The Last Ever Saturday 'Early Music Show'...

[doversoul1]

Saturday
As part of the Sound of Cinema season, Catherine Bott looks at the story and the soundtrack of the 1994 film "Farinelli" - a biopic of the great 18th century castrato and his colourful relationships with women, with his older brother and with the composers Handel and Porpora.
[…]
The film soundtrack includes performances by the "combined" voices with Christophe Rousset's own ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, in glorious music by Handel, Porpora, Hasse, Pergolesi and Farinelli's own older brother (and protagonist of the film), Riccardo Broschi

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfdk7

I have rather mixed feelings about this as a subject of Early Music Show but I trust CB and the team have made an intelligent and interesting programme of it.

This will be the last Saturday Early Music Show (re: Catherine Bott’s post quoted by Caliban)

Sunday
The revered French actor Gérard Depardieu is frequently in the news these days and not always for his acting. In the early 1990s Depardieu gave a brilliantly nuanced performance as the 17th/18th-century composer and viol player Marin Marais. The acclaimed film "Tous les matins du monde" was one of the few movies to celebrate and popularise early music. Lucie Skeaping remembers the film and considers some of the music.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfjql

Is this not a repeat?

[Nick Armstrong]

Is this not a repeat?

Yes... see CB's post on another thread which I thought it worth copying here:

I shan't comment on the Early Music Show's involvement with the current Sound of Cinema season except to say a) that it comes to an end this weekend with my programme on "Farinelli, the movie" and the repeat of Lucie's programme about "Tous les matins du monde": and b) that tomorrow's programme is the last ever Saturday edition of the Early Music Show after 10 years. The programme continues on Sundays at the new time of 2pm.

Meanwhile, if you are in London and fancy some live film music, may I recommend a quick look at www.cinemamuseum.org.uk? It's housed in part of the old Lambeth Workhouse in Kennington, with important Chaplin connections, and will be open over this coming Open House Weekend. And tomorrow evening, my good friend Donald MacKenzie, organist of the Odeon, Leicester Square, will be tickling the ivories of the Cinema Museum's piano as he accompanies a screening of the 1926 Technicolour silent The Black Pirate, starring Douglas Fairbanks. Just thought I'd mention it to strike a blow for the music of the silent screen during the current total immersion movie music experience.....

[salymap]

Yes... see CB's post on another thread which I thought it worth copying here:

That's very interesting tome. I wish I could get to the silent Fairbanks film in the old Kennington workhouse.

A late relative started his musical life by playing the violin in a Bromley Cinema and it was by no means a job to belittle, as I did at first.

Thankfully, I'm just too young to have seen such a film live though

I did go to an interesting talk on the subject by Muir Mathieson years ago.

[vinteuil]

... for those seeking something further than that offered by the current "Radio 3" - may I recommend -

"The World of the Castrati - the History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon" = Patrick Barbier, 1996 *

* or indeed the original "Histoire des Castrats" éditions Grasset 1989

[amateur51]

... for those seeking something further than that offered by the current "Radio 3" - may I recommend -

"The World of the Castrati - the History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon" = Patrick Barbier, 1996 *

* or indeed the original "Histoire des Castrats" éditions Grasset 1989

Is this a book, a pamphlet, a CD, a DVD ... or an extract from UKIP's draft manifesto?

[Black Swan]

A sad day tomorrow with the end of the Saturday TEMS. I listened to Breakfast this morning and truly it was the worst so called Classical Music show I have ever listened to in my life. R3 is becoming a slock station. Film music and borderline Classical music.

[amateur51]

A sad day tomorrow with the end of the Saturday TEMS. I listened to Breakfast this morning and truly it was the worst so called Classical Music show I have ever listened to in my life. R3 is becoming a slock station. Film music and borderline Classical music.

A sad day indeed, Black Swan.

And I fall in with your other comments too, sadly. Radio 3 has almost become irrelevant to my life, and it gives me no pleasure to say that.

[Roehre]

.....Radio 3 has almost become irrelevant to my life, and it gives me no pleasure to say that.

I am afraid it makes more than just the two of us, am51

[eighthobstruction]

As an opportunistic listener....it appears there is not going to be a saturday opportunity....

[ardcarp]

I join in the general heartfelt grief at the loss of Saturday's EMS. I wonder if Mr Wright (Mr Rong?) is going to continue picking off the treasures of R3 (CD Review, CotW, etc). Perhaps it's appropriate on the EMS forum to say, Vigilate!

I am personally relieved that this Film Music (or should it be Filme Musicke?) lark is coming to an end. Whilst admiring the skill of composers of film scores, especially their craftsmanship, I do ask why and whence this obsession of R3 for total immersion in a subject. It's gone on far too long. On the positive side, I must say I have been impressed with John Wilson, the guest on CotW this week. He is vastly knowledgeable and talks with great clarity. But enough's enough.

BTW my father also earned his living, in the 1920s, as a violinist in the pit at a large Midland cinema. He was classically trained, and I think one can only admire the professionalism of such people. Being able to sight read at the drop of a hat the parts which came with the film had to be coupled with an alertness to 'cut and paste' according to cues which (apparently) appeared on the celluloid.

[Frances_iom]

...
I am personally relieved that this Film Music (or should it be Filme Musicke?) lark is coming to an end. ...

but we have yet two more weeks of this to endure - next week we get Bond + the Beatles in COTW

[doversoul1]

but we have yet two more weeks of this to endure - next week we get Bond + the Beatles in COTW

I assume ardcarp means that there will be no more film music on Early Music Show after this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03brsbw

Will we continue to hear Lucie Skeaping on the programme? And what is going to happpen to the producer and the production team? How long can the programme remain as it is now....?

[DublinJimbo]

I have to admit that I saw the end coming with the very title: The Early Music Show is just too, too wrong for my liking. Catherine Bott is truly wonderful, but calling a programme devoted to early music a "show" just didn't seem right to me.

[ardcarp]

The word Show has always been a bit silly, but I hardly think that is the reason for the 50% cut. Indeed, Show would probably endear itself to poularist RW. In fact I'm quite surprised we don't have a Breakfast Show......oh, silly me. We do.

Dovers, on the subject of film music, I have to confess I didn't realise we had two more weeks to go, two more weeks of sorrow.

[doversoul1]

... for those seeking something further than that offered by the current "Radio 3" - may I recommend -

"The World of the Castrati - the History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon" = Patrick Barbier, 1996 *

* or indeed the original "Histoire des Castrats" éditions Grasset 1989

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Castrati-Extraordinary-Operatic-Phenomenon/dp/0285633090/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379749242&sr=1-1

6 new from £97.94 12 used from £6.50

To those who are less academically minded (in this particular subject)

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Arthaus%2BMusik/101689

Heavenly Voices: The Legacy of Farinelli
A Film by Gino Pennacchi and Alessandro Scillitani
Narrated by Max Emanuel Cencic, Philippe Jaroussky, Ernesto Tomasini and others. Also featuring David Daniels, Andreas Scholl, Daniel Behle and many more.