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Milly Jones
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« on: 16:47:53, 17-05-2008 » |
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I've been trying to access the boards on TOP for ages and it's been non-stop "Server too Busy". I wonder if they're just inundated with complaints? From what I've read these composer-fests generally haven't been popular with most of the posters. I haven't found the experience too bad at all. I listened this morning from 7 to about 11.30 a.m and it was fine. Has anyone had it on non-stop today?
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #1 on: 17:01:15, 17-05-2008 » |
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I'm guessing that it's the Cup Final which is flooding the BBC rather than Chopin, Mills.
I've recorded the World Routes slot on Polish folk music for later listening, but apart from that I've opted out: there's too much to do today, and I feel that Wodgie's Mazurka Megalomania requires all-or-nothing commitment. I've opted for the latter.
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HtoHe
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« Reply #2 on: 17:02:37, 17-05-2008 » |
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I've been trying to access the boards on TOP for ages and it's been non-stop "Server too Busy". I wonder if they're just inundated with complaints? I don't think so, Milly. The whole bbc.co.uk site has been down for much of the afternoon (although even when it pops up for a while the mbs are unavailable). It does rather strengthen one of the arguments against broadband as a delivery method for TV programmes. Not only is the quality usually much worse but reliability is also a major issue. Imagine if TV stations just went off air as often as websites do. |
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MabelJane
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« Reply #3 on: 19:28:57, 17-05-2008 » |
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I've just been enjoying Rob Cowan's programme about Chopin, particularly Tamas Vasary playing 3 Mazurkas, but I'm no expert so it may have been rubbish!  |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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martle
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« Reply #4 on: 19:33:36, 17-05-2008 » |
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I feel that Wodgie's Mazurka Megalomania requires all-or-nothing commitment. I've opted for the latter.
Well, I gave it a go earlier in the day and made it up till about noon. I was working at various things all the while, but even with that rather reduced capacity for listening properly I got sated pretty quickly. I know one could 'dip in', but as Ron suggests the whole thing was set up as an all-or-nothing deal (you don't get the full Experience unless you Experience the full Chopin Experience). I'm now Chopin'd out. I've been in the Chopin Mall, gone through the Chopin List, and am off my Chopin trolley. And I love the guy! It's bonkers. It really is. |
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Green. Always green.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #5 on: 21:30:52, 17-05-2008 » |
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During the last wall-to-wall composer-fest on R3 (the Tchaikovsky Over-Experience - which coincided with the end of the former TOP boards and the opening of this one) I commented that one rationale for listening to Tchaikovsky is that he's one of the very few C19th who composed successfully in almost every major musical genre - solo piano works, art-songs, string quartets, symphonies, opera, ballet, incidental music, symphonic poems, concerti for major instruments - and it's all remained in repertoire.
Presumably some evil gnome at R3 must have made a note to make sure that the next one of these wall-to-wall-musical-carpeting exercises was centred around someone who only wrote in one genre.
Presumably the weekend of all Scarlatti's bloody keyboard sonatas played back-to-back can't far away?
Perhaps the BBC could utilise the format as a fundraising charity marathon... "Send us the money... or we keep playing Chopin."
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Jonathan
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« Reply #6 on: 22:31:40, 17-05-2008 » |
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I've listened to odds and ends of todays output and found it most interesting. However, I can't say I've heard that much as I've been really busy again. Should hear more tomorrow.
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Best regards,
Jonathan
*********************************************
"as the housefly of destiny collides with the windscreen of fate..."
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MabelJane
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« Reply #7 on: 23:40:21, 17-05-2008 » |
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I feel that Wodgie's Mazurka Megalomania requires all-or-nothing commitment. I've opted for the latter.
Well, I gave it a go earlier in the day and made it up till about noon. Since you were busy composing today, martle, surely you couldn't do that with the Chopin on anyway, even if you'd liked it? I've dipped into it and rather enjoyed it. Probably because some was familiar and the rest very appealing. I liked the selection of different Polish people reading the poems - such an attractive language with naturally musical intonation. Or was that because they were read so beautifully? |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Descombes
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« Reply #8 on: 05:32:33, 18-05-2008 » |
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I have enjoyed turning on R3 and knowing that some Chopin would be on. It's been almost as good as the Bach Weekend (was it a weekend or longer?) some time ago. I do agree however that some composers would not be suitable for this sort of treatment: not just Scarlatti, but what about Telemann or Vivaldi? Dreadful!
Some suggestions for the wall-to-wall treatment: Walton, Berlioz, Haydn, Ravel. I would have said Schubert, but then I remembered all those songs!
One feature of this weekend which shows the BBC at its most irritatingly Orwellian: I've never given much thought to the pronunciation of Chopin - "you say Shop-pan and I say Show-pan". However the BBC seems to have decreed that Shop-pan is correct and that's the only pronunciation I've heard this weekend. Can't we have a little more individual variety? (Let us give thanks for the wonderful Lucy Duran, who manages to make every name sound authentically ethnic! I will never again say the word Mazurka without thinking of her characteristic version.)
PS Since Descombes was a pupil of Chopin I could be biased.
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« Last Edit: 08:26:19, 18-05-2008 by Descombes »
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martle
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« Reply #9 on: 09:12:47, 18-05-2008 » |
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Since you were busy composing today, martle, surely you couldn't do that with the Chopin on anyway, even if you'd liked it?
True, MJ - but I hadn't planned to compose, so I should probably be grateful to the Beeb for making me turn off. I have an American composer friend who can (and does) compose while watching the TV. With the sound on! |
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Green. Always green.
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SusanDoris
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« Reply #10 on: 17:10:40, 18-05-2008 » |
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I was on the train 4x1/2-hour journeys yesterday, so I listened to it then and turned it on here and there at home. I enjoyed the programmes and the discussions I heard. Definitely a pleasure to hear the work of so many different pianists.
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MabelJane
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« Reply #11 on: 21:03:01, 19-05-2008 » |
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True, MJ - but I hadn't planned to compose, so I should probably be grateful to the Beeb for making me turn off.
So that's the secret...if we all wrote in to Radio 3 requesting they broadcast all the music you heartily loathe and detest, just think of the potential released creativity! Operas, concertos, symphonies - there'd be no stopping you! |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Eruanto
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« Reply #12 on: 21:36:16, 19-05-2008 » |
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Curious why the piano on which member Katin played the Polonaise-fantaisie was a semitone flat (it sounded a suspiciously accurate semitone mostly, too)? Is the instrument really so delicate that it can no longer handle the required tension? Interesting to hear nonetheless, I'm revisiting the piece at the moment.
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"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set"
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #13 on: 21:37:48, 19-05-2008 » |
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When the question of what other composers for this treatment would be suitable, I said Ralph Vaughan Williams. bless him. Nine symphonies, circa six operas, lots of varied bits 'n' pieces. Wouldn't go on for too long. Am I wrong?
Composers I would not care for: Bruckner, D Scarlatti, Debussy. But others may love 'em.
And although I love Handel, all those operas and oratorios back to back sound intimidating.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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MabelJane
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« Reply #14 on: 21:43:56, 19-05-2008 » |
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When the question of what other composers for this treatment would be suitable, I said Ralph Vaughan Williams. bless him.
Did you listen to Riders to the Sea on R3 recently, Don B? It is rather a miserable piece, one long lamentation really, but having sung in the wailing chorus in our student production many years ago, I wanted to hear it again. |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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