André Previn's Music Night

[french frank]

Does anyone have any recordings of these BBC television programmes?

Sample, with Martha Argerich and the LSO playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 3

https://vimeo.com/45113423 (1977).

[Add]: From Wikipedia:

In 1971 John Culshaw of BBC television commissioned "André Previn's Music Night", bringing classical music to a large new audience. Previn would talk informally direct to camera and then turn and conduct the LSO, whose members were dressed in casual sweaters or shirts rather than formal evening clothes.[90] The programme attracted unprecedented viewing figures for classical music; [Richard] Morrison writes, "More British people heard the LSO play in Music Night in one week than in sixty-five years of LSO concerts."

[Nick Armstrong]

Does anyone have any recordings of these BBC television programmes?

Sample, with Martha Argerich and the LSO playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 3

https://vimeo.com/45113423 (1977).

WOW! Magical to see this again!!! Thanks ff

[BBMmk2]

WOW! Magical to see this again!!! Thanks ff

Brings back fond memories indeed. I also remember a programme he did I think, was of Shosta's 8th?

[french frank]

Yes - talk about No Gimmicks :-) . Someone is after recordings or clips (preferably whole programmes), if anyone happens to have anything …

[pastoralguy]

These programmes were my introduction to classical music and I remember recording the Prokofiev program by dangling a microphone in front of the TV set! Both the third piano concerto and the Lieutenant Kije have been released on commercial DVDs which are available on Amazon. The one with the Prokofiev 3rd concerto is called 'A celebration of Martha Argerich'.

Just as magical after nearly 40 years!

[Ferretfancy]

I remember these programmes with great pleasure, and little before the Andre Previn programmes there were programmes featuring Bernard Keefe. He used to deconstruct a well known piece, Beethoven 7 for example, put it together again, and give a complete performance with the BBC SO.
These appearances were a little more straight faced than Previn, but it would be nice if any survived.

Unfortunately these were the days of film telerecording, and the BBC archives at Brentford were full to the brim. There was a pretty indiscriminate purge at the end of the 1970s and masses of historic material was junked.

[french frank]

I remember recording the Prokofiev program by dangling a microphone in front of the TV set!

Yes, we used to record like that. All our recordings enhanced by the sound of the grandfather clock chiming every 15 minutes.

[pastoralguy]

Yes, we used to record like that. All our recordings enhanced by the sound of the grandfather clock chiming every 15 minutes.

[Nick Armstrong]

And lest we forget: the Leonard Bernstein Harvard lectures all on youtube - another example of high grade 1970s musical 'sharing'

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

When recording from the TV, how did one eliminate the high-pitched squeal (15,625 KHz?) emitted by the picture on cathode ray screens? Many home microphones didn't even reach that frequency, but some did.

That said, I was one of the few people I knew who could actually hear it.

[Ferretfancy]

When recording from the TV, how did one eliminate the high-pitched squeal (15,625 KHz?) emitted by the picture on cathode ray screens? Many home microphones didn't even reach that frequency, but some did.

That said, I was one of the few people I knew who could actually hear it.

I once bought a small device which could be clipped to the back of the TV which picked up the sound component of the TV signal so that you could record from it or listen on headphones. It did work, but it was fiddly to position properly for a decent signal. Those were great days for audio gadgets that ended up in the back of a cupboard!