Peter Kupfer | Southern Methodist University (original) (raw)

Papers by Peter Kupfer

Abstract: Despite initial criticism of their first film, the musical comedies made during the 193... more Abstract: Despite initial criticism of their first film, the musical comedies made during the 1930s by director Grigory Aleksandrov and composer Isaak Dunayevsky–Jolly Fellows (1934), Circus (1936), Volga-Volga (1938), and The Radiant Path (1940)–became highly-...

BACH, 2019

Despite Mervyn Cooke’s assertion that the use of Bach’s music in film is, among classical compose... more Despite Mervyn Cooke’s assertion that the use of Bach’s music in film is, among classical composers, “perhaps the most susceptible to contrasting interpretations,” I argue in this article that in the case of recent television commercials, Bach has more or less taken on a single function: reassurance. It is no coincidence that most companies that use Bach in their commercials offer financial or insurance services (including American Express, MetLife, and Allstate), thus requiring a message of trust. But even commercials for non-finance products, like Wix.com, Healthy Choice Café Steamers, and Papa Murphy’s Pizza, have used Bach as the sound of reassurance. Furthermore, it is a particular subset of works that continually reappears in such contexts, particularly the Prelude from the Violoncello Suite No. 1 in G Major BWV 1007 and the Prelude in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I.
Drawing on Bach scholarship, screen music scholarship, my own empirical studies on the reception of classical music in television commercials, and interviews with advertising creative directors, I demonstrate how and why Bach’s music has in commercials come to represent the sound of “good hands” (to invoke Allstate Insurance’s motto). In the process, I reveal that what might seem on the surface to be an obvious association is actually the result of negotiations among aesthetic, semiotic, and socio-demographic factors, and especially the evolution of television advertising in recent decades.

Music & Politics, 2018

In this article I analyze the musical politics of the 1941 Soviet film Anton Ivanovich serditsya ... more In this article I analyze the musical politics of the 1941 Soviet film Anton Ivanovich serditsya (Anton Ivanovich Is Upset), directed by Aleksandr Ivanovsky, original score by Dmitry Kabalevsky. The film tells the story of the musical "enlightenment" of the eponymous Anton Ivanovich Voronov, an old, stodgy organ professor who is interested only in the "serious" music of J.S. Bach. His daughter, Sima, however, wishes to become an operetta singer and falls in love with a composer of "light" music, Aleksey Mukhin, which upsets the professor greatly. Thanks to a miraculous intervention by Bach himself, Anton Ivanovich ultimately sees his error and accepts Muhkin, going so far as to perform the organ part in Mukhin's new symphonic poem. While largely a lighthearted and fun tale, the caricature and censure of another young, but veiled "formalist" composer, Kerosinov, reflects the darker side of contemporary Soviet musical aesthetics. In the way that it does and does not work out the uneasy relationship between serious, light, and formalist music, I argue that Anton Ivanovich serditsya realistically reflects the paradoxical nature of Soviet musical politics in the late 1930s.

Music and the Moving Image, 2017

This article describes a study involving 557 participants that investigated effects of respondent... more This article describes a study involving 557 participants that investigated effects of respondents’ sociodemographic background on their rating of appeal and congruency of music in television commercials, with a focus on classical music. Though research indicates that there are connections between listeners’ musical preferences and their social backgrounds, and targeted advertising is premised on the notion that consumers can be divided and marketed to by sociodemographic categories, the results of the study suggest that sociodemographic background may not play a central role when it comes to the processing of music and images together in commercials, whether classical or other. In its use of SurveyMonkey’s Audience service to assemble participants, the study is exploratory in nature, suggesting a po- tential new resource for research on audiovisual media.

