Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[ahinton]

... ferney - I feel your pain.

The only consolation - you had to put up with that imbecility and arseininity from the 'listener' (and from RC ... ) for a moment or two - whereas said 'listener' has to endure being an imbecile and an arse all his ( I bet it was a him ) silly life...

The trouble with this is that the arsenical one would almost certainly be blissfully (or otherwise) unaware of his arsenicity wheras the rest of us would recognise it instantly.

And Bach is always here to save us

As hopefully He always will be!

[Stanfordian]

The two poles of the programme were encapsulated for me at around 9:20 this morning when, after a superb performance of the Bach Triple Concerto BWV 1044 (complete) which really got me in a good mood, RC read out an assinine (no - that's not a spelling mistake!) tweet from a listener claiming that he didn't understand how someone who liked Bruckner could also mnngyer like listening to nnngye nnngyer this plinky-plonky-tonky-wonky mmnninniynggg harpsichordy wehinghymingey fnukfnnaaarrr gurgle stuff.

And THEN RC commented that this was a "fascinating" opinion!!!!!!!! No it wasn't - it was a public declaration of imbecility. What other fascinations might the chap shared - his perplexity with other matters beyond his intellectual compass - like spoons f'rinstance???!!!


Put me in a foul mood, I tell ye ... FOUL!!!!!

It's pathetic! This concentration on tweets is torture. I'd better watch out or I'll be described as elitist!

[Stanfordian]

Richard, just think how more annoying it would be if it had actually been scored for bagpipes.

What he has played the opera 'Schwanda the Bagpiper'?

[french frank]

The email address is essentialclassics@bbc.co.uk if anyone felt moved to make a comment about the worthlessness of reading out an email like that on air. Rob gaves his 'answer' afterwards, but if he wanted to air his view he could have done so without reading out 'Rob(ert)'s' email at all, which was [sorry ferney, avert your eyes]:

"I just don't believe that someone who admires Mahler, Bruckner, Beethoven and everyone else like them [sic] can like this dreadful, tinkling piping Bach …"

If you're going to read it out, instead of saying "it's an interesting point, Robert", why not have the guts to say that as an opinion it's of zilch interest. Better still, make an editorial judgement on it and bin it.

The two poles of the programme were encapsulated for me at around 9:20 this morning when, after a superb performance of the Bach Triple Concerto BWV 1044 (complete) which really got me in a good mood, RC read out an assinine (no - that's not a spelling mistake!) tweet from a listener claiming that he didn't understand how someone who liked Bruckner could also mnngyer like listening to nnngye nnngyer this plinky-plonky-tonky-wonky mmnninniynggg harpsichordy wehinghymingey fnukfnnaaarrr gurgle stuff.

And THEN RC commented that this was a "fascinating" opinion!!!!!!!! No it wasn't - it was a public declaration of imbecility. What other fascinations might the chap shared - his perplexity with other matters beyond his intellectual compass - like spoons f'rinstance???!!!


Put me in a foul mood, I tell ye ... FOUL!!!!!

[Richard Tarleton]

What he has played the opera 'Schwanda the Bagpiper'?

He played the overture on August 8, see here. He plays it every 2 or 3 months, so look out for it soon.

[doversoul1]

The two poles of the programme were encapsulated for me at around 9:20 this morning when, after a superb performance of the Bach Triple Concerto BWV 1044 (complete) which really got me in a good mood, RC read out an assinine (no - that's not a spelling mistake!) tweet from a listener claiming that he didn't understand how someone who liked Bruckner could also mnngyer like listening to nnngye nnngyer this plinky-plonky-tonky-wonky mmnninniynggg harpsichordy wehinghymingey fnukfnnaaarrr gurgle stuff.

And THEN RC commented that this was a "fascinating" opinion!!!!!!!! No it wasn't - it was a public declaration of imbecility. What other fascinations might the chap shared - his perplexity with other matters beyond his intellectual compass - like spoons f'rinstance???!!!


Put me in a foul mood, I tell ye ... FOUL!!!!!

Didn’t one of the great British conductors say something like the harpsichord sounding like two cats on a tin roof* etc.? I guess a professional presenter like Jonathan Swain would have brought this out and turned the comment into something worth thinking about.

*or someone hitting a birdcage with a toasting folk if it needs to be suitable for the time of the day.

[Bryn]

Didn’t one of the great British conductors say something like the harpsichord sounding like two cats on a tin roof* etc.? ...

No, it was Tommy Beecham.

[Richard Tarleton]

No, it was Tommy Beecham.

The full quote....no, not worth repeating.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No, it was Tommy Beecham.

And it was two skeletons ... er ... etc.

[Pulcinella]

RC just now: you can email, text, tweet,......... If you can't be bothered to do any of those you can just.......(something like sit back and enjoy the music).

[ahinton]

RC just now: you can email, text, tweet,......... If you can't be bothered to do any of those you can just.......(something like sit back and enjoy the music).

Did he actually say the latter bit? If so it would surely have been something of a self-undermining exercise, n'est-ce pas? It might have been better had he said "you can email, text, tweet, call in - but none of these is compulsory and I'd like to assure listeners that Radio 3 does not frown on those who eschew all of these activities in favour of listening mainly to the music rather than to Rob Walker, Sarah Derham, &c.)...

All that said (or rather unsaid), I was recently sent a link (which I will wisely refrain from reproducing here) to an hour long interview recently broadcast on an American public radion station with a Scottish pianist whose first CD of a 2- (or possibly 3-) CD survey of the piano music of Ronald Stevenson has just been released and I was left wondering how on earth the said pianist managed to get through it all without throwing a Steinway Model D at the hapless, hopeless and frankly nauseating interviewer, by contrast with the manner and matter of whose presentation the very worst gaffes and tasteless irrelevances spouted forth from time to time by certain Radio 3 presenters would come across as manna from heaven; believe me, it was so execrable that, had said interviewer been a membver of Radio 3's staff and the item broadcast there, he would almost certainly be "presented" with a P45 prontissimo.

[french frank]

Did he actually say the latter bit?

I interpreted the emoticon [] as meaning he stopped at the first bit and pulcie added the second bit as a desideratum.

[DracoM]

The only regular broadcasters I know who have a proper sense of self-deprecating, cleverly mocking irony about the whole panoply of the twittershpere are Eddie Mair [PM]and Paddy O'Connell [BH]. Both riveting.

[Nick Armstrong]

The only regular broadcasters I know who have a proper sense of self-deprecating, cleverly mocking irony about the whole panoply of the twittershpere are Eddie Mair [PM]and Paddy O'Connell [BH]. Both riveting.

I would add:

A real treat to have some sensible discourse among the music this week, too, thanks to Ian Skelly; amusing as well, I like the way he accommodates the need for listener tweets'n'emails by taking the mickey out of the correspondents... Such a change from the glutinous sycophancy of other presenters (in recent times, but still sometimes these days... Rob Cowan), praising even the lamest contribution as 'fascinating &c. &c.'.

[Pulcinella]

Actually, I added the emoticon at the end of the typed message (yes, it was what he said) to express my irritation, but it hopped to the beginning of the post, so I left it there!