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Well, I hope it's better (it couldn't be much worse!) than the site opening "blurb":
The first episode looks at the shift in the language and sound of music from the beautiful melodies and harmonies of the giants of classical music such as Mozart (he of the "too many notes"?) , Haydn and Brahms ("that talentless bastard"? according to Tchaikovsky) into the fragmented, abstract, discordant sound of the most radical composers of the new century - Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky and beyond.
Schönberg "fragmented"? "abstract"? And who, at the beginning of the Century went "beyond" Arnie, Tony, and Iggy?
This makes it sound as if the series is just going to trapse out the same old (same, old) clichés - "Classical" Music = "beautiful"; 20thCentury = "nasty".[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT] -
I shall be watching without prejudice.
I expect I may have heard "Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky and beyond." but I can't be sure.Comment
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The Sound and the Fury: a Century of Music.
New Series 1/3 on BBC4 at 9pm tonight.
Exploring the changes in classical music during the 20th century, as composers such as Schoenberg and Stravinsky challenged audiences with radically different sounds.Comment
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Originally posted by salymap View Post
Oh! Thank you for the reminder, saly
And I've found that tonight on the BBC red button (on my Freeview it's Channel 301) from 21.55 to 5am (! ... presumably repeated on a loop) will be the following:
"Full performance footage from the latest episode of the documentary, featuring music from Charles Ives, Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg"
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Will there be features linked to it on Radio 3?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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I missed it as I was making a rather large heap of pancakes
but did have a question asked from the front room
"who on earth is the idiot called Whitacre who is going on about how ugly Schoenberg's music is ?"
can't waitComment
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found it rather good, Bartok Prokofiev etc must be later ... but we got to Gershwin .... rather 'if it's Tuesday it must be NY' but that happens when too much is crammed into an hour ... more music would not have gone amiss and more contemporary reactions rather than talking heads with asymmetric hair ...According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.Comment
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Very American? Or am I being biased?Comment
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I thought so, too. It was very like a television version of The Rest is Noise. I don't think they mentioned Copland, but I suppose he wasn't avant-garde, so perhaps he doesn't count - except neither was Gershwin and there was plenty about him.Originally posted by DracoM View PostComment
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I enjoyed this quite a lot and it made me want to see the next part.
But who is Alex Ross? I've read his book The Rest Is Noise but he is not an engratiating TV presence whereas I thought that George Benjamin was a real find and MTT wasn't far behind. The things that John Adams had to say about Schoenberg made me fear for any further contributions that he has to make, as well. And Eric Whitacre was very ... inconsequential
Very American as others have said - did the 2Oth century not happen in Europe/UK after WWII ?
A fair start then but I'd have preferred it if they had re-shown Rattle's Leaving Home series with some up-dating
Why is that series still so expensive on DVD? 
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I still haven't seen it but recorded it luckily. Had serious computer problems and seen no TV yet today.Comment
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Thought It was good, and was fascinating to see the footage of Stravinsky, though like with The Howard Goodall series the emphasis is very much so far at least on Western MusicComment
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