Christopher Hogwood has died

[Alain Maréchal]

I was hoping "The programme is available for the next four weeks" might prompt some reflection by Radio 3.

[Bryn]

I was hoping "The programme is available for the next four weeks" might prompt some reflection by Radio 3.

Four weeks availability is indeed an attractive feature of the facility. However, 128kbps mp3 bears no comparison to BBC Radio 3's 320kbps aac.

[Alain Maréchal]

128kbps mp3 bears no comparison to BBC Radio 3's 320kbps aac.

I'll accept your assurance for that, but could one hear those particular CH performances elsewhere in better sound? I heard them on the car radio during a long drive, and even at that quality they were very welcome.

[Bryn]

I'll accept your assurance for that, but could one hear those particular CH performances elsewhere in better sound? I heard them on the car radio during a long drive, and even at that quality they were very welcome.

Fair point, and there is also the fact the Radio 3 320kbps aac offering is only available to UK based Internet users. In France I think you have to make do with something closer to 56kbps HE-AAC, and quite possibly in mono only.

[hafod]

There is a letter concerning CH in today's Graun deserving a much wider exposure:

"Christopher Hogwood (Obituary, 24 September) was not only an early musician but also an early activist against piped music. A model to us all, he would carry and occasionally bring into play a small pair of wire-cutters. Once, in a Cambridge restaurant, he asked if the inevitable Vivaldi might at least be turned down. As the waiter went off to attend to the request, a diner at the next table leant over and murmured sympathetically “We’re not musical either.”

[amateur51]

There is a letter concerning CH in today's Graun deserving a much wider exposure:

"Christopher Hogwood (Obituary, 24 September) was not only an early musician but also an early activist against piped music. A model to us all, he would carry and occasionally bring into play a small pair of wire-cutters. Once, in a Cambridge restaurant, he asked if the inevitable Vivaldi might at least be turned down. As the waiter went off to attend to the request, a diner at the next table leant over and murmured sympathetically “We’re not musical either.”

[kernelbogey]

James Jolly included an hour of CH recordings in his Sunday Morning show today (19 Oct, 1000 - 1100) which CH fans might enjoy. I had time only to listen with care to one item, the Mozart D minor piano concerto K466 with Robert Levin as soloist on a modern reproduction fortepiano and CH conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

I had recently heard Levin live with the BSO in LvB Piano Concerto No 1, and had to ask a member of the orchestra in the interval about the cadenzas, which I hadn't known would be improvised. Levin improvises in the Mozart, and, as Jolly remarked, the first movement cadenza is particularly fine. I found the rather 'big band' sound of the OAE a bit of an uncomfortable contrast with the fortepiano, which would nowadays, I guess, be differently balanced,