Routemaster moments

[Dave2002]

I'll put this thread here for now - it might go under Arts, but then ....

In ITV's Vanity Fair, which is quite entertaining so far, while the soldiers go off to Brussels (episode 4), and everyone who's anyone is having a ball there (literally) there's the sound of a violin playing a theme remarkably like Borodin's 2nd string quartet, 3rd movement (oherwise Kismet). The time of the ball would have been close to 15th June, 1815.

Borodin wasn't born until 1833, and the string quartet was not written before 1881.

[Bryn]

I'll put this thread here for now - it might go under Arts, but then ....

In ITV'x Vanity Fair, which is quite entertaining so far, while the soldiers go off to Brussels (episode 4), and everyone who's anyone is having a ball there (literally) there's the sound of a violin playing a theme remarkably like Borodin's 2nd string quartet, 3rd movement (oherwise Kismet). The time of the ball would have been close to 15th June, 1815.

Borodin wasn't born until 1833, and the string quartet was not written before 1881.

A sadly departed friend who was both a pacifist and a weapons history nut, used to bore all around by picking up on the plethora of anachronisms relating to guns in westerns. The occasional ironic comment would have been fine, but it got to the stage that the fantasy of such films was ruined for anyone watching one with him. That experiance leads me to avoiding this thread in future.

[John Wright]

Well spotted Dave! I am also critical of musical anachronisms, particularly swing music in the 1920’s.

[Dave2002]

A sadly departed friend who was both a pacifist and a weapons history nut, used to bore all around by picking up on the plethora of anachronisms relating to guns in westerns. The occasional ironic comment would have been fine, but it got to the stage that the fantasy of such films was ruined for anyone watching one with him. That experiance leads me to avoiding this thread in future.

Sorry to have put you off, Bryn. I agree that this can be overdone, but if programme makers bother to get some of the "real" historical detail correct, then maybe they should do the same with the music. Otherwise they might as well give up (as indeed the NT might do at times) and have balls with a pop group - electric guitars and drum kits - punk or other style. Even better, abandon the costumes, and have rave dancing.

[Alain Maréchal]

Even better, abandon the costumes.

The NT did that, the evening I saw The Romans in Britain.

[oddoneout]

Isn't it part of the more widespread carelessness/ignorance regarding 'classical' music? It may be improving somewhat with the ease of access to alternatives that online sources provide, but two particular scenarios occur(ed) with tiresome regularity.
1. surging water = O Fortuna from Carmina Burana(presumably thanks to a certain very old ad)
2. Church = Allegri's Miserere. Particularly annoying in documentaries including English cathedrals...

[LHC]

I remember a friend of mine and I were told off by our partners when we objected to the use of Mozart’s requiem to celebrate Elizabeth I’s coronation in the film Elizabeth, on the grounds it was both anachronistic and odd to celebrate a Protestant monarch with a Catholic mass.