Persuaded elsewhere by the good Mme. Millicent we have decided to enter this arena despite its air of irrelevance and doom. Perhaps its only real hope lies in a rapid broadening of scope and a relinquishment of most ties to a Radio Three which is now the ghost of its former self.
Anyway we have five reasons which we think justify our present entry at least for a while:
1) We wish to share with Members the little photograph cut from a newspaper which we found inside the original Sydney Grew's book "Favourite Musical Performers" and which we think probable depicts England's most respected critic himself.
2) There is a wonderful "Dumka a Tanec" by the little-known Czech composer Mikalas Schneider-Trnavsky. On the Radio Three message board the mere IDEA of uploading this somewhere so that Members could hear it was ruthlessly expunged from view. Perhaps here though it will prove otherwise.
3) We should like from time to time to offer for the consideration of other Members interesting extracts both short and long from books about music, primarily of course from Sydney Grew's, but from others' as well. For example we have been reading Eric Fenby's fascinating "Delius (as I knew him)" which is now available for down-load from the Internet Archive. We were not permitted to do too much of this sort of thing before - remember the Fux fiasco? - but here it may be possible. Incidentally we shall be proposing the creation of a new branch or section here devoted to the discussion of "BOOKS ABOUT MUSIC AND RELATED SUBJECTS". - Ah! we have just seen the "Coffee Bar/Post the cover" - not confined to music but interesting . . .
4) In our personal tape archives there are countless recordings of the Third Programme as it was forty-five years ago. We could post interesting MP3 snippets showing how proper announcers used to sound. . . .
5) Finally it may here even be possible to provide for a few discriminating Members links to recordings of some of our own string quartets. This will serve both the enjoyment and the edification of Members. They may learn therefrom how it is still possible to combine the best aspects of Bach, Mozart and Scryabine in one uplifting style of twenty-first century composition! As Shelley put it in 1820: "Our music, wild and sweet" - that's the great idea.
It may be noted that we have few hopes of satisfactory "social interaction" - the quite startling behaviour (including, but not limited to, the widespread mutual antagonism and disbelief) encountered on other message boards very soon killed stone dead what may have been our initial expectation of anything of that kind.
Let us then begin with a link to the only known photograph of Sydney Grew, one of our most penetrating worthwhile and philosophical writers on music. He looks remarkably similar to ourself, except that he has kinder and more intelligent eyes, and we are not bald at all:
