Thanks, BobbyZ.      I opted to post my response to Classic Britannia in The Happy Room, on this occasion, as I felt that it best accommodated my pleasure with tonight's programme.     Message 1821 if you're interested.

I'll go with BobbyZ's 'It was OK'.

As so often with these scissors and paste programmes I'd much prefer to have seen the interviews with people like PMD, Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr in full rather than the manically edited tit-bits but there you go. Maybe they will be shown in full sometime; BBC4 did this with the interviews Jonathan Miller did with varous philosophers for his 'Atheism' programmes and IMHO they were far more valuable than the programmes themselves.

I was rather surprised there was no mention of Tippett at all in Part 1 (it would have got in the way of the 'Britten v. Walton' argument I suppose) but at least he is promised for Part 2 as a representative of 'The Sixties'.

But 'It was OK' and I agree with Mary, it was good to have it at all.

Repeated 7 pm tomorrow, Sunday.

The predecessors to this series ( Jazz Britannia, Folk Britannia and Soul Britannia ) all had follow up Barbican concerts broadcast but I haven't seen anything about there being a Classic Britannia concert.  Has anyone else ?

One thing I kept finding disconcerting last night was whenever they went to a clip from Simon Heffer and we were confronted by that rather conspicuous pin up of Ian Smith on his mantlepiece. Not necessarily the most apt spokesman for RVW despite having written a biog ?

Have to say enjoyed this programme - thought the film footage of the various composers saw them in new light
particularly Britten and Birtwistle - must admit find both composers music very difficult to get enthusiastic about but the footage at the concert of the war requiem made me want to listen to this work - regarding Birtwistle because his music is 'difficult' always got the impression when interviewed he was kind of defensive but in this programme came across as quite human and again made me want to hear some of his music - although not sure where to start - my only question on this programme was RVW - I wish they wouldnt keep going on about cowpat music - he was much more than that kind of composer as the sixth symphony proves - not sure about the last movement equalling a nuclear holocaust - think everyone has their own interpretation of this work -i hope the other two parts of this programme are as interesting 

Have just seen the repeat, which I'm afraid I watched in a state of rising indignation; not so much at the programme itself and its inaccuracies - so the audience at the premiere of RVW6 had never heard anything like its opening from the composer before, Mr Heffer? What about the fourth? - but the fact that they had access to so much archive material which really should be at least shown in full, if not made available on DVD. GG is quite right about the interviews, which deserve programmes to themselves, but the Billy Budd and Grimes are important documents which should be available to all, and the War Requiem (not just the 1964 Proms, I've seen clips from the premiere, as well) and the Spring Symphony surely deserve a complete showing, too. And what about those glimpses of conductors, Barbirolli in particular: how much more of him rests in the archives? The Manchester School material, no doubt from Monitor, cries out to be shown in much greater depth.

The final stinging irony for me was being told how important radio was in creating the atmosphere of culture after the war, creating access to high culture for all; now the same broadcasting organisation is content to string together these little sample packages, however well made, to describe the artistic effect rather than letting the audience experience it for themselves, and tucking them away where only the pre-converted will find them. I'm sorry, I find that not only tantalising but deeply patronising.

I've banged on often enough about the huge amount of audio archive material we never hear, and have been regaled with the likelihood that much of it has vanished, but here we had the ocular proof that some at least of the video treasure-horde still exists; the fact that it's locked away and never seen in full just makes my blood boil.

For Stanley Stewart it was a pleasant reminder: for Big Ron it was just another way of catapulting him back onto a hobby horse.



(On the subject of Vaughan Williams, this looks worth waiting for...

http://www.rvwsociety.com/i-frame/tonypalmer.htm  )

The same is the case in the Netherlands, Ron. The Dutch television organisation AVRO made a wonderful film in the 1960s about the production of Haitink's recording of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Wonderful footage of Haitink working together with Jaap van Ginneken, truly one of the greatest record producers ever. I saw some fragments of this film, I would love to have it complete on a DVD.

Speaking of Haitink and Dutch television:

http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=889.msg19459#msg19459