Heard very little of this on this occasion but gather that the Lark Ascending won for the second consecutive year.

A good year for RVW, as the Tallis Fantasia was third.

Separating them was Rach Piano Concerto no 2.

Ian.

They could have saved time and printed the same results for 2009 and 2010 at the same time.

 I s'pose there remains the possibility that Ein Erk Leiner Nark-Muzik might knock ol Rach off 'is spot...:-/

Eh, yeah Kitty, I think you missed the fact that listeners VOTE! So different voters each year, different preferences, yeah?


Ah, that IS an interesting question, and I'd say the answer is NO. You see ClassicFM daytime listeners are never told how OLD a recording is, so for example you might hear an announcer say 'On that recording from Mozart's Magic Flute you heard Christa Ludwig, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Gundula Janowitz, Nicolai Gedda, Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra'. And then immediately 'Beep! Beep! If you get a chip on your windscreen, call Autoglass Insurance they can repair that chip and save you.....' 


Unlikely as it's languishing at No.58. So even some ClassicFM listeners are fed up of it!

Hmm, mind you, it was 104 last year!

 

I wonder, amid the cynicism, if the "results" (if they can really be called that?) of this polling depend on the frequency with which the particular pieces appear on the CFM Playlist?   For example, the Intermezzo from CAV was a largely forgotten piece in the sphere of "worn-out old-fashioned tosh" around 10 years ago...  but CFM have "revived" it and it now rates highly.  I wonder to what extent CFM stand to benefit financially from promoting particular recordings and pieces?  (In the "plugging" methodology once beloved of Radio One). 

Turning to Kitty's point, though, it is a fact that public taste is continuingly changing (I don't mean to sound as though is necessarily good - they may just be aquiring a taste for a lower grade of pap...) and the pieces which are popular now might be wholly different to 20-30 years ago.   For example, "classical pops" concerts (ie the CFM core playlist material) would once have included Elgar's "Sospiri" as mandatory stuff,  whereas today it's almost never played (in fact, most of Elgar's output is in the doghouse currently). Similarly you'd never guess that Vaughan Williams wrote a Concerto Accademico for Violin and Orchestra, even though what my London orchestral-player pals refer to as The Bloody Lark Ascending isn't ever missing from the CFM playlist for much longer than 24 hours.

Do we think that the 250th Anniversary of Handel's death, which occurs in 2009, will change things much?   Of course I don't hope for or expect that any of his operas, or any material from them except Ombra mai fu (from XERXES innit) will turn up.  However, there's always been a buck to made out of faux-piety with "THE" MESSIAH (sic), and the MUSIC FOR THE ROYAL WATERWORKS and the Sheban Queen's Arrival have been backburnered for a goodly while now.

Thank you RT, for reminding me of one of B.S.Johnson's greatest contributions to the field of the hydraulic organ, vide Great organ, the Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork.

Now, where did I put my copy of B.S.J.'s Fugue in P?

I must get this of my chest!! Beethovens Emperor Concerto. Everybody at CFM and elsewhere, seem to think that Murray Perahria's account with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw/Haitink is the best one available at the moment. I always tend to disagree, because, when I heard Pierre Laurent aimard and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with nikolaus harnoncourt, I thought, my goodness, this is better than the Perahia. What you guys think?

Agree re. Levin/Gardiner/ORR. Two more HIPP recordings I would add are those by Immerseel/Weil/Tafelmusik, and Schoonderwoerd/Cristophori. Then there's Tan/Norrington/LCP, which has what to me is the most appropriate tempo for the 'slow' movement of those currently around.