Classical music is being faded out of Desert Island Discs
OrchestrasThe long-running BBC Radio 4 show used to have guests who racked up half their choices as classical – if only to impress friends and family.
Last year, the classical component was down to ten percent, in part due to a greater diversity in the demographics of the guests invited.
Here’s some more analysis.
Last year’s most selected artist, by the way, was the Juilliard-trained Nina Simone.
You know, that headline is almost wilfully misleading. To read it is to infer that somehow a programme where the musical items are actually chosen by the guests is somehow managing to reduce the classical choices. The article, and the source article, both note that a greater diversity in the guests has led to a concomitant diversity in the music pieces selected.
I don’t know why your headline writer keeps doing this. Is this one a subtle dig at the BBC for something in which it is guiltless?
Well as I think NL does the headlines-which are brilliant as they get you reading -it naturally flows there will be digs at the BBC. and Simon Rattle and …
But presumably the BBC chooses its guests?
Not much of a story, IMHO.
First, the greater diversity of the castaways is surely a good thing. For far too long the castaways were predominantly stale, male, pale ABs.
Second, there’s no reason to believe that their choices are genuine. I suspect that in most cases, some PR selects them on the basis of attempting to enhance the castaway’s image.
Diversity of choice would surely serve that purpose.
I find no reason to think the choices are not personal and genuine. I do not listen to it regularly, but pick it up if someone who interests me is on. I tend to believe their stories about why they chose a particular piece.
Perhaps some arriviste celebrities tart up their choices. But which of us, asked for 8 pieces of music we have enjoyed, would not have some from more than one genre and loads they had to leave out? In the end you select what presents you well as a rounded, good-natured, in-touch individual.
These days there are many less classy guests on DID
Absolutely
The quality in society these days is truly abysmal
We should hide our heads in shame generally
I’ll go scan through the episodes on my podcast app looking for classical musicians as guests, and they’ve been few and far between over the past few years. Some of the older episodes featuring opera singers, conductors, and classical musicians are (to me) the most interesting of the bunch.
It’s fascinating to listen to the life stories of other (non-musician) notable personalities, but their classical selections are sometimes limited to Beethoven’s 9th, Air on the G string, Pachelbel canon, etc.
Was it Elisabeth Schwarzkopf who chose all her own recordings?
Yes. She later claimed she thought she had to.
I knew Elisabeth very well, and she genuinely thought that she should pick her own recordings.
Yup, no surprise, probably comes under the lovely heading of, ‘dumbing down’ also Radio 3 et al..
Ever since renaming of The BBC Third Programme!
Your comment applies equally to the current choice of presenter on DID.
‘Private Passions’ on Sundays Radio 3 is better.
Maybe because Beeb is channelling certain people towards Private Passions on Radio 3?
The Blair regime as Brendel points in his book, The Veil of Order elevated the electric guitar as a symbol for the Millennium this is not surprising when you see what schools make them play. They would not know Bach from Buxtehude.
The same has happened with God. The GB churches are completely empty.
At least we still have daily sung Eucharist at St Patrick’s, Dublin. My ancestors are opposite Dr Swift, where I will finally rest.
Another poster on this site pointed out years ago that Paul McCartney claimed to have loved and been influenced by Monteverdi and Buxtehude (I’m just reporting, not praising myself though I’ve long thought of Buxehude as the Baroque version of Lennon & Maca). Paul did say he tried not to listen to most classical composers for fear — I believe — of borrowing without realizing, this as a time when he was trying to write large, for orchestra, and successful pop composers were being sued by the world+dog for theft.
I think the significance of NL’s piece here is the continued retreat of classical music from mainstream anything, even as a means of “tarting up.” The first development to have doomed it was the arrival of “contemporary classical” regardless of its permutations over time, this made possible by the retreat of “composing” into the academy, where it could leave behind any obligation to the paying public — in short the end of composing as she were known prior to the mid-20th century. It’s a safe bet that the Beatles have meant more musically to more people, in a good way, than the total of everything “classical” written during the last 70+ years.
Meanwhile the electric guitar and keyboard synthesizers have replaced the sound of massed and solo violins, just at a time when it’s becoming really difficult to find money for the acoustic symphony orchestra. Add to these the amazing rhythmic engine of the five-piece drum set. Generations have grown up dreaming and dancing to these sounds, they are the currency of fresh melodic invention, they have kept music alive.
I recall Les Dawson on Desert Island discs, he chose WC Fields The day I drank a glass of water and Ravel’s Pavan, his choice is on sound cloud. Enjoy.
https://soundcloud.com/lesdawson/les-dawson-desert-island-discs
Thank you so much for Las Dawson, Doc, it was great listening to it on this horrible rainy morning. Cheers!
Roy Plomley once asked Les Dawson ” Can you play the piano in the conventional way?” Of course he could, just listen to his version of Scott Joplin’s Entertainer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3jvydwCnKs
I’ve not done an empirical study, but as a long-time listener to DID it seemed to me that classical selections were “fading out”, long before the guest-list increased in diversity.
General dumbing down of societal taste!
I’m laughing at the pretentious comments. “They don’t know the difference between Bach and Buxtehude” is my personal favourite. However, on a serious note (see what I did there, lol) being snobbish gatekeepers is not going to encourage people to engage with classical music, it just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Do they know their Arne from their Elgar?
What about the inverted snobbish gatekeepers?
Or because music is no longer in schools?
My choices, if invited are –
1. Leningrad Symphony – all that percussion!
2. Bolero – love that drum.
3. Beethoven’s 7th last movement – fine for jumping/spinning.
4. Tea for Two – I enjoy tea with friends.
5. Teddy Bear’s Picnic – always up for a picnic in the woods.
6. Mahler’s 8th – so many apes making that noise!
7. Sibelius’s 2nd Symphony – I like a big Finnish.
8. Also Sprach Zarathustra – A Space Odyssey of course.
I remember hearing DID on the BBC World Service via shortwave in the early 1980s. I’m actually really surprised that it still exists. The only popular music segment of the World Service (the schedule broadcast to Europe anyway) that I can remember was something called “Rock Salad” with Tommy Vance. “For music on the heavier side…” I think was his tagline. I got the distinct impression that it was lip service to popular music in a broadcast schedule that had more classical music, especially with BBC and other British ensembles.
I’ve noticed. Compared to yesteryear most of the guests now are nonentities or people I have never heard of. A lot of heads of organisations I have also never heard of. I still listen to it. But classical choices by guests are very very few.
what à shame.. sign of our Google & non-book, non-able-to-listen, times?
It’s true – mainly because of the diverse nature of guests – many are black and Asian do have little interest in classical music
My choices would be:
Mozart Symphony 41
Brahms Piano Concerto 1
Mahler Symphony 5
Shostakovich Symphony 7
Mozart Don Giovanni
Tchaikovsky Symphony 5
Mozart Piano Concerto 22
Brahms Symphony 4
L
Fading out classical music is inverted snobbery.