........ i may be gone some time

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

at least until the Britten pestfest ends

try this on Monday

[Flosshilde]

Do I detect a rather frigid response to Britten?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

nope rather frigid is not how i would describe a vollcanic antipathy to the whole Britten thing but most especially all the opera and vocal stuff that a certain Mr Moore described so well

[Old Grumpy]

nope rather frigid is not how i would describe a vollcanic antipathy to the whole Britten thing but most especially all the opera and vocal stuff that a certain Mr Moore described so well

Spot on Calum. Radio 3 is a listening write-off for me too this weekend.

With regard to Jazz-Britten, what about Ruthie Culver's "Look Stranger"?

Normal service will be resumed on Monday.

OG

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

try this charmant petit clip du film instead

[Tenor Freak]

Yes good ol' Radio£3...stick a shedload of Benjamin Britten on in the middle of the London jazzfest...

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes good ol' Radio£3...stick a shedload of Benjamin Britten on in the middle of the London jazzfest...

Yep. Jazz in a half-nelson. Or in BBC terms Jez Half-Nelson.

[Globaltruth]

Gets my vote

Refugee from the World Music board here....at least I'm not alone then.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

we are all in this together!

let's all have a nice cup of hot water ......

[burning dog]

I'm not against the idea of "composerthons" but surely there are enough standard classical programmes to contain them?
I'm lukewarm about Britten rather than frigid or hostile, and I believe he is worthy of the recognition given, but not the scheduling.

[Quarky]

I'm not against the idea of "composerthons" but surely there are enough standard classical programmes to contain them?
I'm lukewarm about Britten rather than frigid or hostile, and I believe he is worthy of the recognition given, but not the scheduling.

Yes, I would agree with that. I'm just wondering who was the intended audience. Judging by the lack of comment on this Forum, most regular R3 listeners were lukewarm about this Composerthon. It would be interesting to know the listener numbers for this weekend.

I guess that since Britten was certainly the best composer that UK had produced for hundreds of years, it was felt that R3 had to do something special to mark his 100th birthday. But apart from regular R3 listeners, I guess the composerthon would only reach out to committed classical music lovers, who would already be aware of much of Britten's output.

[hmvman]

Well I'm one of the people who listened to and enjoyed the Britten weekend!

For once, I felt that there was something special on Radio 3 for me. I had to endure 3 weeks of wall-to-wall Schubert a while back - nothing else, just Schubert day in, day out for 3 weeks. Then there was 3 weeks of Film music a couple of months ago. By comparison 2 days-and-a-bit of Britten to celebrate his centenary doesn't seem too much to me.

I do appreciate, though, that it's annoying when favourite programmes are taken off to accommodate the 'composerthons' and other 'specialathons'. I've been one of the aggrieved in the past!

[Ian Thumwood]

I wonder whether had Britten been alive today and the BBC wished to celebrate his 75 th birthday it would have been possible given that he would have been under intense scrutiny by the police investigating the likes of Jimmy Saville.

Is Britten really our greatest composer of the 20 century? Give me Delius any day of the week! Given that jazz has been the most consistently potent form of music over the last 100 years, surely jazz is more important.

[Serial_Apologist]

Is Britten really our greatest composer of the 20 century? Give me Delius any day of the week!

Nah! Vaughan Williams, Holst, Elgar, Havergal Brian and even Frank Bridge, I would place above Britten. I'd have misgivings about so placing Delius, however.

Given that jazz has been the most consistently potent form of music over the last 100 years, surely jazz is more important.

I do think it arguably the most progressive musical genre in existence since modernism as the main direction in 20 century classical music lost its nerve sometime in the 1970s.

[MrGongGong]

Given that jazz has been the most consistently potent form of music over the last 100 years, surely jazz is more important.

Depends what you mean by "jazz" dunnit