Classic FM howler of the day

Classic FM howler of the day

News

norman lebrecht

November 04, 2024

You really couldn’t make it up.

Well, they did.

 

Note for nit-pickers: Stravinsky was never a student of Boulanger’s. He was world famous from 1913. Jones studied with her in the 1950s.

Comments

  • Bill Ecker says:

    For those who care, Jones “studied” for a short time with Igor Stravinsky who sent him to Nadia, 5 years his junior. By this point Igor was perhaps the most famous living composer in the world. (Igor and Nadia had become friends when he lived in Paris after he left Russia.) Igor sent Soulima, his son to Nadia and it was Soulima who Quincy saw at Fountainebleau in Paris.

    • Concertgebouw79 says:

      Outside of Stravinsky and Quincy but always in Paris I am curious to know if Villa-Lobos met Stravinsky and Prokofiev? Also it would be intersiting to know if Quincy met miss Long and the great Samson…

    • John R. says:

      I do not believe that Quincy Jones ever studied with Stravinsky. Also, by the time Jones studied with Boulanger, Soulima was a middle aged man living in the US. They would have missed each other by a quarter of a century.

  • Guest Principal says:

    Have they hired a former ENO content writer?

  • Roy Humphrey says:

    Who made what comments?

  • Steve Kirby says:

    This howler also features in the Quincy Jones article in Wikipedia. Surprise surprise.

    • Denise Brain says:

      The Jones listing in Wikipedia no longer says that, so they must have removed it.

      • Steve Kirby says:

        Hi Denise. It has NOT been deleted from the UK version of Wikipedia (perhaps the US version is different?) it’s near the end of the 2nd paragraph under the heading (in bold typeface) “1953-59: Career beginnings with jazz music”. Very puzzling!
        PS it also claims that he studied composition with Olivier Messaien in 1957!!

        • M2N2K says:

          The QJ article in Wikipedia that I see which is apparently the “US version’ has no mention of Igor Stravinsky at all. As for him studying with Olivier Messiaen, I don’t see anything unusual in the possibility of QJ meeting with the French composer and taking a lesson or two.

        • Denise Brain says:

          Maybe so, I look at the US version and it does not state that.

  • Robert says:

    Don’t blame Quincy for that mix-up.

    He has enough accomplishment and enough crazy of his own to merit his passing being widely noted.

  • Sam says:

    Except that they didn’t make it up…

  • Bone says:

    Shame that anyone would feel the need to inflate Q’s bio: from playing trumpet and arranging for the Count Basie Orchestra to producing a seemingly unending stream of pop hits, Mr. Jones is truly a giant in American music.
    Stravinsky’s star has slipped a bit tbh…

  • John Harmar-Smith says:

    Slightly ‘off-piste’ of the post, sorry, but by poignant coincidence, I watched (again!) the wonderful 1967 Sidney Poitier film ‘In the Heat of the Night’ last Sunday – Quincy Jones wrote the score, (title music wonderfully performed by Ray Charles) which very effectively captures the 1960s racial tensions of the time. Perhaps most powerful is the music behind the scene of Tibbs arriving at a cotton plantation with police chief Bill Gillespie, portraying black workers grafting away in the property’s fields. Well worth both a watch and a listen! RIP Quincy, from a life well lived.

  • Peter Feltham says:

    God, I’m a thick ‘Allo Allo’ constable and that comment even raised my eyebrows.

  • Don says:

    Stravinsky’s star dropped.
    Rubbish

  • Clarrieu says:

    What we don’t know is what exactly Quincy studied with Nadia, given the latter’s absolute contempt for every jazz-related music (see Michel Legrand’s memoir about that subject)…

  • P R Terry says:

    My favourite Classic FM howler was John Suchet telling us that Elgar’s Cello Concerto languished in obscurity for 45 years, until du Pre rescued it with her 1965 recording ! An ignoramus who fits in well at a station run by morons.

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