Many people are familiar with the DeBeers diamond commercials (for engagement rings and other items) which feature human silhouettes and a climactic piece of classical music. For those curious about the piece, I have assembled a Diamond Commercial FAQ. What follows is the story of how I acquired this information. Read the entire thing, because the ending contains the ultimate irony.
Sometime during my freshman year in college, I first saw one of the commercials, and I found the music mesmerizing. I was interested in purchasing the music on CD if possible, so I began to attempt to find out exactly what it was. That process ended up being a much more difficult task than I could have possibly foreseen. Three years and many international phone calls later, I finally found out what it was, and I've even got my CD.
My initial attempts were simple. I was marginally familiar with classical music, but not enough to make a judgement as to who the composer might be, so I attempted to expand my knowlegde as much as possible. In addition, whenever I encountered anyone who knew anything about classical music, I would ask them if they knew about it. I even asked a music professor. Generally, these people would say that they liked the piece but had no idea what it was.
It was not long before I had enough knowledge of classical music to determine that Vivaldi was the most likely composer. At about this same time, someone told me that they thought the piece was from the Four Seasons (this has become a relatively popular misconception). I listened to the Four Seasons and heard what the person was talking about: there is a part that is very similar to the diamond commercial song in the third movement of "Summer." But it is not the same. An excerpt from this piece is played with the production company logo at the end of several popular television shows - this adds to the myth because most people recognize it and remember hearing it on television.
For several months, I went to music stores and listened to every Vivaldi piece I could find, but none of them matched up. I continued to listen to any new Vivaldi pieces I came in contact with, but after a while I had pretty much heard them all.
I then decided that I would attempt to contact the DeBeers company. There was no listing in the local phone book, so I called several area jewelry stores and asked if they had a phone number for DeBeers. None of them did, or they weren't willing to give it away, at least. Eventually, I was able to get a phone number from a TV station that ran the commercial. However, when I called DeBeers, the woman I spoke to had no idea about the music and did not know of anyone who would know.
At this point it seemed that I was at a dead end.
Then something wonderful happened. Midway through my college career, the internet was born.
As soon as decent search engines came into existence, I began searching for the information I wanted. Then one day during the fall semester of my junior year, I found it: there was a diamond commercial FAQ on the web, created by David Brooks of the "X Consortium" (I have no idea what that is). It revealed that the piece was NOT from the classical period, but was actually an original piece composed by Karl Jenkins, a partner in the advertising firm that created the commercial, Jenkins and Ratledge in London. The FAQ also said that the piece was called "Shadows," and that a CD of it was rumored to exist in a used album store in Germany.
Finding this particular store was a task in itself, but finally I did. However, a phone call revealed that there were no more copies of the CD left, and the store owner did not know of anywhere else they would be available (I got the impression that these were not "official" recordings).
So, I contacted Jenkins & Ratlege in London and spoke to Helen Hodkinson, who denied that any CD of the piece existed, but said that they were working on one and that it would be out before Christmas. She gave me the Sony release number of the CD so that I would be able to find it. Christmas of '95 came and went, and there was no Shadows CD. In the following months, I searched through Sony catalogs and their web page for the release number, to no avail. Music stores did not have it in their database, and Sony refused to discuss the matter, saying that they did not involve themselves in sales.
More time passed. Then one day I read on the 'net that the CD had been on the market for some time, but only in Great Britain (in retrospect, I realize that the spokeswoman from J&R had no way of knowing that I was calling from America, so did not inform me of this fact). So, I searched the web for British record stores, and eventually found one that carried the CD. I ordered it from their web page, and in July of 1996, I received the CD (entitled "Palladio") in the mail. My quest had finally come to an end.
And now the ultimate irony:
A month later, the CD was released in the United States. Although it took me three years to find it, now anyone can walk into any music store and purchase the CD, which in the U.S. is entitled "Diamond Music."
My parents, remembering that I had mentioned the commercial but having no idea what I had been through or that I had bought the CD, noticed it in the store and bought it for me for Christmas of 1996.
So, instead of exhaustively searching for three years, I could have simply waited for the music to appear under my Christmas tree.
The end.