Music that sets you up for the day

[gradus]

I've been told that there was also a Palm Court Orchestra on what was then called the BBC Light Programme, also a programme called Semprini Serenade.
Haydn is definitely a good start to the day!

The Light Programme featured both Semprini, 'Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue' - whose programme I associate with gloomy Sunday late afternoons along with the dreaded Sing Something Simple.
During the week listeners would be invited to join the genteel orchestra playing in the Palm Court of the Grand Hotel, Roses from the South always seemed to be on the music stand and nothing had changed since 1930.

[BBMmk2]

I have Radio 3 on for about the first two hours.

[Beresford]

Presently - Violin Sonatas (Bach, Mozart, LvB etc) or Gesualdo Tenebrae...all very sotto voce.....wind in the trees or birdsong is fine too........ I began some Bach Cantatas recently but soon went back to earlier choral trads.......their sombriety and quietude.. .. Josquin perfect too..

That's the sort of music I like late in the day. Early morning solo guitar - Dowland to Britten - would be nice, or Bach WTC on a plucked instrument. Then to set me up, a Haydn Op76 quartet, or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Modern (atonal) music I find a bit hard to listen to first thing, but in the afternoons I prefer it to traditional symphonies.
I can see why some people like British Light Music, but I find it utterly depressing at any time.

Life is full of such paradoxes.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's the sort of music I like late in the day. Early morning solo guitar - Dowland to Britten - would be nice, or Bach WTC on a plucked instrument. Then to set me up, a Haydn Op76 quartet, or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Modern (atonal) music I find a bit hard to listen to first thing, but in the afternoons I prefer it to traditional symphonies.
I can see why some people like British Light Music, but I find it utterly depressing at any time.

Life is full of such paradoxes.

It possibly sounds like musical gloss today, but if you were an unhappy 10-year old schoolboy at the time, light music seemed to prepare the way for an adult world full of sunshine and sensible responsible people, in which all problems were being solved, and everybody would live happily ever after.

[gradus]

It possibly sounds like musical gloss today, but if you were an unhappy 10-year old schoolboy at the time, light music seemed to prepare the way for an adult world full of sunshine and sensible responsible people, in which all problems were being solved, and everybody would live happily ever after.

That sounds about right.

[Serial_Apologist]

That sounds about right.

Another point maybe worth making is the role Edmundo Ros played with his brand of lilting Latin and Calypso, presenting as it did a saccharin picture of the Caribbean, all tables on the beach under palm trees and smiling black faces, and also helping to make Windrush generation immigrants feel more at home than they really were. Ros's commercial success alllowed him to become a part of that jet set, of course.

[gradus]

Another point maybe worth making is the role Edmundo Ros played with his brand of lilting Latin and Calypso, presenting as it did a saccharin picture of the Caribbean, all tables on the beach under palm trees and smiling black faces, and also helping to make Windrush generation immigrants feel more at home than they really were. Ros's commercial success alllowed him to become a part of that jet set, of course.

Listening to him now the Ros band sounds very staid, watching the bar lines and does not swing as I'd expected it would (cf Tom Service's prog last weekend), its a bit like Victor Silvester playing the music.

[Serial_Apologist]

Listening to him now the Ros band sounds very staid, watching the bar lines and does not swing as I'd expected it would (cf Tom Service's prog last weekend), its a bit like Victor Silvester playing the music.

Watching the bar takings too, no doubt about that!

I've got some 10" 78s of Victor Sylvester - family hand downs from WW2.

[rauschwerk]

Anything uplifting - Poulenc Sextet? Bartok second p concerto? - certainly not Sibelius 5 though... having to wait for those last chords to play out before I can proceed with the day... Get on with it, Sibby!!!

50 years ago I would certainly have enjoyed that Bartok! Nowadays I'd go for something Baroque, or Haydn. I remember working through the Suzuki box of Bach sacred cantatas mostly at that time of day.

[rauschwerk]

Listening to him now the Ros band sounds very staid, watching the bar lines and does not swing as I'd expected it would (cf Tom Service's prog last weekend), its a bit like Victor Silvester playing the music.

Edmundo Ros couldn't sing for toffee, could he?

[gradus]

Edmundo Ros couldn't sing for toffee, could he?

Agreed.

[Keraulophone]

J S Bach - Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (‘Sleepers Wake’ - appropriate for first thing in the morning), preferably in the 1986 recording by four singers and The Bach Ensemble / Joshua Rifkin.

Also resident in the car to play at the start of long journeys. Found to be simultaneously calming and stimulating.