British Light Music (28.8 - 1.9.23)

[Serial_Apologist]

Just catching up on the excellent programmes broadcast last week, but did DM twice refer to Albert Ketelby as Alfred? Did he also refer to Ketelby's In A Persian Market as In A Persian Garden (an earlier work by Liza Lehmann)?

It would take a lot of listening back to trace those errors, if such they be. Can you remember on which day, or days?

Oh and by the way, welcome to the Forum, MJB.

[smittims]

'In a Persian Garden' is an old favourite of mine, a song-cycle for four voices and piano. My father had an off-air tape, and as he didn't note the singers I've often tried to identify them. It's a setting of selected passages from Edward Fitzgerald's 'Omar Khayyam' and has some beautiful moments , though of course it's not as grand as Granville Bantock's complete version. I was glad to see it revived about 40 years ago in an Argo LP.

[hmvman]

Just catching up on the excellent programmes broadcast last week, but did DM twice refer to Albert Ketelby as Alfred? Did he also refer to Ketelby's In A Persian Market as In A Persian Garden (an earlier work by Liza Lehmann)?

Yes, I'm afraid you heard right, he dd say "Alfred Ketelbey" both in Tuesday's programme and Monday's trail ahead. I expected better of DM, even if he hadn't done the research and scriptwriting himself. I've listened to the first two programmes and some of the third and I must say I'm disappointed with the scripting and presentation. Having said I accept that these programmes may not have been aimed at the aficionado and it is good that the BBC is acknowledging the light music genre which hopefully will attract some new devotees.

(I recently saw a funeral order of service where there was a piece of music by 'Edgar Elgar'...)

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I'm afraid you heard right, he dd say "Alfred Ketelbey" both in Tuesday's programme and Monday's trail ahead. I expected better of DM, even if he hadn't done the research and scriptwriting himself. I've listened to the first two programmes and some of the third and I must say I'm disappointed with the scripting and presentation. Having said I accept that these programmes may not have been aimed at the aficionado and it is good that the BBC is acknowledging the light music genre which hopefully will attract some new devotees.

(I recently saw a funeral order of service where there was a piece of music by 'Edgar Elgar'...)

I'm sure we are likely to find more and more of this happening as humans-substituting AI is forced upon us all.

Commentators talk of our benighted luck in living freer lives than have ever been possible before, while to my mind what the effective demise of light music signifies is the omnipresent substitute of pop genres as an instrument for herding compliance into the consumer-led masses under the false pretext of choice, which makes me sad and nostalgic for the gentler, kinder age we of the post-WW2 generation seemed to be promised but never delivered. Other less slavish but equally convivial forms were available but one had to search them out.

[Master Jacques]

It was a recap of the radio music of the early fifties and all the better for that. About time the proms featured some of these pieces as an encore. I liked DM's anecdote about Ernest Tomlinson bearding Glock in his lair to complain about the BBC's neglect neglect of light music, not that Glock did anything to help.

They certainly make fantastic encores. I'll never forget an unlikely occasion, where the BBC Symphony Orchestra, on tour in Canada with then-chief conductor Osmo Vänskä, rode well-merited applause for the concluding piece on the programme (Elgar's 1st Symphony) by bursting into Ketèlbey's 'Appy 'Ampstead, a splendid rumpus which produced redoubled cheers. Quite right too!

[Master Jacques]

Just catching up on the excellent programmes broadcast last week, but did DM twice refer to Albert Ketelby as Alfred? Did he also refer to Ketelby's In A Persian Market as In A Persian Garden (an earlier work by Liza Lehmann)?

Oh dear, all round. Perhaps Mr M. was mixing it up with In a Monastery Garden. Or should that be the YouTube Mix, In a Monastery Market?

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh dear, all round. Perhaps Mr M. was mixing it up with In a Monastery Garden. Or should that be the YouTube Mix, In a Monastery Market?

[Nick Armstrong]

I was glad to see Light Music given some recognition and airtime on Radio 3. I can remember a time when it was much in demand for radio and Tv programmes and short films. Then 'pop' came along ...

