God save the Queen !

[P. G. Tipps]

Oh, for goodness sake, Her Majesty primarily loves her most faithful subjects of all, Her dogs and horses, Bless Her!

As befitting a Queen, she is quite above listening to the likes of Xenakis.

[vinteuil]

Compared to other 'Royal' folks historically this lot seem to have had very little interest in culture at all.

... I think the last royals here who had much interest in Culture were the Stuarts.

Well, there was the blingtastic George IV - but apart from him, the Hanoverians and successors have been a pretty boring crowd...

[teamsaint]

Ah, so republicans should focus their campaigns on the " boring " issue then?

Sounds like a plan.

[gurnemanz]

Prince Charles to his credit is interested in classical music (unlike, I assume, his first wife). I know he plays the cello and around this part of the world (Wilts, Glos, ie near where he lives) he is patron of the ongoing concert series Music in Country Churches and is usually in attendance. We have seen many of these over the years with excellent performers in superb settings eg this last May.

[Stanfordian]

When I watch the horse racing at Royal Ascot I come to the conclusion that Royal Ascot is where the British (Germany really) Royal Family, mainly the Queen gathers to present prizes to Arab Sheikhs from States of the Persian Gulf that they wouldn’t have given house room around eighty years ago. I suppose it’s good for British foreign relations with the Arab States.

[Mary Chambers]

Prince Charles to his credit is interested in classical music (unlike, I assume, his first wife). I know he plays the cello and around this part of the world (Wilts, Glos, ie near where he lives) he is patron of the ongoing concert series Music in Country Churches and is usually in attendance. We have seen many of these over the years with excellent performers in superb settings eg this last May.

I remember years ago seeing Charles singing the Bach B Minor Mass with the Bach Choir on television. He was a bit copy-bound, but didn't look hopeless. I think he is interested, but one of the (many) things I don't understand about Modern Life is that high-profile people admit to an interest in high culture at their peril.

[MrGongGong]

Oh, for goodness sake, Her Majesty primarily loves her most faithful subjects of all, Her dogs and horses, Bless Her!
.

A rather sad woman who would rather be walking her dogs and riding a horse than contemplating the car crash lives of her children IMV

[doversoul1]

You /one could say that the queen holds the traditional value against the modern trend of Tell Us Your Story, that one’s private life is exactly that; private. We don’t know and don’t need to know what goes on in her mind about her private life. Good for her.

[teamsaint]

When I watch the horse racing at Royal Ascot I come to the conclusion that Royal Ascot is where the British (Germany really) Royal Family, mainly the Queen gathers to present prizes to Arab Sheikhs from States of the Persian Gulf that they wouldn’t have given house room around eighty years ago. I suppose it’s good for British foreign relations with the Arab States.

..... Which seems to be very helpful when selling arms to some very repressive regimes........

Oh dear, probably " political" and thus out of bounds.

[Serial_Apologist]

Did she commission it?
Or was in on her behalf?

OK I'd need to check.

Compared to other 'Royal' folks historically this lot seem to have had very little interest in culture at all.
(though according to the Torygraph her son commissioned a Suit from Patrick Hawes )

Well at the time one had to take PMD at his word when he mentioned a conversation with Her Maj in which she said that the image of the Royals as one of cultural philistinism was wrong - corroborating which, from memory, the MQM affirmed that the queen was no slouch.

Admittedly it is not always easy to spot when Sir Peter's tongue is not firmly in his cheek, but he did one or two radio interviews at the time of his accession to Masticulator of the Queen's Groovy Beats. Time to dig that cassette out again, methinks.

[Serial_Apologist]

You /one could say that the queen holds the traditional value against the modern trend of Tell Us Your Story, that one’s private life is exactly that; private. We don’t know and don’t need to know what goes on in her mind about her private life. Good for her.

The voice of the good ole British stiff upper lip!

[Serial_Apologist]

..... Which seems to be very helpful when selling arms to some very repressive regimes........

It's known as horse trading

[ahinton]

A rather sad woman who would rather be walking her dogs and riding a horse than contemplating the car crash lives of her children IMV

I don't think that this is fair - or even supported by evidence; are you really suggesting that she doesn't give a monkeys about the private lives of her four offspring or the fact that so many aspects thereof are very quickly made public?

[MrGongGong]

I don't think that this is fair - or even supported by evidence; are you really suggesting that she doesn't give a monkeys about the private lives of her four offspring or the fact that so many aspects thereof are very quickly made public?

I'm sure she cares deeply about them

[ahinton]

OK I'd need to check.


Well at the time one had to take PMD at his word when he mentioned a conversation with Her Maj in which she said that the image of the Royals as one of cultural philistinism was wrong - corroborating which, from memory, the MQM affirmed that the queen was no slouch.

Admittedly it is not always easy to spot when Sir Peter's tongue is not firmly in his cheek, but he did one or two radio interviews at the time of his accession to Masticulator of the Queen's Groovy Beats. Time to dig that cassette out again, methinks.

Max was an overt republican when he took on the MQM post and claims that he meetings with QEII have had some impact upon his views.

QEII is indeed no slouch; love her, despise her or anything in between, she still makes considerable efforts to keep herself informed of all manner of things. I do recall it once being said that she doesn't like music, but with how much truth I have no idea; I have to say that, whilst she probably doesn't listen to Xenakis very often and might well feel uneasy in the presence of the music of Bartók (unlike Margaret Thatcher), it strikes me as implausible that she would maintain a stance of impassivity to music.

I do remember with as much pleasure as surprise when, many years ago, her mother, in her then rôle as Patron of RCM, she visited there and was taken aroung the college by her almost exact contemporary, its director Sir Keith Falkner and was fascinated to see the goings-on in its then new electronics studio and to attend a performance of Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum; I got no impression that her apparent enthusiasm was in any sense feigned. I hold no brief for Patrick Hawes, what little of whose music that I've heard sounds as though he's made deliberate efforts to create something as bland and characterless as possible, but Charles did, I believe, commission cello works from both David Matthews and Richard Rodney Bennett for his grandmother, who might perhaps have fostered some of his musical interests.

Whatever her tastes in music, QEII is apparently an even more gifted mimic than her eldest son. Someone (I cannot now recall who but think that it might have been Gyles Brandreth) once recounted the tale of attending a royal garden party and overhearing QEII taking him off better than he could do it himself; it's a tale rather more plausible than the one that I heard about some do or other attended by QEII and the D of E at which, when everyone else stood for the National Anthem, she, remaining seated, turned to her husband and said "oh, Philip, darling; they're playing our tune!"...