Journal of Musicology, 2013

Volga-Volga (1938) was the third musical comedy film made in the 1930s by the Soviet director-com... more Volga-Volga (1938) was the third musical comedy film made in the 1930s by the Soviet director-composer team of Grigory Aleksandrov and Isaak Dunayevsky. Their first two films, Jolly Fellows (Vesyolïe rebyata, 1934) and Circus (Tsirk, 1936), had been massive hits, but both were criticized for certain shortcomings. Jolly Fellows, a slapstick tale of a shepherd turned jazz bandleader, was attacked by members of the Soviet Writers' Union for the film's supposed ''Americanism'' and lack of clear Soviet ideological line. These attacks left scars, and Circus represented Aleksandrov and Dunayevsky's effort to correct the ''mistakes'' of Jolly Fellows. A story about an American circus performer who finds freedom from American racism and German fascism in the Soviet Union, Circus made up for the supposed ideological deficiencies of Jolly Fellows, but it moved too far from comedy toward ideology and melodrama. 1 Volga-Volga Research for this article was made possible by a Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant. My thanks go to the staffs of the Library of the House of Composers and of the Russian State Archive of Art and Literature, both in Moscow, who made available a range of materials. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the national convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies in November 2010 and at the international conference ''Music in Russia and the Soviet Union: Reappraisal and Rediscovery'' in Durham, UK, July 2011. I would also like to thank Kirill Tomoff and Anna Nisnevich for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article, as well as Klára Móricz and the anonymous readers for their valuable suggestions.

Twentieth-Century Music, 2016

The musical comedy film was perhaps a surprising genre to appear and flourish in the Soviet Union... more The musical comedy film was perhaps a surprising genre to appear and flourish in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, a decade traditionally associated with the grimmer realities of Stalin’s ruthless consolidation of power, show trials, and purges. Despite (and in many ways because of) this, the musical comedy became quite popular, with audiences and officials alike. Its creation did not, however, proceed without controversy or difficulty. In this article, I examine how director Grigory Aleksandrov and composer Isaak Dunayevsky drew on well-known and well-liked American musical and cinematic models to construct the first Soviet musical comedy film, Jolly Fellows (1934), and the role of music in the controversy that the film sparked. I argue that in choosing musical content appropriate for contemporary Soviet viewers and transmitting it by using American-inspired formal structures that rely on music, Aleksandrov and Dunayevsky created a powerful hybrid that spoke convincingly to audiences and critics, who ultimately used the film and its music as a means for debating issues of cultural significance.

Abstract: Despite initial criticism of their first film, the musical comedies made during the 193... more Abstract: Despite initial criticism of their first film, the musical comedies made during the 1930s by director Grigory Aleksandrov and composer Isaak Dunayevsky–Jolly Fellows (1934), Circus (1936), Volga-Volga (1938), and The Radiant Path (1940)–became highly-...

BACH, 2019

Despite Mervyn Cooke’s assertion that the use of Bach’s music in film is, among classical compose... more Despite Mervyn Cooke’s assertion that the use of Bach’s music in film is, among classical composers, “perhaps the most susceptible to contrasting interpretations,” I argue in this article that in the case of recent television commercials, Bach has more or less taken on a single function: reassurance. It is no coincidence that most companies that use Bach in their commercials offer financial or insurance services (including American Express, MetLife, and Allstate), thus requiring a message of trust. But even commercials for non-finance products, like Wix.com, Healthy Choice Café Steamers, and Papa Murphy’s Pizza, have used Bach as the sound of reassurance. Furthermore, it is a particular subset of works that continually reappears in such contexts, particularly the Prelude from the Violoncello Suite No. 1 in G Major BWV 1007 and the Prelude in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I.
Drawing on Bach scholarship, screen music scholarship, my own empirical studies on the reception of classical music in television commercials, and interviews with advertising creative directors, I demonstrate how and why Bach’s music has in commercials come to represent the sound of “good hands” (to invoke Allstate Insurance’s motto). In the process, I reveal that what might seem on the surface to be an obvious association is actually the result of negotiations among aesthetic, semiotic, and socio-demographic factors, and especially the evolution of television advertising in recent decades.

