Sceenshots
The extraordinary popularity is due to some YouTube videos, some of which Rattinger received more than 1.3 million views. The actually more famous gambist Jordi Savall, for example, usually does not get much higher access numbers. “Today, YouTube is something of a modern business card,” believes Rattinger.
No wonder that the artist has switched to reaching his audience with online videos, especially now in the Corona times. The concept works excellently – also because Rattinger not only attaches great importance to virtuosity, but also to high-quality cinematic implementation. Some of these very professionally designed videos can be found on the “World of fine music” channel. With Marc-Antonie Charpentier’s “Sans frayeur dans ce bois”, for example, the camera hovers around the soprano Marie-Sophie Pollak with impressive ease when she makes music with Jakob Rattinger in the Small Golden Hall in Augsburg. Time and again, a relationship between the splendid room and the musicians is created on film. This makes the video livelier and more entertaining. A level of professionalism is achieved that one would normally expect from pop videos.
However, the effort is considerable. It takes a whole day to shoot a two-minute video, explains Rattinger, after which the material still has to be cut and assembled, which requires additional working days. Rattinger’s videos regularly achieve access rates of well over 10,000, in one case even over 30,000 visits to a Christmas concert recorded in Schrobenhausen – a figure that is considerable for baroque works that are not very popular.
Rattinger decided to produce videos because he wanted to reach a different audience in this way, which otherwise does not go to his concerts so often. In particular, he would like to address young people. In conversation, however, he admits that he has rarely succeeded in doing this so far. “But there are always people in their 40s joining them,” he says. Marie-Sophie Pollak has observed the unusual ways that the distribution of music videos is taking. For example, a particularly large number of Italians watched the YouTube posts – the soprano suspects that she reached these people through her Facebook contacts.
Incidentally, the YouTube commitment does not pay off financially for the artists. “With the payments from Youtube we can maybe just go for a coffee,” says Rattinger.
In fact, in the corona lockdown, the artists simply want the opportunity to make music in public. An additional effect is to become even better known. Marie-Sophie Pollak is convinced that she will be able to address and win over a new audience in this way. “I can see it in myself, I also recently met musicians on YouTube who I would like to hear live.”
For Rattinger, of course, all of this is also an experiment – and he values experiments. For example, last year he gave a concert at the Schrobenhausen Baroque Days, during which the acoustics of various rooms were also transmitted via loudspeakers. He would like to pursue new, multimedia paths in the future as well. However, he is also disillusioned to a certain extent. Because it was precisely this concert that he was unable to sell on to promoters. The audience is often put off by such concepts; they usually prefer concerts in a traditional format.
The soprano Pollak is also fascinated by experimental concerts – especially since she experienced how poignant a version of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio can be danced as a ballet at the Hamburg State Opera. But she, too, would like to see “the normal classical concerts”.
Corona was a heavy blow for Pollak, because she was just about to embark on an international career, singing in important halls such as the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. “But I restructured myself quickly,” she says. In the meantime she is grateful that she never bet one-sidedly on the big concerts, but always had other obligations as well. Most recently, she concentrated on singing lessons. And she is still looking forward to appearing not only in the Wiener Musikverein or the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, but also at the Schrobenhausen Baroque Days. There she enjoys the small halls. “I love it when I have the audience right in front of me and can look people in the eye.” So she will also be there at the next Baroque Days, which will probably take place in mid-September.
Before that, however, Rattinger would also like to release YouTube videos with her. This time, however, in a slightly longer format. “It would be a dream to play a whole suite one day. This is the music that defines the Baroque.” He also wants to explain the works. Because with Youtube it is not only about the brisk design, but also the content.
Classic virtual
Youtube is hardly conceivable without music. Out of the hundred most successful videos of all, there are only four that are not music videos. The classical music scene has long been very active on the portal. There is hardly a halfway successful work in music history that cannot be found on YouTube – usually even in several interpretations.
However, some of the most successful classical artists in the network are barely present in the concert halls. They develop purely virtual careers, such as the Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who uploaded her first video in 2007, but was not seen in the concert halls for years. There are now around 400 videos on her YouTube channel, and she is so well known that she effortlessly fills the halls even at concerts. Lisitsa is considered the “first YouTube star of classical music”. As for the views of her videos, she easily overtakes (in the real world) much better-known artists like Lang Lang or Anna Netrebko. Your portrayal of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” has 51 million hits. For comparison: Lang Lang, who is currently the world’s most successful pianist, has 13 million visitors with a virtuoso arrangement of Mozart’s Turkish March. The Russian pianist Lola Astanova, who always appears very sexy and lightly dressed, has 9.8 million views with her interpretation of Chopin’s “Impromptu Fantasy”. It is practically unknown in the professional world. Other impressive figures: Daniel Barenboim with Beethoven’s 5th Symphony reaches 10 million visitors; Anne-Sophie Mutter with Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata gets 33 million clicks; Luciano Pavarotti sings “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot” for 26 million music lovers; when he interprets pop songs, he reaches even more viewers. Anna Netrebko together with Elena Garancia sings for 11 million fans. Most of the hits in classical music, however, get compilations under the title “Best of”, where the interpreters can hardly be found on the site – for example, “Best of Mozart” with 212 million clicks.
However, all of this is unimpressive compared to the range that pop musicians achieve. Well over a hundred of them break the one billion view barrier, including Ed Sheeran, Luis Fonsi, Wiz Khalifa, Psy, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. With 8.2 billion views, the children’s song “Baby Shark Dance” interpreted by Pinkfong is the most successful YouTube video ever. DK
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