I have seen the future ...

[french frank]

Just when the BBC view of the Classical Brits makes you want to slink under a hedge and die...

... the cavalry rides in.

There's too much of Paul Morley's review I'd like to copy, so I'll make do with two sentences:

"This was a marshmallow hybrid of the gentlest easy listening and soft, airbrushed classical that back in the 20th century, when there were still solidly maintained and progressively idealistic critical standards, would have been viewed as at best ersatz and at worse moderately sinister. It was, for something intending to update and modernise a world viewed as over formal, antique and elitist, extremely old fashioned, with an allergic resistance to anything original, genuinely sensual and surprising."

[Pianorak]

Just one more sentence . . .

For ITV, this is the Arts. For the sane rest of us, it is the pimped end of the pier. The ceremony was the bewildered, if sparkly love child, of the Eurovision song contest and the Last Night of the Proms, with somehow a dash of the 1970s Miss World, Brucie’s Strictly Come Dancing, and William and Kate’s wedding.

[teamsaint]

Paul Morley is a shrewd guy, and a good writer, though I sometime find his "angles" a bit irritating.
But its good to see this kind of nonsense shown up by an intelligent commentator for what it is.

I can't say I ever envisaged the day when Morley would be the champion of classical music, but then again, he always did take his music seriously.

[BBMmk2]

Classic FM have never done true classical music any justice! Katherine Jenkins has said that she is an opera singer! Has she been in any productions at ROH Covent Garden or even ENO? I think not! Rusell Watson, Alfie Boe, GAWD!!!!

[MrGongGong]

What I (and several other folk ) am slightly puzzled by is how there is a prize for
"Single of the year" ???

So that's first prize in a race with erm ............. how many others ?

[BBMmk2]

I do not call that 'classical music' per se.

[french frank]

What I (and several other folk ) am slightly puzzled by is how there is a prize for
"Single of the year" ???

So that's first prize in a race with erm ............. how many others ?

Award invented to give the Military Wives a bit more publicity and sell more copies, I suppose, since the whole shemozzle is organised by the BPI.

The crossover stuff is equidistant between classical and pop; and has as much to do with classical music as it has with the pop charts (there are just one or two serious artists who get honoured each year to give an impression of respectability, and if it helps to raise their profile in the 'outside world' , so much the better).

It's just sickening that the BBC buys into the 'making classical music more accessible'/'taking classical music out of the dusty auditoriums' spiel. Sickening but not surprising ...

[Osborn]

Just when the BBC view of the Classical Brits...

They are the Classic Brits Awards & the BBC headline is wrong. Ugly name but IMO acceptable because you can have:
Classic British Motor Car Awards (Mini, Jensen, Riley etc)
Classic British Dinner Awards (Shepherds Pie, Toad in the Hole, Beans on Toast etc)
Classic British Jokes Awards (Did you hear the one...)

OK it's all a bit silly but noone, let alone classical music got hurt & a lot of people will have enjoyed looking at the frocks etc.

Brassbandmaestro
Katherine Jenkins has said that she is an opera singer! Has she been in any productions at ROH Covent Garden or even ENO? I think not! Rusell [sic] Watson, Alfie Boe, GAWD!

Where & when did she say that? Go on, please tell us; show you're telling the truth.

Only a miniscule proportion of singers have an opportunity to perform at the ROH or even [!] the ENO. And Alfie Boe doesn't deserve supercilious contempt; he has performed at both.

[BBMmk2]

I saw it written on these boards somewhere

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

At last: the Classic Brit Awards exposed as a sickening crime against classical music

[MrGongGong]

At last: the Classic Brit Awards exposed as a sickening crime against classical music

Excellent stuff and i'm expecting some interesting writing from the music students i've forwarded it to

[IRF]

Katherine Jenkins has said that she is an opera singer!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7414952.stm

The Classical Brit-winning artist told the opening night of the Hay Festival she never claimed to be an opera star.

...

The singer, who is now 27, added: "I really, really want to go into opera and I am still studying behind the scenes."

[Anna]

Whoever it was on Breakfast yesterday had some tweets about Leona Lewis taking a year out to become an opera singer .....!!

[amateur51]

Another quotation from that 2008 Katherine Jenkins piece:

"Jenkins admitted she got "annoyed" when she came under criticism for her style of singing, such as when Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's described her as an 'opera fake' earlier this year.

But she said: "I have always set myself as 30 the time to go into opera."

Well she's now 31 and I haven't seen any moves from her in the operatic direction.

I could be wrong of course.

But I doubt that Dame Kiri is - fancy getting a Geoffrey Howe dead sheep moment from Dame Kiri

[Suffolkcoastal]

What really got me angry was the comments on the article on the website, accusing those trying defend classical music from such drivel, as being snobbish and elitist. Those of us who really care about classical music have a right to defend the music we love from this repulsive and sickening downgrading. I wonder how many of those crying elitism would react if the music they loved was treated in the same manner. I bet they'd be just as outraged and protesting, but of course that wouldn't be regarded as elitist then I bet!