Music & Politics, 2018

In this article I analyze the musical politics of the 1941 Soviet film Anton Ivanovich serditsya ... more In this article I analyze the musical politics of the 1941 Soviet film Anton Ivanovich serditsya (Anton Ivanovich Is Upset), directed by Aleksandr Ivanovsky, original score by Dmitry Kabalevsky. The film tells the story of the musical "enlightenment" of the eponymous Anton Ivanovich Voronov, an old, stodgy organ professor who is interested only in the "serious" music of J.S. Bach. His daughter, Sima, however, wishes to become an operetta singer and falls in love with a composer of "light" music, Aleksey Mukhin, which upsets the professor greatly. Thanks to a miraculous intervention by Bach himself, Anton Ivanovich ultimately sees his error and accepts Muhkin, going so far as to perform the organ part in Mukhin's new symphonic poem. While largely a lighthearted and fun tale, the caricature and censure of another young, but veiled "formalist" composer, Kerosinov, reflects the darker side of contemporary Soviet musical aesthetics. In the way that it does and does not work out the uneasy relationship between serious, light, and formalist music, I argue that Anton Ivanovich serditsya realistically reflects the paradoxical nature of Soviet musical politics in the late 1930s.

Music and the Moving Image, 2017

This article describes a study involving 557 participants that investigated effects of respondent... more This article describes a study involving 557 participants that investigated effects of respondents’ sociodemographic background on their rating of appeal and congruency of music in television commercials, with a focus on classical music. Though research indicates that there are connections between listeners’ musical preferences and their social backgrounds, and targeted advertising is premised on the notion that consumers can be divided and marketed to by sociodemographic categories, the results of the study suggest that sociodemographic background may not play a central role when it comes to the processing of music and images together in commercials, whether classical or other. In its use of SurveyMonkey’s Audience service to assemble participants, the study is exploratory in nature, suggesting a po- tential new resource for research on audiovisual media.

Journal of Musicology, 2013

Volga-Volga (1938) was the third musical comedy film made in the 1930s by the Soviet director-com... more Volga-Volga (1938) was the third musical comedy film made in the 1930s by the Soviet director-composer team of Grigory Aleksandrov and Isaak Dunayevsky. Their first two films, Jolly Fellows (Vesyolïe rebyata, 1934) and Circus (Tsirk, 1936), had been massive hits, but both were criticized for certain shortcomings. Jolly Fellows, a slapstick tale of a shepherd turned jazz bandleader, was attacked by members of the Soviet Writers' Union for the film's supposed ''Americanism'' and lack of clear Soviet ideological line. These attacks left scars, and Circus represented Aleksandrov and Dunayevsky's effort to correct the ''mistakes'' of Jolly Fellows. A story about an American circus performer who finds freedom from American racism and German fascism in the Soviet Union, Circus made up for the supposed ideological deficiencies of Jolly Fellows, but it moved too far from comedy toward ideology and melodrama. 1 Volga-Volga Research for this article was made possible by a Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant. My thanks go to the staffs of the Library of the House of Composers and of the Russian State Archive of Art and Literature, both in Moscow, who made available a range of materials. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the national convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies in November 2010 and at the international conference ''Music in Russia and the Soviet Union: Reappraisal and Rediscovery'' in Durham, UK, July 2011. I would also like to thank Kirill Tomoff and Anna Nisnevich for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article, as well as Klára Móricz and the anonymous readers for their valuable suggestions.

Twentieth-Century Music, 2016

The musical comedy film was perhaps a surprising genre to appear and flourish in the Soviet Union... more The musical comedy film was perhaps a surprising genre to appear and flourish in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, a decade traditionally associated with the grimmer realities of Stalin’s ruthless consolidation of power, show trials, and purges. Despite (and in many ways because of) this, the musical comedy became quite popular, with audiences and officials alike. Its creation did not, however, proceed without controversy or difficulty. In this article, I examine how director Grigory Aleksandrov and composer Isaak Dunayevsky drew on well-known and well-liked American musical and cinematic models to construct the first Soviet musical comedy film, Jolly Fellows (1934), and the role of music in the controversy that the film sparked. I argue that in choosing musical content appropriate for contemporary Soviet viewers and transmitting it by using American-inspired formal structures that rely on music, Aleksandrov and Dunayevsky created a powerful hybrid that spoke convincingly to audiences and critics, who ultimately used the film and its music as a means for debating issues of cultural significance.