Howard Goodall

[Guest]

Liked his television programmes......recently heard the commercial for his latest CD............

......(LBC, not CFM)............it sounds just like Richard Clayderman!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I like some of his music, including "The Land of the Lakes Suite". But that might have something to do with the fact that I feel incomplete when I am not in the Lake District.

[Resurrection Man]

Are you referring to the 'World Renowned' Howard Goodall, according to classicfm ?

Not to worry, Lat. I am sure that he will be featuring regularly in the Breakfast playlist ere long.

[salymap]

I bought his Eternal Light, A Requiem on the recommendation of a friend. I've played it once. It didn't seem to go anywhere but I suppose I should try it again.

[Bryn]

Are you referring to the 'World Renowned' Howard Goodall, according to classicfm ?

Not to worry, Lat. I am sure that he will be featuring regularly in the Breakfast playlist ere long.

Well he certainly features heavily (he seems to think he's a 'heavy' anyway) on Radio 4's Start the Week this morning, along with someone I think I heard him describe as the greatest living composer, John 'Nixon in China' Adams. Also in attendance were Barb Jungr and Stephen Poliakoff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz9xn

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think I heard him describe as the greatest living composer, John 'Nixon in China' Adams.

Didn't hear this, but he's voiced this opinion publicly before on on of his TV programmes.

[BBMmk2]

I bought his Eternal Light, A Requiem on the recommendation of a friend. I've played it once. It didn't seem to go anywhere but I suppose I should try it again.

If you felt like that about a piece of music, I would'nt go back to it at all!!

[Mr Pee]

Oh dear. A living composer who appeals to the CFM audience, and actually knows how to write a tune.

Can't have that, can we?

[french frank]

Howard Goodall. Personally, I take against anyone who doesn't make any distinction between popular music and classical. Or between jazz and classical for that matter. I'm perfectly easy with people enjoying all kinds of music. Why shouldn't they? Colour spectrum again.

[Resurrection Man]

From the article.....'I don't wake up and think: "Today I'm going to write something classical." I just write music.'

There is a retraction tomorrow in the paper saying "We apologise for misquoting Howard Goodall. We did of course mean to print 'musak' "

[Bryn]

Howard Goodall.

"Howard Goodall, composer

'When I was younger, I was impetuous and arrogant. I had too much swagger' "

Plus ça change, eh?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Howard Goodall, composer

'When I was younger, I was impetuous and arrogant. I had too much swagger' "

Plus ça change, eh?

His TV series were quite good, I thought.

[Serial_Apologist]

I thought it was funny on this morning's R4 programme when Goodall praised Adams (also on the programme) as being the greatest classical composer, seemingly in expectation of back up for his contention that most music of the first 50 years of the 20th century had been about deconstruction, the latter turned around and said words to the effect, "But I love Schoenberg". Adams notched up several degrees in my estimation at that point.

[Bryn]

His TV series were quite good, I thought.

I have to admit I have always found at least some illumination in the television series he has presented, and think them excellent as popular introductions to many aspects of musical culture.

Unlike a good many of my musical friends, I also much admire most of the work of John Adams I have encountered, but Goodall's fawning "greatest living composer" description of Adams was cringe-making.

This morning's Start the Week is now available o the iPlayer.

[ahinton]

Unlike a good many of my musical friends, I also much admire most of the work of John Adams I have encountered, but Goodall's fawning "greatest living composer" description of Adams was cringe-making.

That's because it was. Adams' rejoinder about Schönberg / Schoenberg came as something of a relief although, elsewhere in the programme, it was clear that the Austrian's bogeyman status has still not yet diminished and, given that the composer himself would now be 138 years of age were he still with us, one might argue that such status has acquired a state of permanence. Never mind, of course, that some of Schönberg's post-Erwartung music still retains tonal inflections and certainly never mind the fact of his Second Chamber Symphony and Variations for Wind Band (in E flat minor and G minor respectively); dear me, no, that'll never do - we can't have Arnie's reputation as the destroyer of Western music undermined, now, can we?! Nor, of course, dare we have any suggestion that the tonal fabric was also being rent apart by some of Schönberg's contemporaries and had already been undermined by several of his predecessors, for that, too, would weaken the argument in favour of pillorying Schönberg at every opportunity and none and we must continue to do that at all costs, must we not? - especially on Radio 4 at just after 9 on a Monday morning! But Goodall's argument was introduced by Tom Sutcliffe as one in which great swathes of 20th century Western music have wilfully parted company with any sense of communicating with the listener; now whether that's Goodall's actual argument I'd rather not say as I cannot be sufficiently certain, but he did dismayingly little to debunk it.

I'm afraid that little of Adams' music does anything much for me, but he is a considerable figure in present-day American music, knows well of what he speaks and commands considerable respect; he's certainly several notches above some of his compatriot minimalists.