I think the only fair criticism of the genre is that it was limited. Innovation would not be welcome in a light music piece. But the level of craftsmanship in the composition and orchestration is a delight , and such names as Anthony Collins, Angela Morley and Ernest Tomlinson deserve to be remembered.

The cod-Rachmaninov piano concertoettes which were in vogue in the cinema in the ‘40s and featured in Wednesday’s programme are pretty dire…

[smittims]

Yes, I'm not sure I'd call those 'light music', nor such items as Fritz Spiegl's 'Royal Beatleworks Musick' and 'The Beatle Concerto' (not the more recent Ron Goodwin/John Rutter one) . I think they belong more in the realm of musical humour, like 'PDQ Bach' which I'm afraid I never found funny.

[gradus]

Yes, I'm not sure I'd call those 'light music', nor such items as Fritz Spiegl's 'Royal Beatleworks Musick' and 'The Beatle Concerto' (not the more recent Ron Goodwin/John Rutter one) . I think they belong more in the realm of musical humour, like 'PDQ Bach' which I'm afraid I never found funny.

Victor Borge, Anna Russell, sort of funny but it is difficult to think of anything musical that makes me laugh with the honourable exception of the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I'm not sure I'd call those 'light music', nor such items as Fritz Spiegl's 'Royal Beatleworks Musick' and 'The Beatle Concerto' (not the more recent Ron Goodwin/John Rutter one) . I think they belong more in the realm of musical humour, like 'PDQ Bach' which I'm afraid I never found funny.

Don Gillis's Symphony for Fun being a particularly egregious example of being the exact opposite!

[Serial_Apologist]

Victor Borge, Anna Russell, sort of funny but it is difficult to think of anything musical that makes me laugh with the honourable exception of the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

Well Malcolm Arnold's Concerto for Vacuum Cleaner is quite amusing, or seemed to be at the time of its premiere. I think it was said that they had to go through an entire shopful of them to find ones with perfect pitch!

[Ein Heldenleben]

The cod-Rachmaninov piano concertoettes which were in vogue in the cinema in the ‘40s and featured in Wednesday’s programme are pretty dire…

Agreed. Spike Milligan in his uproarious memoir Adolf Hitler My Part In His Downfall refers to it as the “bloody awful Warsaw Concerto.” His jazz band were constantly being requested to play it so his pianist duly obliged. Richard Adinsell was a great light composer though. His theme tune for a Bridge Too Far is a bit of a classic .
I did think that Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody sounded very like the Warsaw Concerto even placing that diminished chord in the same place in the big tune.

Meanwhile they don’t make dresses , bows , and Elgarian moustachioed Hornplayers like in the clip below any more .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSg7yyrQX28

Margaret Lockwood could obviously play as she finger syncs pretty well till the octaves. The real pianist is Harriet Cohen.

[Nick Armstrong]

Agreed. Spike Milligan in his uproarious memoir Adolf Hitler My Part In His Downfall refers to it as the “bloody awful Warsaw Concerto.” His jazz band were constantly being requested to play it so his pianist duly obliged. Richard Adinsell was a great light composer though. His theme tune for a Bridge Too Far is a bit of a classic .
I did think that Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody sounded very like the Warsaw Concerto even placing that diminished chord in the same place in the big tune.

Meanwhile they don’t make dresses , bows , and Elgarian moustachioed Hornplayers like in the clip below any more .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSg7yyrQX28

Margaret Lockwood could obviously play as she finger syncs pretty well till the octaves. The real pianist is Harriet Cohen.

I thought the same - the Adinsell & Bath items sounded like the same blessed piece with a few notes moved around!

Great Spike quote & video clip, thanks!

[edashtav]

I thought the same - the Adinsell & Bath items sounded like the same blessed piece with a few notes moved around!

Great Spike quote & video clip, thanks!

But, ‘the reach’ of the Warsaw Concerto was huge. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia:

• In an interview, the conductor Diego Masson recalled that the French modernist composer and conductor, and leader of the post-war avant-garde, Pierre Boulez was, in his youth, house pianist at the Folies Bergère Club in Paris “playing the Warsaw Concerto, engulfed in kitsch and lit by pinkish light – and that was while he was writing his second sonata”

[my emphasis.]