"Reommend?" "intelligent?'. You obviously 'c' it in a rather different light to the denizens of toP, who make some interesting and relevant points....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F7497566?thread=4581529

Me too, pw - but then I compare any light-hearted look at Wagner with AR's masterpiece; which isn't really fair.  That said, I didn't get far with Queenan's piece before my initial suspicion - that it would be a flippant exercise in hack humour - was confirmed.  I'm afraid it's what I expect from Mr Q and from The Grauniad.  The former has always struck me as one who's always happy to make a quick buck without too much effort and the latter - which was my regular daily until as recently as the mid-1990s - now seems happy to fill its pages with inconsequential drivel.  Best ignored.

Just for the sake of context, it's probably worth mentioning that Queenan wrote an A-Z primer of classical music for the Guardian earlier this year, presumably why he was asked to do this too. I don't think any of it's meant to challenge the likes of Anna Russell in the comedy stakes - rather, it's meant as a light-hearted introduction to the music for a newbie audience. A largely admirable aim, I'd have thought, even if the quality of the writing and fact-checking rarely comes up to scratch.


Don't know about writing to the letters page, but the Guardian is held in extremely low regard by many rock and pop critics (do a search for "guardian" in thread titles here).

Quite right, TimR-J; that's one reason why I admitted that comparisons are not fair, but we wouldn't be human if we weren't tempted to make such comparisons!

My opinion (subjective, obviously) of  Queenan's output is that it doesn't work as humour or comment and my (perhaps unworthy) suspicion is that he doesn't much care as long as he keeps getting paid.

I'm not sure I agree that it's a 'largely admirable aim' to introduce newbies to anything with such a superficial overview - lighthearted or otherwise.  I suspect (perhaps unworthily again) that these pieces are aimed mainly at people who already have some sort of knowledge so they can pick holes in the content/have a little laugh/get a nice warm feeling of familiarity (delete as appropriate)


Writing to anyone at the Grauniad is pretty pointless in my experience.  I've had one letter published and they edited out the bit that didn't tally with their editorial line.  For me, the paper is just one of those annoying little things that, fortunately, is easy enough to ignore most of the time. 

Erm, am I the only one who doesn't quite understand the vitriol that this slight piece and its author has inspired?  Ignore it. Ignore him. It doesn't matter! 

Sadly, Ian, funny or not, I think it's because they don't actually know what a 'gauleiter' was/is.  Even though several of them fit the description to a t.

Although, in retrospect, I'll concede that it may not be much of a joke....

I thought the crack about Leitmotifs being "Ring Tones" was quite funny, though.

One shouldn't get over-serious about such pieces    I despair about the regularity with which the mass-media in Britain feel they need to "simplify" or "demystify" classical music in this way (the Indy are no better and I write for them sometimes... they have a Best Of Yer Classical Composers series on at the moment).  The unwitting subtext which oozes from these "it's all quite accessible, innit, eh?" pieces is that in fact it's all impenetrable, irritating and irrelevant  Why else would it stand in need of such elaborate defence?

My own approach to this (when friends ask me what books about music to give their kids etc) is "read nothing, don't buy any cds, get a ticket for whatever is on tonight in the Conservatoire (even better if you haven't ever heard of the composer) and unshackle your mind before it starts.  Don't buy a program to read what the composer liked for his breakfast - listen to the sounds, try to remember the ones you like?  Then go again next week too."