Who just scored a record TV audience for classical music?

Who just scored a record TV audience for classical music?

Orchestras

norman lebrecht

January 07, 2024

Last night, one in five Finns watched a live classical muusic concert on television.

The show, on the main channel of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, drew 850000 viewers to watch the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kristian Sallinen.

The gimmick? The programme invited national celebrities to choose – a ”Piece of my life”. The works chosen were by Mozart, Sibelius, Brahms, Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Khatchaturian.

What would David Beckham choose? Or Boris Johnson? Or Kylie Minogue?

Worth a shot, Suzy Klein.

Comments

  • Larry says:

    A very clever “gimmick” in my opinion. It sounds like great fun. What pieces were chosen?

    • Paavo says:

      Brahms Hungarian Dance no. 5, Mozart Clarinet concerto Adagio, Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela, Verdi Overture and Introduction to La Traviata, Tchaikovsky the final scene of Swan Lake. Khatchaturian Waltz was FRSO’s own encore. By the way, 850 000 watchers are slightly less than one in six Finns.

  • Steve says:

    BoJo picked Bach (St Matthew Passion), Brahms (St Anthony Variations) and Beethoven (Fifth Symphony) amongst his Desert Island Discs. Kylie included Morricone’s music for Cinema Paradiso. David Beckham didn’t select any classical/orchestral tracks but some quite-well-chosen pop and jazz numbers. Some celebrities (the politicians, for certain) have PR gurus to tell them what to pick in these circumstances. Perhaps in Finland they don’t have access to Netflix and everybody wasn’t watching Saltburn.

    • Judith Cornfield says:

      Good to know. Would like to have seen the Sinfonia of London Prom (conducted by John Wilson) again – on BBC4 or even BBC2. JW is known as a Proms ‘favourite’
      Would have like to have seen them over Christmas. No luck tho!

  • Helen says:

    In the UK, that would have been £10m in proportion.

    I’m sure that Keir Starmer, who apparently likes classical music, will fix it.

  • John Soutter says:

    Would Choosy Suzie play Norman LeBrecht’s blue-eyed boy, Boulez or Stockhausen or Brian Ferneyhough?

  • Maurice says:

    What has Suzy Klein to do with this? All a bit elliptical, I suspect.

  • Scott Messing says:

    Footnote fodder: A not entirely dissimilar idea (substitute concertgoers for VIPs) from the turn of the century had the audience invited to select its favorite from choices given beforehand. For a series of testimonial concerts in 1889 “in the cities of the Union” honoring Theodore Thomas (conductor of the New York Symphony), newspapers listed three programs for attendees to choose “by popular request.” The program most often chosen consisted of Wagner, Tannhäuser Overture; Beethoven, Symphony no. 5, Andante; Liszt, Fantasy on Hungarian Airs; Wilczsek, violin solos; Berlioz, Damnation of Faust (Intermission); Rossini, William Tell Overture; Schumann, Träumerai (strings, Victor Herbert led the cellos); Chopin, Berceuse; Joseffy, Valse Impromptu; Schubert-Tausig, Marche militaire (the latter three played by Rafael Joseffy); Volkmann, Serenade (Herbert, soloist); and Strauss, Hochzeitsklänge Waltz. Similarly, in 1904 on the way to San Francisco, the pianist Harold Bauer gave a recital in Phoenix whose program was chosen by the audience: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, and the Schubert-Tausig Marche militaire.

  • Tomas Morell says:

    Excellent performance

  • Sara says:

    Only last summer the Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a Prom consisting of audience choices.

  • Vince says:

    It attracts 850000 audiences means classical has it’s role in our life. Choice? Whoever hold the media that would be the choice. $$$.

  • kcc says:

    i would love to see CHOPIN’s posthumous NOCTURNEs (#20#21) to be up there

  • Rob Cowan says:

    Familiar or what? Remember Essential Classics on Radio 3 (as was, rather than as is now) with celebrity guests such as Stephen Fry, Gerald Scarfe, Andrew Motion, Sheila Hancock, Martin Rowson, Olivier Williams, Myriam Margoles, Clive Myrie, Eddie Izzard, and so forth, all choosing the music that meant most to them and talking about it (for a while Suzie herself co-presented with me) – and which attracted the station’s biggest audience?

    • Guest says:

      Doesn’t Private Passions do the same thing now? (I don’t know the audience figures, though.)

    • pjl says:

      This was a great programme; I used to listen if I had a free period on my classroom computer. I remember a great week with Stuart Maconie (Halle concert-goer) and of course there was the great idea at the end where you chose a piece that you thought they might like to expand their listening: genius idea! Your huge knowledge of the recorded repertoire meant that even obsessive collectors and concert-goers like myself would discover new riches and your relaxed but educated style surely meant that those new to great music were encouraged not intimidated. Even Building a Library is dumbed down now: why does an experienced expert like Jeremy Summerly have to waste air time in a dialogue with the insufferable MacGregor? We miss you Rob; at least there are your helpful reviews of vintage stuff in the ‘Gramophone’.

  • Mr. Ron says:

    It seems to me the Scandinavians are in the lead in classical music today,–composers, conductors, funding, artistically et. And I am not one of them.

  • Mick the Knife says:

    This is great! But I suggest people support live classical music by getting up and getting out to a concert every week.

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