Highlights | Opinions Mixed on Final Beatles Song

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Welcome to La Scena Musicale’s weekly Highlights, a roundup of classical music news from Canada and beyond. The release of the “final” Beatles song, Now and Then, has been bittersweet for fans of the 1960s boy band, and the pairing between an unreleased home demo and emerging AI music technology has critics and listeners scratching their heads.

Does the new AI-aided Beatles song hold up?

The original demo for Now and Then was recorded by John Lennon in the late 1970s. Originally made for use in a three volume anthology, it was eventually scrapped because Lennon’s piano drowned out his voice, according to a short film that The Beatles’s YouTube channel released alongside the track.

“It’s safe to say they’ve made it as good as it probably could be,” says Variety reviewer Jen Aswad. “The real — unfair — question is whether the song comes close to measuring up to the Beatles or their collective solo works’ towering legacy. Of course it doesn’t, but it’s still an unexpected pleasure that marks the completion of the group’s last bit of unfinished business.”

Aswad explains AI was used to separate the demo’s backing track from the voices, which helps Paul McCartney back up Lennon’s vocals. It’s also going to have a hand in the upcoming red and blue album remixes. Aswad writes, “It seems inevitable that the group’s scream-saturated live recordings and countless hours of video footage will get an AI treatment as well. Beatles revivals will outlive us all.”

NPR reviewer Stephen Thompson says Lennon’s lyrics carry meaning for the surviving members of The Beatles, but the quality of his vocals wouldn’t have been up to his standards. “There’s not a whole lot to “Now and Then,” lyrically speaking, other than generalized appreciation, nostalgia and deep wistfulness,” Thompson says. “‘Now and Then’ could never live up to the body of work that precedes it. But it could never diminish it, either.”

Telegraph reviewer Neil McCormick also has some mixed opinions, saying although there are “lovely instrumental passages” it “doesn’t hit the heights we expect from a great Beatles ballad.” Not to mention, the harmonies sound like they’re lifted from other Beatles songs. “Just as the band find a sensual groove, the McCartney-led chorus arrives as an anticlimactic plod, dropping where the song needs to lift, awkwardly repurposing some snatches of unfinished Lennon phrases into a form that doesn’t quite fit the song’s plaintive mood.”

Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield has a more optimistic take on the song, saying it’s a “pained, intimate adult confession” instead of having a “cloying or overblown” sound. “You can hear why Paul never forgot this song over the years, and why he couldn’t let it go,” Sheffield writes. “You can also hear why he knew this needed to be a Beatles song, and how right he was to pursue his mad quest to the end. In other words, it’s a real Beatles song, adding one more classic to the world’s greatest musical love story.”

Recent and Upcoming Shows

Metropolitan Orchestra

Metropolitan Orchestra’s exceptional Nov. 3 concert with conductor Elim Chan has been by Le Devoir reviewer Christophe Huss seen as a sort of “revenge” on the late Yuri Temirkanov, who has said in interviews (The New Yorker) that women’s “weakness” makes it unnatural for them to conduct an orchestra.

The NAC’s opera production of Albertine en cinq temps, a play written by Michel Tremblay that tells the story of Albertine across five decades of her life, will be performed the night of Nov. 10.

Chor Leoni will perform Boundless in observance of Remembrance Day on Nov. 10 and 11. The concert invites listeners to reflect on the impacts of war and attempts at healing using folk, pop, and contemporary choral music.

Awards, Appointments, and Competitions

The 77th Geneva International Music Competition has crowned the winner of its flute final (The Violin Channel): Elisaveta Ivanova. The St. Petersburg flutist will take home $30,000, and a two-year management contract with Sartory Artists.

Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, Rage Against The Machine, and Bernie Taupin, among others, have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (CBC) in New York as of Nov. 10.

Local News

McGill University’s Schulich School of Music

The Quebec government recently announced an $8,000 tuition hike for out-of-province students attending English universities, intended to start in fall 2024. Deep Saini, principal for McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, says this could jeopardize the future of the music school (CBC) and threaten their varsity teams. Internal messages from Concordia University faculty say they predict a loss of around 90 per cent of their out-of-province students (CBC) due to the price hike, with university president Graham Carr saying it might trigger a “painstaking, program-by-program assessment” of the financial impacts.

After losing four friends and family members during the pandemic, including his father, Justin Hewitt wanted to transform his therapeutic original compositions into an album (CTV News). His goal: recording at London’s Abbey Road Studios, frequented by his father’s favourite band, The Beatles.

Obituary

Yuri Temirkanov (The Violin Channel), former leader of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and a crucial player in the revitalization of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic after the fall of communism, passed away at 84.