Advertisers turn classical music on its head

When commercials use classical music, the intent has usually been to add a touch of class. But an article in The Christian Science Monitor detects a shift: “These days, many advertisers look to classical music for its comedic potential,” as in the case of a current Nike commercial featuring Mozart’s Requiem as the soundtrack for the closing moments of a high school basketball game. “The gravity of Mozart’s music is, of course, absurdly out of scale with the events on the screen, and as a result the commercial becomes a spoof on the life-and-death struggle of a basketball game.”