Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005315, Sun, 9 Jul 2000 10:15:08 -0700

Subject
Re: "Lolita" music in weird TV ad? (fwd)
Date
Body
From: TENTENDER@aol.com


> The people who do
> the ads buy up the rights to use the music for this, perhaps for no more
> complex reasons than that they like the music, the rights to such music
> may be relatively inexpensive, and that nothing but garbage is coming
> out today in terms of popular music.

The music is VERY expensive, believe me (for a year's commercial use of that
West Side Story music, it is estimated the cost was $1 million; the airline
co. that used Rhapsody in Blue is reported to have paid $2 milliion for a
similar period of use). The music publishers can't resist -- but I think they
ought to in certain cases. Having Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet permanently
ruined by association with a commercial product is certainly infuriating to
anyone who would like to hear that masterwork without irrelevant associations.

Christopher Berg
Tentender@aol.com