The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[LMcD]

Well put. BBC will now do anything and everything to avoid educating (aka challenging) the populace. Meanwhile the performing arts are being forced down the same rabbit hole, as the Arts Council busily distributes ever more of its diminishing supply of money to amateur community projects, rather than professional performers. Listening to Counterpoint this afternoon reminds me how swiftly a country can become, to all practical intents and purposes, brain dead.

I was a contestant on 'Counterpoint' many years ago, and wonder what Ned Sherrin would make of the extent to which it has become - well, let's say less challenging.

[french frank]

Listening to Counterpoint this afternoon reminds me how swiftly a country can become, to all practical intents and purposes, brain dead.

Just out of curiosity and taking this with LMcD's comment, could you give an example? I assume this isn't purely cultural rather than intellectual ('younger people don't know what classical music is' &c) ?

[oddoneout]

It's encouraging the OT drift I know but this might be of interest. Apologies if it's only available after registration - but at least that isn't a paywall(yet...)

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2024/dec/05/the-king-williams-college-quiz-are-you-ready-to-solve-the-worlds-most-challenging-puzzle

Having read about how hard it is I was a little surprised to find I could answer more than 2 straight off, and more with a quick check of incompletely recalled detail.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I was a contestant on 'Counterpoint' many years ago, and wonder what Ned Sherrin would make of the extent to which it has become - well, let's say less challenging.

Interesting if they have. I am absolutely convinced the classical music questions on University Challenge have become more difficult. I also think the right answer rate has improved particularly in the last few series . My theory is that teams like Imperial take a scientific approach to the competition - cramming in subjects they know will turn up - the periodic table, flags and maps of the world (these in particular have got a lot more difficult) , Greek myths and finally classical music . This though is impossible to “cram “ so you have to scour the college for the one or two bods who know a lot . If the other lot have no one that’s forty points in the bag.

The problem is when the classical music round is pop music. To MJ’s point that is definitely cultural decline.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It's encouraging the OT drift I know but this might be of interest. Apologies if it's only available after registration - but at least that isn't a paywall(yet...)

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2024/dec/05/the-king-williams-college-quiz-are-you-ready-to-solve-the-worlds-most-challenging-puzzle

Having read about how hard it is I was a little surprised to find I could answer more than 2 straight off, and more with a quick check of incompletely recalled detail.

It’s a lot easier this year.
I can’t stand that quiz because of the smarta**e and ambiguous way the questions are constructed

[Master Jacques]

Just out of curiosity and taking this with LMcD's comment, could you give an example? I assume this isn't purely cultural rather than intellectual ('younger people don't know what classical music is' &c) ?

Counterpoint used to be a balanced quiz programme, with contestants who had a good, broad knowledge of music in the round. Winning meant that you had to know your Bax from your Bach.

Nowadays the level is very different: the relatively few questions about so-called "classical music" are easier, less frequent, and usually leave the contestants in bemused silence, or stabbing wildly in the dark. Yesterday an astringently jazzy gobbet of Poulenc (in a "Tour de France" round) led to the guess "is it Delibes?".

I certainly do not wish, of course, to mock the contestant concerned - far from it, and doubtless her knowledge of hard rock was second-to-none - but the mile-sized miss shows the distance travelled between the days when LMcD was participating, and today's proudly populist approach.

***
As far as "young people" and "classical" (a term which, as you may know, I personally avoid like the plague) is concerned, my study of animé soundtracks leads me to the understanding that "classical" is a descriptor used by Japanese teen-and-up fans to express what we'd call an "orchestral" sound. It's an aural flavour, not a style or period, and moves the idea of a complex music which you might wish to listen to for its own sake even further away from the table.

[Old Grumpy]

***
As far as "young people" and "classical" (a term which, as you may know, I personally avoid like the plague) is concerned, my study of animé soundtracks leads me to the understanding that "classical" is a descriptor used by Japanese teen-and-up fans to express what we'd call an "orchestral" sound. It's an aural flavour, not a style or period, and moves the idea of a complex music which you might wish to listen to for its own sake even further away from the table.

Indeed, I was speaking to a younger (i.e. younger than me, but by no means in the first flush of youth) person yesterday about her Dansette and vinyl records. She said she had a collection of "classics" and then was at pains to emphasise that these were not classical...

