Offenbach, 22-26 January 2024

[Master Jacques]

DM has just played a cello and orchestra arrangement of Delilah's "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila, while claiming it to be the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann. Talk about asleep at the wheel... this is totally beyond the pale.

[NatBalance]

I wondered what was going on. On hearing that piece I thought 'Wow, that's my favourite aria. Great, it's about Saint-Saens this week'. Couldn't believe my ears when he said Offenbach. I thought 'Did Saint-Saens use and Offenbach tune?'. If he did Donald would surely have mentioned it but he didn't.

[Master Jacques]

I wondered what was going on. On hearing that piece I thought 'Wow, that's my favourite aria. Great, it's about Saint-Saens this week'. Couldn't believe my ears when he said Offenbach. I thought 'Did Saint-Saens use and Offenbach tune?'. If he did Donald would surely have mentioned it but he didn't.

Simple. They played Track 4 from Camille Thomas's Saint-Saens/Offenbach DG disc, instead of Track 10. It is astounding that nobody spotted the difference before this went out. I sincerely hope the mistake is rectified before the repeat programme. If not, we'll know how much anybody at Radio 3 cares.

[Ein Heldenleben]

DM has just played a cello and orchestra arrangement of Delilah's "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila, while claiming it to be the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann. Talk about asleep at the wheel... this is totally beyond the pale.

Oops . What a clanger. Doesn’t surprise me . An awful lot of music graduates know very little about opera. For a small fee they can run all their opera excepts past me and I can guarantee I won’t make a mistake. Those two tunes must be amongst the most famous in the entire operatic repertoire.
I wonder if they drop the excerpts in without DM hearing them ? Dangerous as second and third pairs of ears are always useful.

[Nick Armstrong]

I sincerely hope the mistake is rectified before the repeat programme. If not, we'll know how much anybody at Radio 3 cares.

The clanger about the Coronation which took place in 1902 (we were told it was George V’s…) wasn’t corrected before the repeat of the Elgar series the other week…

[Master Jacques]

I had an apologetic 'Hi there and sorry' note from the producer, who assured me that the mistake was going to be rectified before the repeat. I suppose that's better than nothing!

[Master Jacques]

The clanger about the Coronation which took place in 1902 (we were told it was George V’s…) wasn’t corrected before the repeat of the Elgar series the other week…

Harder to get somebody to imitate Donald's sage tones, of course, than to swap over one piece of music for another. Lèse-majesté though, if you ask me, to the present incumbent and his great-great-grandfather Edward VII.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I had an apologetic 'Hi there and sorry' note from the producer, who assured me that the mistake was going to be rectified before the repeat. I suppose that's better than nothing!

Given how hugely overworked radio producers are it’s considerably better than nothing. That is the hallmark of a very good producer. I once emailed a very prominent BBC journalist pointing out a very obvious and wiki checkable error in his lunchtime and online piece . Not only did he reply within ten minutes , he also got it corrected. He was a tad annoyed with the subs who’d inserted the error in his correct copy. To be honest it’s quite helpful having factual errors pointed out particularly if you can then correct them before the boss notices.

[Roslynmuse]

The first programme in the series is missing the final minute or so, almost a week later...the Barcarolle is now in its correct place, however.