Saw the visual lof this talk and what an analyser SJ is! Pulls apart this work like Sherlock Holmes. And that picture of this big wave etc! Let's you into the music like nothing before, or since the days of Anthony Hopkins!
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Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750 -
Yes, it was an excellent programme, like previous ones I have heard recently on Falla, Szymanowski and Lutoslawski. Quality broadcasting - intelligent, thought-provoking, well-presented. Let's hope it doesn't disappear in the let's-make-R3-even-more-cuddly shake-up post-Proms.
There was another good series some 15 - 20 years ago - 'Listening to...' - presented by (I think) Alan Hall. I taped a few of those and was listening to the one on Boulez just last year - a similar style, and, like SJ, with no gimmicks.
What is R3 for? someone asked in another thread. Precisely this, at least in part. When it ties in with another piece of broadcasting (ie the Prom last night) we have another layer of excellence - co-ordinated scheduling. Miles away from Essential All-Day-Breakfast Drive-Time Classics. -
Sorry, missed flagging up this one - it was the change to Saturday!
Moving it to the Discovering Music messageboard.
"Stephen Johnson examines the music and background to Debussy's La Mer with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tito Ceccherini and the South Bank Gamelan Players.
This programme has been filmed for a visualisation on the Radio 3 website. Debussy's La Mer is featured in the 2011 Proms on 29th July."It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Yes, this sort of informative music education is the great yawning hole
in R3..there are all sorts of interesting approaches to music waiting
to be explored and the BBC fails to engage with them. Has anyone, for
example, broadcast a programme about Wagner's music theory or operatic sources in libretti or the kind of discussion we find in Charles Rosen's books? Instead we have Breakfast-time Charlies playing dull metronomic performances of Beethoven by second-class orchestras and presenters who can't cope with foreign language pronunciation...even if they manage French their German is appalling. The bright star in the midst of all this OMHO is Catherine Bott...a superb, intelligent presenter. Apologies for this mini-diatribe...Comment
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Out of interest / pure speculation does any-one know whether Discovering Music is going to survive the "reshuffle" in September? I think Stephen Johnson is an excellent, intelligent, unpatronising guide and presenter. Likewise will John Shea and Jonathan Swain ever be freed from TtN and be allowed to see the light of day? These imho are first rate presenters who know their onions and should be counted as major assets of Radio 3.
Best Wishes,
Tevot
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