BaL 15.06.19 - Elgar: Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

With respect who is Roderic Dunnett ?

Who Dunnett?, indeed.

[Tony Halstead]

Who Dunnett?, indeed.

[Mal]

With respect who is Roderic Dunnett ? A man either with a duff pressing or cloth ears.

I googled him:

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/roderic-dunnett-17907862

He seems expert enough to be taken at face value. Anyway, the love for Bean in this thread puts him on my "don't dismiss" list... but only equal fourth place on my "maybe buy" list...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Many, many thanks again to Mal for his marvellous resumé in #44.

[Mal]

Who Dunnett?, indeed.

A: Roderic Dunnett.
B: Roderick Who?
A: Not Roderick Who, Roderick Dunnett!
B: Which Roderick?
A: He's a music reviewer, not a witch.
B: Who had bad reviews by him?
A: Hugh Bean had.
B: Yes, I know, given the state of the music industry, I'm always being had; but stop changing the subject, what's Roderick's surname?
A: Cloth ears!
B: Roderick Clothears? Wasn't he at Eton?
A: He was sent to Coventry.
B: Well he should write kinder reviews...

[verismissimo]

… Wasn't he at Eton?
...

Uppingham!

[Mal]

Uppingham!

Preceded by a prep school: "There is a dearth of info about about Carn Breans (as they were called) on the web, and this possibly needs to be corrected..." Love the "possibly", .

[ardcarp]

Not knowing the work at all, I’ve just listened to Nige, and am astonished by just how wonderful and sensitive his violin playing is. I know we’re not short of top class violinists at the moment, but he could surely have been one of them, had he made different life decisions. Peter Pettinger is very much willing to play second, er, fiddle, but this is a very successful recording, with sufficient space around the instruments to give some idea of the Bloomsbury church acoustic.

'Nige', regardless of his life-decisions (good for him) is an amazing player. I've never heard anyone surpass his RVW Lark Ascending for instance (Kennedy/Rattle,CBSO). In yesterday's BAL, I sometimes felt that the balance between piano/violin was a tad tilted towards the piano in the 'winning' version...but then we only heard snippets, and I'm sure hawk-eared DON would have mentioned it had this been a big problem.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Many, many thanks again to Mal for his marvellous resumé in #44.

[gurnemanz]

'Nige', regardless of his life-decisions (good for him) is an amazing player. I've never heard anyone surpass his RVW Lark Ascending for instance (Kennedy/Rattle,CBSO). In yesterday's BAL, I sometimes felt that the balance between piano/violin was a tad tilted towards the piano in the 'winning' version...but then we only heard snippets, and I'm sure hawk-eared DON would have mentioned it had this been a big problem.

And of course the above-discussed Hugh Bean also gave us a fine Lark with Boult and the New Philharmonia.

[Dave2002]

Does anyone know why this was? Physical problems? Anxiety?

I believe arthritis might have played a part. Perhaps also the lack of really good technical training earlier on, which has been mentioned, was also a factor. I heard him twice live. Once at a distance, from outside the building, when he was rehearsing Beethoven's violin concerto. Sounded OK. The other occasion was when he played two concertos - Mendelssohn - very slow and not really very good, followed by Elgar's which was sublime.

Apart from the "issues" mentioned, perhaps he just also had "off" days, or "off" pieces, like the rest of us.

Doesn't stop my overall admiration for him as a musician and as a human being.

[Master Jacques]

With respect who is Roderic Dunnett ? A man either with a duff pressing or cloth ears.

