But who is he?
I just Googled him, & came across a rather nasty snide article from the Telegraph - which I won't link to, as it's really only worth hanging on a nail in the outhouse.
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But who is he?
I just Googled him, & came across a rather nasty snide article from the Telegraph - which I won't link to, as it's really only worth hanging on a nail in the outhouse.
Last edited by Flosshilde; 06-05-12 at 22:09.
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The alternative strand of this discussion may be continued here if wished.
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Yes, if these programmes were in addition to serious programmes, essentially part of popular entertainment, it wouldn't matter. But popularising classical music seems to be at the expense of the real stuff.Originally Posted by Rolmill
I suppose my main problem with this kind of programme is that the BBC appears to view it as a valid alternative to just broadcasting "straight" TV programmes of or about classical music (outside the Proms season), with the consequence that we now get less of these.
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This seems to suggest that 'popularised' classical music isn't 'real', & sets up a conflict between the two which shouldn't exist. It's more a question of how it's done. Nige (Kennedy) could be said to have 'popularised' classical music by being un-stuffy about it, but still taking it deadly seriously & being very good. Kate (Jenkins) could claim to popularise it but instead bastardises it (& isn't very good anyway). TV shows like Maestro (which I haven't seen) are difficult to assess - even for people who enjoy classical music the role of the conductor might not be very clear, & a programme examining that role could be useful. If it needs to be done as a competition it should perhaps be done, like the Young Musician, with people who have some experience already.
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Then it was the way I expressed myself. Of course, I meant surrounding the music with all the razzmatazz of popular entertainment: a mixture of I'm a Celebrity and the Miss World competition.
It could well be right that opera makes a good entry into classical music (and the BBC does seem to have plugged it recently, as did Operatunity), but with much of it sung in languages other than English, it still needs a bit of background work.
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I"m not sure that there isn't a large (not massive ) amount of "beer tasted better when I was a lad" about some of these statements ?
If I cast my mind back to my youth I remember going to see Stimmung at Liverpool Cathedral followed by The Rite Of Spring at the Phil followed by Tangerine Dream at the Cathedral followed by Cage and Cunningham at the Everyman followed by Teardrop Explodes at Erics followed by Verdi's Requiem at the Metropolitan Cathedral etc etc they all seem in retrospect to be next to each other yet probably happened over many years.
Also (and yes it's the context thing again ..............) Television has become (it could have become something else of course) a predominantly narrative medium, a series of "stories". "Unadulterated classical music" really doesn't work in this context , it does work in a live context (or should that be "live" ?).
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I think that people who are serious about 'pop' music - I mean the people who would be devotees of John Peel - hate the way in which X Factor etc have trivialised pop music.
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Where TV coverage of classical music has changed is that the narrative about the story or stories peripheral to classical music has enormously increased compared with the coverage of the music itself. This is most obviously seen in the coverage of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition where not many years back there was not only a lot more coverage of the earlier rounds but a lot more footage of performance rather than biography or chat which now takes up a large part of the programme. It's also seen in documentaries such as those by Simon Russell Beale on the history of the symphony - there's just a lot more film of Beale himself walking round European cities and chatting with various people, whereas with the older Tony Palmer bio-documentaries e.g. the one on Respighi the presenter never appears: there is merely a voiceover and much more of the actual music. It is still very much narrative but just narrative in a different way, with the emphasis firmly on the object of the narrative.
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Possibly, although Beer has never tasted better IMO! But I do remember hearing Berio for the first time when I was about 13 on Aquarius (the ITV - I repeat, ITV - precursor of The South Bank Show) and regular-ish televised performances of the Second Viennese School on Beeb2 (always introduced by a conversation between Brian Keith and Alexander Goehr) as well as "traditional" repertoire from the "Classical" and Jazz worlds. As recently as twenty years ago, Channel 4 broadcast the Sawallisch Ring cycle, had a series of programmes on Birtwistle, the series Sinfonietta and even a series in French in which Boulez introduced selections of post-WW2 masterpieces. There was the televising of Birtwistle's Gawain, Janacek operas and my introduction to A Love Supreme. And you could go out for a Rave, have a curry and throw up in the back of a Taxi and still have change from a thrup'ny bit!
True. Sadly, as the number of TV stations have increased, the variety of content has shrunk. Audiences are trusted with complex, multi-layered narrative dramas such as The Killing (and even the plots of Doctor Who require a level of concentration with which I'm sure '60s viewers wouldn't have found easy to cope), but Televised Music seems only to be trusted in short 3-4 minute soundbursts. Even in those superb Scorsese documentaries on the Blues and George Harrison. The most ephemeral product of "Classical Music", the Conductor, is reduced to "friendly, bite-sized" caricature, the performances on Young Musician of the Year clipped and spoken over and emphasis shifted to the sub-Masterchef/Strictly presentation of the "competition winners". And that's yer lot for "Classical Music" apart from 20% of the Proms. Jazz? Errr ... that detective chap likes to listen to it, doesn't he?Also (and yes it's the context thing again ..............
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