Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • LeMartinPecheur
    Full Member
    • Apr 2007
    • 4717

    Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
    I happened on the 'Time Traveller' in Essential Classics this morning. A very droll piece about Mary Benson:

    The best of the BBC, with the latest news and sport headlines, weather, TV & radio highlights and much more from across the whole of BBC Online


    ...about 1hr 12min from start.
    I picked up on this too because I'd just been reading about the Benson family, mainly E F Benson of Mapp and Lucia fame, in Frank Muir's The Oxford Book of of Humorous Prose. (Brother A C Benson of course wrote the words for a certain Elgar march...)

    Muir says of the children, "Their father was the Archbishop of Canterbury and he had proposed to their mother when she was 11. She was his second cousin, Mary Sidgwick, a formidably brainy lady described by Gladstone as 'the cleverest woman in Europe'. After bearing the archbishop six children she decided that enough was enough and left Lambeth Palace to live with her lesbian lover, Lady Tait, daughter of the previous Archbishop of Canterbury. The surviving children, three brothers and their sister, were homosexual, if anything."

    Good(?) to hear this morning that Mary competed with her own daughter for the affections of Ethel Smyth, and that the latter played cricket!
    I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!

    Comment

    • antongould
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 8778

      Getting a good kicking on PhraseBook ........

      Comment

      • ferneyhoughgeliebte
        Gone fishin'
        • Sep 2011
        • 30163

        Originally posted by antongould View Post
        Getting a good kicking on PhraseBook ........
        Faceboot?
        [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

        Comment

        • Nick Armstrong
          Host
          • Nov 2010
          • 26523

          Originally posted by antongould View Post
          Getting a good kicking on PhraseBook ........
          Got a link for that, antonio?
          "...the isle is full of noises,
          Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
          Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
          Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

          Comment

          • Jimbo
            Full Member
            • Nov 2018
            • 2

            I see a sign of hope in what has previously been death by a thousand cuts of this once-great oasis of wonderful music. The other morning Ian Skelly played two movements (Playful Pizzicato and Sentimental Sarabande) from Britten's Simple Symphony. A few months ago Suzy Klein played just one movement - I can't remember which.

            Is the day approaching when Ian or Suzy will play the entire work, all 16 minutes of it?

            Hard to believe that this is the same programme in which Rob Cowen played a complete recording of one of Bruckner's symphonies. It must have lasted about 80 minutes.

            Right now, I'd settle for the Britten, the whole thing. Can't wait!

            Comment

            • LMcD
              Full Member
              • Sep 2017
              • 8404

              Originally posted by Jimbo View Post
              I see a sign of hope in what has previously been death by a thousand cuts of this once-great oasis of wonderful music. The other morning Ian Skelly played two movements (Playful Pizzicato and Sentimental Sarabande) from Britten's Simple Symphony. A few months ago Suzy Klein played just one movement - I can't remember which.

              Is the day approaching when Ian or Suzy will play the entire work, all 16 minutes of it?

              Hard to believe that this is the same programme in which Rob Cowen played a complete recording of one of Bruckner's symphonies. It must have lasted about 80 minutes.

              Right now, I'd settle for the Britten, the whole thing. Can't wait!
              (Just imagine the doves are pigs....)
              (It's Cowan, by the way).

              Comment

              • cloughie
                Full Member
                • Dec 2011
                • 22114

                Originally posted by LMcD View Post
                (Just imagine the doves are pigs....)
                (It's Cowan, by the way).
                I suspect that the new formula was the last straw for Rob.

                Comment

                • Jimbo
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2018
                  • 2

                  Originally posted by LMcD View Post
                  (Just imagine the doves are pigs....)
                  (It's Cowan, by the way).
                  Sorry Rob. I miss you.

                  And bring on the flying pigs!

                  Comment

                  • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                    Gone fishin'
                    • Sep 2011
                    • 30163

                    Surprised and delighted to hear Boulez broadcast on EC this morning (and Ligeti kicked the programme off) - not before time!
                    [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                    Comment

                    • Serial_Apologist
                      Full Member
                      • Dec 2010
                      • 37589

                      Originally posted by cloughie View Post
                      I suspect that the new formula was the last straw for Rob.
                      No Cowan Gate way for him!

                      Comment

                      • Zucchini
                        Guest
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 917

                        Originally posted by cloughie View Post
                        I suspect that the new formula was the last straw for Rob.
                        He played far too many dead performers. OK for many people here I suppose.

                        Comment

                        • french frank
                          Administrator/Moderator
                          • Feb 2007
                          • 30241

                          Originally posted by Jimbo View Post
                          Hard to believe that this is the same programme in which Rob Cowen played a complete recording of one of Bruckner's symphonies. It must have lasted about 80 minutes.
                          Evidence is available that Rob was lined up to continue with EC when the latest changes were introduced. Whether that was the reason that he chose to 'be his own master' with his own show on Classic FM, only Rob could confirm. But that is what happened. It does not appear, prima facie and all that, E&OE, that he was booted out by Radio 3.
                          It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

                          Comment

                          • french frank
                            Administrator/Moderator
                            • Feb 2007
                            • 30241

                            Originally posted by Zucchini View Post
                            He played far too many dead performers. OK for many people here I suppose.
                            As far as "classical music" is concerned, the majority are dead. So no surprise there.
                            It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

                            Comment

                            • LMcD
                              Full Member
                              • Sep 2017
                              • 8404

                              Originally posted by Zucchini View Post
                              He played far too many dead performers. OK for many people here I suppose.
                              The late, lamented Ray Moore would occasionally enlighten his listeners as to what was being broadcast on Radio 3. 'Well, it's still all stuff by dead foreigners. And there's been another outbreak of Buxtehude' (pronounced in a very thick Scouse accent with heavy emphasis on the first syllable).

                              Comment

                              • teamsaint
                                Full Member
                                • Nov 2010
                                • 25193

                                Can't hear dead performers any other way.
                                I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                                I am not a number, I am a free man.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X