BaL 14.10.17 - Purcell: "My Heart is Inditing"

[Nick Armstrong]

There's some ambiguity ...

Yes, I had a slight prod around, and concluded that - as with the 'brown box' cantatas when King's were bussed in for some of the early ones - it was probably Leonhardt who was in charge, with Willcocks training the choir. It's sort of the opposite with the Oxford one: as you say, it's 'the Christ Church set' with, I thought, Preston in charge of the performances, getting the English Concert in to accompany with Pinnock at their helm.

Either way, for the purposes of BAL, we know which ones we're talking about

[Richard Tarleton]

Preston, not Pinnock, is credited on the front, and the CDs themselves say
Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
The English Concert (Trevor Pinnock)
Simon Preston

I'm sure you could work that up into another of your limericks

[Pulcinella]

I'm sure you could work that up into another of your limericks

The anthem My heart is inditing
Has led to unseemly in-fighting.
Whose beat do we need
To get the right speed?
Perhaps the director needs citing!

Not great, but it'll do for now!

[Nick Armstrong]

The anthem My heart is inditing
Has led to unseemly in-fighting.
Whose beat do we need
To get the right speed?
Perhaps the director needs citing!

Not great, but it'll do for now!

Perhaps final line: "...and to make the performance exciting?"

[Pulcinella]

Perhaps final line: "...and to make the performance exciting?"

Yes, that's much better!
I had thought of 'exciting' but didn't get as far as you did with it!

[Richard Tarleton]

Brilliant!

[Barbirollians]

Interesting to hear how this goes tomorrow

[DracoM]

Well, bloomin' wittering mess between not much music. Was this a joke?

[Barbirollians]

A bit of a car crash it seems to me .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Interesting to hear how this goes tomorrow

"interesting" is a good word to describe the experiment. I was (far) more attracted to the chosen recording than to any of the other extracts that were played, but was not particularly enlightened either by the truncated duration of the BaL(oSVR)* or the frequent attempts to guess which performers were involved. The "whodunnit" approach seemed to me to suggest that too much attention was being paid to identifying the performers than to the details of the performances themselves. So, with a limited number of recordings, it came down to a Christie-like (Agatha, not William) reduction of who could be left after earlier suspects have been bumped off - a sort of Ten Little Indes Galantes (or, as it was earlier known, Ten Little Nigra Sums). And the usual problem when AMcG joins in these discussions; an over-chummy, presenter-focussed discussion, in which the pals' chatter distracted (me) from the Music itself.

I'd've much preferred a JS solo presentation, using the criteria he described at the start - an assessment based on two "blind" hearings of each recording, then a prepared script with the performers identified.

But perhaps that's because that's the "formula" I got used to in the formative years between 14 and 25?


* = Building a Library (or Streamed Version Recommendation)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Kind of interesting - possibly a ruse to justify the twofer format?

But a 30 minute BaL

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not as much as what's following!
Do we really need to hear Mars and The ubiquitous lark, rather than just learn what was so special about the particular versions that top the memory/favourites list.

My thoughts entirely. Today's Record Review has collapsed into the Breakfast format.

Apologies to Pulcinella for committing the hostly son of editing his post instead of quoting it.

[Gweefry]

It's been interesting in reading through this thread to see how expectations of a blind BaL on similar lines to the Tribune were confronted by a programme which had very obvious alternative aims.

There is an obvious tension with Record Review - it's the opportunity to grab additional listeners at a weekend and to that end the various outings such as today's visit to the Wellcome Collection. We've also had the chatty versions of BaL, seemingly an attempt to popularise the endeavour.

I'm beginning to wonder if BaL might be more happily floated off Record Review to have an independent existence where careful argument and extended examples could be accommodated, leaving RR to act as a magazine for new releases for which the host is admirably suited.

[Pulcinella]

My thoughts entirely. Today's Record Review has collapsed into the Breakfast format.

Apologies to Pulcinella for committing the hostly son of editing his post instead of quoting it.

I think you mean sin, and in so doing you removed the part that was actually on topic!
Was there any mention of the Christ Church performance?
If so, I must have blinked and missed it.
Or was it the first (unidentified at that stage) extract played?
(But you are forgiven, Alpie.)

[DracoM]

RR is essentially a useful industry snapshot, a guide for listeners at least in part.
But this was [shudder] a Tom Service type witter " ooh, shall we play some music before I talk some more in a prog meant to be for listening to / evaluating music..."??
i.e. the RR part was more or less obliterated to make way for something utterly NOT what the schedule enshrines. There is on;y ONE R3 prog devoted to evaluation per se. There are a any number of other comment / let's have a cuppa bits of carp, so they take the ONLY Review specific prog off the network and schedule something totally NOT Review under its banner.

Yuk.