Debbie Wiseman talks utter guff about "classical music" on the Today programme.

[Ein Heldenleben]

My 'source' is Paul Vaughan whose entertaining and delightfully named autobiographies 'Something in Linoleum' and 'Exciting Times in the Accounts Department' will brighten almost any day.

So Paul (he of the mellifluous voiceover ) thought it was J de M ? I’d always heard it was Peter West ..the only way is to track down the clip…

[Old Grumpy]

Who on earth is Debbie Wiseman? Is she important? Should I have heard of her?

Classic FM composer in residence, apparently https://www.classicfm.com/composers/...in%20Residence.


As I discovered yesterday evening when listening to Classic FM on a long car journey South*


*Oops - too much information...


...I'll probably be excommunicated!

[EnemyoftheStoat]

As I discovered yesterday evening when listening to Classic FM on a long car journey South...

I pity those areas where radio reception is that bad!

[ardcarp]

I've only just stumbled upon this thread. I've no idea what stuff (or guff) she was talking on Radio 4. However, she is a a very talented musician, able to turn her composing mind to any sort of theatre music, film music or whatever project she is faced with, Maybe she could be describes as 'a jobbing composer' i.e. no head in a fashionably art-music cloud, but producing exactly what is needed for the purpose. And she does it quickly and easily I gather. I don't see any reason to respect her any the less for that.

Can't comment on her verbal performances though!

[RichardB]

' i.e. no head in a fashionably art-music cloud

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

[Ein Heldenleben]

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

The art-music cloud Sounds like the sort of cloud I want to be in …
The irony of it all is that some film , tv and tv library music composers now make a fortune - they all seem to live in manor houses in the Westcountry. And that fortune is made by endlessly reworking classical / pop tropes that are often as old as Vivaldi.
Good luck to them . I wish I could chain myself to Sibelius and join them.

But don’t pretend it’s Art , ducky ….

[Serial_Apologist]

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Probably stratiform, since some seem to be levelling down.

[Joseph K]

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Indeed. It's the use of the word 'fashionable' which I don't get.

[gradus]

To me she seems pretty well qualified to pontificate on music and it seems extremely unlikely that the RCM would appoint her as a visiting professor if some of the comments about her on here were true. Of course we don't have to accept her views but neither should we denigrate her.

[Joseph K]

To me she seems pretty well qualified to pontificate on music and it seems extremely unlikely that the RCM would appoint her as a visiting professor if some of the comments about her on here were true. Of course we don't have to accept her views but neither should we denigrate her.

Perhaps it is the very fact that she ought to know better that makes her irritating.

[Bryn]

Perhaps it is the very fact that she ought to know better that makes her irritating.

Quite!

[RichardB]

To me she seems pretty well qualified to pontificate on music and it seems extremely unlikely that the RCM would appoint her as a visiting professor if some of the comments about her on here were true. Of course we don't have to accept her views but neither should we denigrate her.

The question isn't whether she's "qualified" to pontificate, but, as the thread title says, whether she was talking "utter guff". If her head were an inhabitant of the "fashionable art music cloud" and she said the same thing it would be no more nor less wrong and misleading.

[HighlandDougie]

The art-music cloud Sounds like the sort of cloud I want to be in …
The irony of it all is that some film , tv and tv library music composers now make a fortune - they all seem to live in manor houses in the Westcountry. And that fortune is made by endlessly reworking classical / pop tropes that are often as old as Vivaldi.
Good luck to them . I wish I could chain myself to Sibelius and join them.

But don’t pretend it’s Art , ducky ….

I also have no idea who Ms Wiseman might be but the above is worthy of Saint Jonathan (Meades). Anyway, it made me smile on a day when bloody Omicron has descended on the now-plague house in Scotland.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I also have no idea who Ms Wiseman might be but the above is worthy of Saint Jonathan (Meades). Anyway, it made me smile on a day when bloody Omicron has descended on the now-plague house in Scotland.

I am flattered by but don’t merit the comparison. The greatest prose stylist of his (Fleet Street ) generation?
Sorry to hear about the omicron - hope it stays mild …

[cloughie]

To me she seems pretty well qualified to pontificate on music and it seems extremely unlikely that the RCM would appoint her as a visiting professor if some of the comments about her on here were true. Of course we don't have to accept her views but neither should we denigrate her.

I think that most of us on the forum are ‘qualified’ to pontificate on music even if it is only because we have listened to more of it in many genres over a fairly long time. There does, however, seem something missing from her musical knowledge.