Private Passions

[french frank]

I suspect that our tastes are actually very similar but I don't expect or need to be delving deep all the time.

So just expectations different, then? I do tend, chillingly to need to be delving deeper and can't be bothered with light/relaxing entertainment . I had thought that the title Inside Music would indicate a musician getting 'inside the music', but I think it's just that the guest, rather than the programme, is as a professional 'inside' the music.

I like to think that my intellectual propensity over the decades has been a quest for profundity but like Autolycus I am also "a snapper-u, to neep of unconsidered trifles" - I try to keep an open mind and cast my net wide.

I don't think I actively cast my net wide but whatever I happen across I want to delve into; and am fairly obviously neither musician nor musicologist. But rather than skimming lightly over music I'd prefer to do something else until the heavier stuff begins. It's this that I miss on R3. So certainly not a matter of intellectual capacity, though possibly intellectual propensity.

Like my namesake in Parsifal I'm an old bloke rambling on and on and will stop now.

[vinteuil]

I like to think that my intellectual propensity over the decades has been a quest for profundity but like Autolycus I am also "a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" - I try to keep an open mind and cast my net wide.

... nicely put. I fondly hoped I was a Dr Casaubon, but with age and more insight I realized I would always be a Mr Brooke...

"I'm an old bloke rambling on and on and will stop now"

.

[oddoneout]

I suspect that our tastes are actually very similar but I don't expect or need to be delving deep all the time. I like to think that my intellectual propensity over the decades has been a quest for profundity but like Autolycus I am also "a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" - I try to keep an open mind and cast my net wide. I am neither a trained musician (though I do sing in and am Chair of our local Choral Soc) nor musicologist but certainly an enthusiast and find I can pick up useful insights from editions of Inside Music which others may be writing off as shallow and undemanding (or merely "A Musician's Favourite Music"), yes, even from young people. Stephen Hough recently, not young and not superficial, eg when talking about Schnabel and Cortot. I did not find Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (age 60+) to be skimming over the surface last year while discussing fellow pianists, like Richter, who have inspired him. Similarly, Angela Hewitt a few years ago.

Like my namesake in Parsifal I'm an old bloke rambling on and on and will stop now.

Much of this would also describe my situation - not really needing great depth and not having much music training or knowledge. I admit I was disappointed with Inside Music as it wasn't, consistently, what I had expected. There were some episodes that did deliver the insight I had expected, but otherwise I felt it was an extension of the general talking plus excerpts trend. Perhaps if I hadn't been listening to the morning schedules so much it wouldn't have been an issue. As it happens I don't do nearly so much morning listening now(it tends to be seasonal) but the other problem was/is the timing, which just doesn't fit very often with my Saturdays(and that hasn't changed) and I don't do listen-again.

[Ein Heldenleben]

... nicely put. I fondly hoped I was a Dr Casaubon, but with age and more insight I realized I would always be a Mr Brooke...

"I'm an old bloke rambling on and on and will stop now"

.

But Casaubon is (unfairly ) cast as a dry as dust scholar engaged in footling research he is incapable of finishing. Being Brooke is surely to be preferred.

[french frank]

I am generally au fait procedurally with most of the changes by now - the only problem I have is in responding to PMs; I still can't work out where on the page one is supposed to "reply".

Moi aussi. I seem to remember you have to click on the subject title of the message you want to reply to (how obvious is that? ) and then scroll down to the message window at the bottom.

[Pulcinella]

Well, I'm still discovering what the differences are! I think it would be easier if you outlined the difficulties you're finding. Apart from the admin jobs for which I regularly have to look for clues on the internet, I find day-to-day usage now pretty straightforward.

I think a 'Handy hints' thread might be useful (though perhaps the topics are covered elsewhere): for example, I don't know how I'd include quotes from different replies any more, and I never learned how to quote from different threads!

[Bryn]

I have not been able to find a thread devoted specifically to this weekly programme. If I have missed such a thread, can a Host please move this to it?

I do not usually tune into this programme but today it is playing in the background. I just heard Michael Berkley regurgitate the old saw that Bartok's allusion to Lehar's Da geh' ich zu Maxim was a tilt at Shostakovich. It has always struck me that it might well have been aimed a the very same target as was Shostakovich's repeated quote from the song, one of Hitler's favourites.

[eighthobstruction]

....here you are Bryn

[Bryn]

....here you are Bryn

Thanks. Very strange. I carried out an "Advanced Search" for "Private Passions", restricted to titles, and it reported no results.

[Bryn]

I do not usually tune into this programme but today it was playing in the background. I heard Michael Berkley regurgitate the old saw that Bartok's allusion to Lehar's Da geh' ich zu Maxim was a tilt at Shostakovich. It has always struck me that it might well have been aimed a the very same target as was Shostakovich's repeated quote from the song, one of Hitler's favourites.

[Pulcinella]

Thanks. Very strange. I carried out an "Advanced Search" for "Private Passions", restricted to titles, and it reported no results.

I searched for Michael Berkeley (but with surname spelt correctly ) and it was one of the threads that popped up!

[smittims]

Are we referring to the bit in the fourth movement of Concerto for Orchestra, which has often been said to be a lampoon of a theme in the first movement of Shostakovitch's 7th?

I'm not aware of any actual evidence that Bartok meant it as such. It's a very common melodic phrase, and it doesn't sound to me very much like the Shostakovitch. And I hoped that Bartok didn't mean it as a satire; I think that would be rather cheap; what I know of Bartok doesn't suggest he was that kind of bloke.

[Bryn]

Are we referring to the bit in the fourth movement of Concerto for Orchestra, which has often been said to be a lampoon of a theme in the first movement of Shostakovitch's 7th?

I'm not aware of any actual evidence that Bartok meant it as such. It's a very common melodic phrase, and it doesn't sound to me very much like the Shostakovitch. And I hoped that Bartok didn't mean it as a satire; I think that would be rather cheap; what I know of Bartok doesn't suggest he was that kind of bloke.

Agreed, as far as Bartok not being likely to have had a dig at Shostakovich goes but, given Bartok's political outlook, a reference to an interruption, by Hitler's Germany, in Hungary's progress through the 20th Century would not seem, to me, so unlikely.

[eighthobstruction]

....just after 24 minutes into the programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001qm0k The Hundred Year Ego,,,,there is an arresting sequence about Shostakovitch....

[smittims]

Thanks for alerting me to that; I'd have missed it otherwise. Quite an interesting discussion.

I'm always wary of people telling me what Shostakovitch's music 'means', especially since he himself was very reticent on the subject, and the doubt that has been cast on the veracity of the book 'Testimony'. Maybe it's because I only want to listen to the music as music: I find that quite interesting enough. But also I suspect that many commentators want to be the one person with the truth : 'I alone hold the key; listen to me (and buy my book)'.

Still, it's good to hear classical music being brought into a general programme and treated seriously. So many people in the media today go on as if it never existed .