Muttering to myself as the only respondent to this thread!     A genial documentary which took almost half of its 60 minute running time to get started and it may succeed in getting an audience for Part 1 of "Tess of the D'urbervilles" on BBC 1, next Sunday.     

Fine landscape shots underscored by Elgar's Cello Concerto, in the opening scenes, was not a good idea as it only reminded me how much better Ken Russell did his scoring and hillside montages; and posed shots of actors in this setting look like a set-up for a lush commercial.   On the other hand, the intercut shots of library footage, in black and white, take us immediately into Victoriana.   Griff Rhys Jones is rather a good presenter when he isn't required to indulge in histrionic posturing on top of windy clifftops.   Eventually, he was most effective and intimate when allowed to settle in Dorset County Museum and other interior settings, to cover the life and work of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928); the pain and sorrow in his writing.    I was particularly interested in the bleakness of his first childless marriage to Emma; she was aware of his infatuation with other women as their co-existence became more isolated.

Eventually, he decided to abandon novel writing when Jude the Obscure was denegrated on publication.  Even his editor - (did I hear the name of Leonard Woolf?  - must check the recording later)  asked him to tone-down the text relating to the seduction of Tess.  A letter described him as 'Hardy the degenerate' and the ashes of his burnt 'Jude' novel was enclosed.   He went on to write almost a thousand poems and a collection was published in 1898.   On the death of Emma, he fell in love with her memory all over again and entered a new phase in his writing of poetry.   There is an extraordinary scene when Rhys Jones meets a woman of 101 and a half years - fit and articulate -who spoke about meeting Hardy when she was 70 and shook his hand.  Mesmerising.

A new generation, circa 1914, fully revered Hardy's writing anew and he survived until 1928.    I'll look at the recording more closely again, later tonight, as I was also recording the Messiaen marathon, in muted sound, but keeping half an ear to mark the 'breaks' on my MD>

I saw it, and enjoyed it much more than Stanley did! Though I wasn't watching for much of the time, only listening. I was mystified by the use of Elgar, and because the extracts were piled on top of each other so closely, it almost turned into a name-that-tune contest at one point.

But he does speak rather quietly; up went the volume.

IIRC, that quote was in the New York Times.

I think Hardy might suit me, though I hear there is none in the house...

"Oh, lucky you!" 

I wish you joy o' the piobaireachd, Ron

I decided to wait until this afternoon when I could view 'The Heart of Thomas Hardy' again.   Yesterday, was such a stimulating and heady day with the BBC 1 documentary sandwiched between Part 1 and Part 3 of 'Saint Francis of Assisi' - really magnificent.     

Well worth another look as I'd no trouble in discounting the insinuating soundtrack which included the Elgar Cello Concerto, phased in and out without discrimination, and I was missing the narrative as I tried to recall whether we'd also heard an extract from Salut d'amour, and was it Dorabella from the Enigma Variations?   Even Satie's Gymnopedies found its way into a sequence with maypole dancing - here, I suggest - was the ideal spot for Reiner's comments on Hardy's involvement with country church bands.   Oh, where was Huw Wheldon when we needed him most?   He would have thrown out the mock Russell montages and the musical extracts at the treatment stage.  And why use any music track when Geoffrey Palmer read Hardy's prose and poetry so well.   Music in itself.     End of whinge.

A degree of alienation made the programme seem so much better to me this afternoon.   I managed to engage with so many nuances which escaped me last night and the remarakable woman of 101 and a half years - probably filmed in the last six months or so - was, in fact, 17 when she met Hardy in 1924.  She only had a couple in lines in a village hall production in Dorset but Hardy sensed that they were incomplete and gave her an extra line on the spot.

Having seen a trailer for next Sunday's "Tess...", today, I now realise that some of the inserts in the documentary were, in fact, clips from the dramatisation.    The sequence with Tess sharing a strawberry in D'Urberville's hands and the erotic implications - so well done on a larger scale in Tony Richardson's film of "Tom Jones" (1963) - looks a bit plastic to me, rather than plastique, if you see what I mean?   However, I musn't pre-judge; let's wait and see.

I hope that the bookshops are well stocked in the next few weeks.

Eru, you must correct the lack of Hardy in Eruanto Hall immediately, although I would counsel against starting with Jude. Bleak doesn't begin to describe it.

Funnily enough that's the only Hardy that I've read and I thought it was wonderful.