[hmvman]

Indeed, I was speaking to a younger (i.e. younger than me, but by no means in the first flush of youth) person yesterday about her Dansette and vinyl records. She said she had a collection of "classics" and then was at pains to emphasise that these were not classical...

Reminds me of a conversation I had just before Christmas at a dinner party. I was telling the lady next to me about my interest in and love of music and she said, "my husband likes ALL types of music....not classical though....."

[Master Jacques]

Reminds me of a conversation I had just before Christmas at a dinner party. I was telling the lady next to me about my interest in and love of music and she said, "my husband likes ALL types of music....not classical though....."

Watching the old National Theatre film of Three Sisters last night, was to be reminded strongly that plus ça change. Most people are no less but no more ignorant of the arts than was formerly the case. What's gone missing, though, is the aspiration to have at least some sort of general cultural map to hand, so as not to embarrass oneself (or indeed, one's husband) socially.

Chekhov's Natasha now rules, not just one decaying family, but the whole social world.

[french frank]

"classical" (a term which, as you may know, I personally avoid like the plague)

If the prime purpose of language is to communicate with other people, it becomes necessary - for that reason alone - to modify one's own language. 'Classical' has come a long way from when it referred to the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome; and "the classics" refered to literature from that age; then it referred to the 18th-c, 'homage' to that early aesthetic; then as an umbrella term for the various styles of the modern age, before and after the 18th c. Now, just orchestral music in general. The problem is that when these terms evolve in meaning so far, do we need new terms to clarify the obsolete ones?

[Master Jacques]

If the prime purpose of language is to communicate with other people, it becomes necessary - for that reason alone - to modify one's own language. 'Classical' has come a long way from when it referred to the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome; and "the classics" refered to literature from that age; then it referred to the 18th-c, 'homage' to that early aesthetic; then as an umbrella term for the various styles of the modern age, before and after the 18th c. Now, just orchestral music in general. The problem is that when these terms evolve in meaning so far, do we need new terms to clarify the obsolete ones?

Generic taxonomy has always created problems; and when this catch-all "classical music" (so lovingly spooned-out by Radio 3's polite presenters) takes hold, it obscures the huge number of different types and conditions of music which it so uselessly embraces.

[vinteuil]

What's gone missing, though, is the aspiration to have at least some sort of general cultural map to hand, so as not to embarrass oneself ... socially...

Interesting. I was an undergraduate in the early 70s - colleagues from then whom I keep up with (regardless of what they were reading then) did indeed have that 'aspiration ... to a cultural map' - we wd have been embarrassed not to have had at least an inkling of what was meant, what was 'going on' in a larger cultural world than our vocations required. My stepchildren, all in their thirties, all the beneficiaries of a 'good education' in terms of schools and universities - seem to have none of that : happy to be unaware of, eg Henry Moore, Monteverdi, der Blauer Reiter, MR James, whatever...

[french frank]

My stepchildren, all in their thirties, all the beneficiaries of a 'good education' in terms of schools and universities - seem to have none of that : happy to be unaware of, eg Henry Moore, Monteverdi, der Blauer Reiter, MR James, whatever...

My experience too with the 30-40s in the family. They live very much in their present, in the bubbles of their immediate acquaintance. The past and the beyonds are other countries which they feel no pressing need to explore. Everything they want is close, familiar and on tap.

[Master Jacques]

My stepchildren, all in their thirties, all the beneficiaries of a 'good education' in terms of schools and universities - seem to have none of that: happy to be unaware of, eg Henry Moore, Monteverdi, der Blauer Reiter, MR James, whatever...

Funny you should mention Henry Moore. One of my own Christmas rituals (completed this morning) is to visit the magnificent Moore sculpture in our local park, just to touch it while looking out over the vista of London and the river. I hope that younger generations don't forget him entirely.

[LMcD]

Counterpoint used to be a balanced quiz programme, with contestants who had a good, broad knowledge of music in the round. Winning meant that you had to know your Bax from your Bach. .

The last time I tuned in, only one of the 2nd-round topics on offer related to classical music and one of the others required an exhaustive knowledge of Madonna's recording career.