The Joy of Mozart BBC4

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's not that I would grumble about a TV prog. about Mozart, but why another TV prog. about Mozart?

Well - it is eleven years since the last one!

More appropriate grumbles might perhaps be "why hasn't there been a TV prog on Mozart for eleven years?" and "Why aren't there regular TV progs on Beethoven/Berlioz/Webern/Dunstable/Monteverdi/Ferneyhough/Schumann/Mussorgsky/Machaut" etc etc etc?

[french frank]

Well - it is eleven years since the last one!

More appropriate grumbles might perhaps be "why hasn't there been a TV prog on Mozart for eleven years?" and "Why aren't there regular TV progs on Beethoven/Berlioz/Webern/Dunstable/Monteverdi/Ferneyhough/Schumann/Mussorgsky/Machaut" etc etc etc?

But if there are only going to be one or two(?) classical programmes in 11 years, the 'grumble' (query!) still stands.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But if there are only going to be one or two(?) classical programmes in 11 years, the 'grumble' (query!) still stands.

Well, there have been more than that - the Simon Russell-Beale series, the Collingwood and Goodall programmes, the Bridcut films ... Prince Charles & Parry!

[french frank]

Well, there have been more than that - the Simon Russell-Beale series, the Collingwood and Goodall programmes, the Bridcut films ... Prince Charles & Parry!

True, though not quite enough to run through all the major composers: in fact, that's Britten and Parry ... :-)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Haven't there also been 90 minute documentaries on Elgar and RVW? (And Ferrier?) And Handel, Haydn & Mendelssohn got a programme each in the "British Music" series.

Still nowt on Beethoven/Berlioz/Webern/Dunstable/Monteverdi/Ferneyhough/Schumann/Mussorgsky/Machaut, though!

[french frank]

Haven't there also been 90 minute documentaries on Elgar and RVW? (And Ferrier?)

I dunno. Television, isn't it...

And Handel, Haydn & Mendelssohn got a programme each in the "British Music" series.

Good gracious! A whole programme? I know Handel was an adopted Englishman - but Haydn and Meddlesome? Why not Mozart?

[Still nowt on Beethoven/Berlioz/Webern/Dunstable/Monteverdi/Ferneyhough/Schumann/Mussorgsky/Machaut, though!

Well, this is it, isn't it? :-)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I dunno. Television, isn't it...

Ah, yes - I had forgotten.

Good gracious! A whole programme? I know Handel was an adopted Englishman - but Haydn and Meddlesome? Why not Mozart?

It was (IIRC) a Collingwood series on Music in England after Purcell and before the Twentieth Century, and focussed on composers with a "reputation" who wrote significant work for British audiences. Presumably Mozart wasn't considered a "significant reputation" whilst here?

Well, this is it, isn't it? :-)

It most coitennly is, Stanley.

(If anyone from W1A is reading this, I could rustle up a script on three or four of those in a fortnight for a small fee ... )

[french frank]

It was (IIRC) a Collingwood series on Music in England after Purcell and before the Twentieth Century, and focussed on composers with a "reputation" who wrote significant work for British audiences. Presumably Mozart wasn't considered a "significant reputation" whilst here?

He had not then reached his full potential :-) [Though he was not entirely unknown. This is something I knew of but had not read (unless it was in Deutsch and I'd forgotten) - the 1770 account by Daines Barrington of the boy's London visit.

Added to the mythology, I suppose, and to be ignored - but still interesting

[jean]

[Interesting spelling of the town of his birth - Saltsbourg. Was that to help English speakers get the pronunciation right?]

[ardcarp]

I feel slightly sorry for Tom Service. I don't know if this was his first major 'outing' on TV, but one can just imagine the preliminaries to it all. Put yourself in his place. The Beeb offers you the chance to present a film on a popular musical subject. Well, you wouldn't pass that up would you? But then you find that, rather than being in charge, you are required to fulfil all the current fashionable criteria such as being filmed in front of Famour Locations, in front of Famous People, doing a lot of Talking and Walking and generally appearing to be the First Person to discover Something Remarkable. Worse, after all the hours, days and weeks of filming, you find the producer has edited everything into annoyingly disjointed chunks which miss the point you were trying to ake.

Well, it could have been like that. OTOH, he might have been complicit in the whole ego-trippy, shallow confection.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I feel slightly sorry for Tom Service. I don't know if this was his first major 'outing' on TV, but one can just imagine the preliminaries to it all. Put yourself in his place. The Beeb offers you the chance to present a film on a popular musical subject. Well, you wouldn't pass that up would you? But then you find that, rather than being in charge, you are required to fulfil all the current fashionable criteria such as being filmed in front of Famour Locations, in front of Famous People, doing a lot of Talking and Walking and generally appearing to be the First Person to discover Something Remarkable. Worse, after all the hours, days and weeks of filming, you find the producer has edited everything into annoyingly disjointed chunks which miss the point you were trying to ake.

Well, it could have been like that. OTOH, he might have been complicit in the whole ego-trippy, shallow confection.

Much food for thought here.

[ardcarp]

I've just looked in Radio Times, and it's on BBC4 again tonight. Milking it a bit aren't they?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just looked in Radio Times, and it's on BBC4 again tonight. Milking it a bit aren't they?

BBC4 does contain rather a lot of repeats.

[Nick Armstrong]

BBC4 does contain rather a lot of repeats.

Yes loads - but if only there were more but different... I wish they'd dig out more from their archive of Proms concerts!!! There's a repeated little set of half hour concertos that get wheeled out at 7pm occasionally (Julian Bliss Mozart Clarinet etc etc), but what about all those Proms in their entirety? I wish they'd repeat Prom 48 from 2007 for example http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/s...ugust-19/12869 .... but presumably rights costs are behind the woeful underuse of that archive. Would they have to pay a stack of cash to the Sistema foundation plus a load to the Shostakovich and Bernstein estates for the privilege, one wonders...

[teamsaint]

Yes loads - but if only there were more but different... I wish they'd dig out more from their archive of Proms concerts!!! There's a repeated little set of half hour concertos that get wheeled out at 7pm occasionally (Julian Bliss Mozart Clarinet etc etc), but what about all those Proms in their entirety? I wish they'd repeat Prom 48 from 2007 for example http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/s...ugust-19/12869 .... but presumably rights costs are behind the woeful underuse of that archive. Would they have to pay a stack of cash to the Sistema foundation plus a load to the Shostakovich and Bernstein estates for the privilege, one wonders...

Its hard to imagine that it wouldn't make quite cheap , ( and improving!) television, even with some rights payments.
Perhaps appearance fees have to be re negotiated, which can no doubt be time consuming and tricky.

I seem to recall hearing that a standard BBC contract for drama , back in the day, allowed for two airings , after which everything had to be renegotiated.