul go up in flames,
Then in a moment I turn to ice
… I find peace neither night nor day,
But still I rather enjoy languishing this way.
which sounds rather better in Italian, has emotion built into it by Mozart as well as, erm, myself. Which Church and Maskourian skated over. Contrarily, when the trained voices of Kiri and José sang Tonight, Tonight, the World is Wild and Bright a formal stiffness tethered the music to the ground. Let’s not cross over.