Howard Goodall on BBC Two

[MrGongGong]

Radio 3 this morning was trailing his TV series as "a personal view": but how is a general audience to differentiate between Goodall's opinions and actuality? I remember Stephen Fry's Wagner documentary a year or so back which was also made from a very personal standpoint but which nonetheless managed to be entirely fair and clear in its presentation of different attitudes and opinions. OK, Fry had more time (and started from a far more positive attitude to his subject) but the contrast with Goodall's programme was very marked.

Bert

The answer (again) is to read this

http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511627309&cid=CBO9780511627309A010

[french frank]

Quote Originally Posted by Bert Coules View Post
Radio 3 this morning was trailing his TV series as "a personal view": but how is a general audience to differentiate between Goodall's opinions and actuality?

The answer (again) is to read this

http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter....0511627309A010

Given the select band that watches the programme (w/c 10 Feb - and I still don't see it in BBC Two's Top 30), they may well be inclined to wonder about the universal validity of Mr G's comments and to shell out the £19.50 in order to study this work and formulate some conclusions of their own.

[MrGongGong]

I wasn't being entirely serious
BUT
Dahlhaus does have some interesting things to say about what constitutes "music history"

[french frank]

I wasn't being entirely serious

Nor was I

BUT
Dahlhaus does have some interesting things to say about what constitutes "music history"

Solid commonsense? Contemporary revisionism? Leaps of penetrating insight? Stimulating controversialism?

[MrGongGong]

There a quite a few fanatics amongst Wagnerians though ! Far from all however.

No Sh*t Sherlock

I've heard that there are some strange people involved in electroacoustic music as well

[Serial_Apologist]

Mr Goodall well and truly wrote off atonalism/serialism tonight, didn't he!.

And by the way someone should tap him on the shoulder and tell him they are NOT the same thing.

It was nice to know I am NOT a normal membr of the listening public, too.

From the preamble it looks like next week's final programme will be summed up in that well-known phrase, "died not with a bang, but with a whimper".

[MrGongGong]

Mr Goodall well and truly wrote off atonalism/serialism tonight, didn't he!.

I think you might have put me off watching it
He didn't do the "serialism is a dead end" routine surely not ?

[Serial_Apologist]

I think you might have put me off watching it
He didn't do the "serialism is a dead end" routine surely not ?

Not exactly GG. What a supercilious presenter he is! The programme was too full of inaccuracies/half truths to be worth listing.

I do think it's worth your watching - if only to bear witness to the expensive crap about music the British public is being fed.

[french frank]

It'll be good to get more comments on this. Opinion seems to have shifted since the start of the series when a few people said how much they enjoyed it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

OK. I enjoyed it - every programme. To cover so much ground within such a short time-slot was remarkable. Of course he could only cover a tiny fraction of musical history, but we should regard the pot as half full...

[Barbirollians]

No Sh*t Sherlock

I've heard that there are some strange people involved in electroacoustic music as well

Mr GG - a trip to the Royal Opera House whenever a Wagner opera is being presented is always very illuminating - the fanatics quotient in the audience goes through the roof.

[Pabmusic]

OK. I enjoyed it - every programme. To cover so much ground within such a short time-slot was remarkable. Of course he could only cover a tiny fraction of musical history, but we should regard the pot as half full...

I quite agree. His overview of Western musical history was very well done and very enjoyable, as was his earlier series, Big Bangs.

[Mr Pee]

I think you might have put me off watching it
He didn't do the "serialism is a dead end" routine surely not ?

I think most people who know anything much about music have long since accepted that serialism has indeed proved to be a dead end, barring the above-mentioned fanatics.

And if you never watch anything that you disagree with, MrGG, then you'll never learn.

[MrGongGong]

I think most people who know anything much about music have long since accepted that serialism has indeed proved to be a dead end, barring the above-mentioned fanatics.

Absolute rubbish i'm afraid

Serial technique and modified serial processes are what ALL composers since have been influenced by and use in various ways.
The IDEA (I know you struggle with this at times) that one can treat musical elements as material for manipulation in systematic ways and then accept or reject the results based on aesthetic criteria has been one of the primary driving mechanisms in music in the last 100 years.

But I'm tired of the ignorant "serialism is a dead end because I don't like what it sometimes sounds like" pseudo argument.....

Brubeck ?

I probably will watch it because it's got some of my mates playing on it.

[Pabmusic]

Absolute rubbish i'm afraid

Serial technique and modified serial processes are what ALL composers since have been influenced by and use in various ways...

Are you serious? Whilst I agree with you that serialism added another approach to the composer's toolbox, you'd have to be extremely picky about who you class as a 'composer' before you could say they've all been influenced by serialism. And as for all composers using modified serial techniques...