Roderic Dunnett
Journalist, Writer and Broadcaster (Self-Employed)
June 1989 – Present 30 years 1 month
Music/Theatre/Opera Reviewer, BBC Radio 3; Presenter, programmes on 19th/20th Century British Opera & Polish, Czech, Hungarian Opera. Presenter of R3 Composer of the Week (Edmund Rubbra, Oscar-winning film composer Miklós Rózsa), Proms Interval talks (Austrian romantic Franz Schmidt), BBC Archive (Alvar Lidell). Writer, BBC Proms brochure: Music and Greek Myth; music lecture draft (same subject) for Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Swan Hellenic Cruises. Lecturer for Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Chamber Music Society, Birmingham Fest Choral Society. Reviewer, The Stage, Opera Mag, Opera Now, Opera News, Music & Vision, BBC Radio 3 Breakfast, Seen & Heard International, Behind The Arras, Exeunt. Ten years as music and opera reviewer for The Independent (three as acting chief opera critic), reviewing in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, York, Leeds, Lichfield, Derby, Nottingham, Cardiff, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Carlisle, Brighton, Winchester, Exeter, Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford, Truro, Londonderry, and abroad: Montpellier, Brussels, Antwerp, Gent, Cologne, Munich, Copenhagen, Tallinn, Frankfurt, Dresden, Leipzig, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Istanbul etc. Feature and preview writing including Glyndebourne, Garsington, Grange Park, Buxton and Wexford. Chief music critic for the Church Times since 1989 covering UK Cathedrals including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Record reviewing for BBC Music Magazine, The Strad, Choir & Organ. Books on Dvorak and Debussy, chapters and talks on Dvorak, Bliss, Britten, Tippett, J.B.Priestley, Szymanowski, Peter Maxwell Davies. First World War specialist, Somme, Loos, Messines and Ypres. Founder committee member, the Ivor Gurney Society. Founding Trustee, Wild Camel Protection Foundation (WCPF). Editor and factual specialist, the James Caird Society, editing the website preserving the memory of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his Antarctic crew and exploits.

1971-86 Classics Master, latterly Head of Classics Department, King Henry VIII School, Coventry.
1986-9 Writer and Hockey Administrator, Midland and England Schools (coordinated/assisted to 1994). 1989-present Music & Arts Reviewer, Feature Writer The Independent, The Church Times, New Statesman, Spectator, The Oldie, Opera Magazine, The Arts Desk, Times Educational, Times Higher, Metro, BBC Music Magazine, BBC Radio 3, The Stage, Opera Now, Opera News, The Strad, The Singer, Classical Music, Early Music Today, Music Teacher, International Piano, Choir & Organ, Cathedral Music, Jewish Chronicle, Music & Vision, Seen & Heard Inteernational, Behind the Arras, Exeunt, My Asian Planet.
Hockey and Tennis, Master 1971, Head of Boys Hockey 1972-86. Training courses, Loughborough Colleges and Lilleshall National Sports Centre. Joint founder (with GM) of KHVIII U16, U15 and U14 teams, 1973, plus Coventry Schoolboys' U14. Secretary, CSHA 1974, County status from ESHA 1977, CSCHA 1977-86. Secretary MCSHA 1978-83. Founder and coordinator, Inter-Regional Cup, 1981, based in Coventry and Birmingham and formally adopted as English Schoolboys Championships 1987 - subsequently (1994) the H.A.Youth Cup, based initially in Milton Keynes. Retired from coordinating/assisting Hockey and Youth Cup management 1994. Restored as Coventry School Hockey reunions from 2013.

Acting Head of Classics, Teacher of Ancient History, Greek and Latin, English and (sometimes) Music,
King Henry VIII School, Coventry

September 1971 – April 1986 14 years 8 months
Greece-Italy Trip 1976/7 to Athens, Marathon, Plataea, Salamis, Delphi, Corinth, Tiryns, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Mykonos, Delos, Ios, Thera/Santorini, Iraklion, Cnossos, Phaestos, Pompeii, Rome, Florence, Milan. Nominal leader: RD. Real leader: Simon Whiteley.

[Goon525]

'Nige', regardless of his life-decisions (good for him) is an amazing player. I've never heard anyone surpass his RVW Lark Ascending for instance (Kennedy/Rattle,CBSO). In yesterday's BAL, I sometimes felt that the balance between piano/violin was a tad tilted towards the piano in the 'winning' version...but then we only heard snippets, and I'm sure hawk-eared DON would have mentioned it had this been a big problem.

I didn’t feel that the balance was tilted towards the piano. Seemed about right to me.

[Nick Armstrong]

They can put DON on at least once a month for me. I learn more from him in 5 minutes than I do from many others in half an hour. And he does it in ways that actually work, eg comparing different performances of the same passage, flagging elements up before playing the excerpt, and also a good mix of his forensic technical approach with some nice descriptive language. All on top of trying to take us into the composers mindset.
Top stuff.

(But I did so wish AMcG would shut up and stop spoiling the flow)

[Tony Halstead]

(But I did so wish AMcG would shut up and stop spoiling the flow)

Absolutely agreed!