Saturday morning means WeekendFT and Record Review on Radio 3.
The best bit of RR is BaL (Building a Library) especially if it’s a piece of music I like. Anything atonal and anything by Steve Reich and I’m off to Radio 2 for Sounds of the Sixties while squinting at the small print in the Investment Trust section of stock market prices. I’m not interested in the prices, only the discounts or premia.
If I may briefly digress, I saw the Prince of Wales and Steve Reich at the President’s annual visit to the Royal College of Music a few years ago, at which he invests leading musicians and singers with honorary degrees. Last year was his 27th doing this irksome and time consuming chore; he was lucky he had Antonio Pappano (Sir Antonio, you remind me), Jonas Kaufmann et al. When I went he had Reich and the PoW was, as his title suggests, a captive audience. The (first?) Reich wore a baseball cap, did not take it off and shook the POW’s hand as if shaking hands with a newbie in the percussion section. How does Prince Charles put up with these indignities? Reich’s music always reminds me of an old British Rail train clattering across points interminably.
On Saturday it was Saint-Saëns‘ Carnival of the Animals, a sophisticated version of Prokofiev‘s Peter and the Wolf. The excerpts and analysis were enjoyable and educational. Later I did a bit of research and found Ogden Nash wrote an accompaniment recorded with Noël Coward. If you are a big fan of Coward’s rather irritating voice you might like it. Much better is the recording with a wonderfully varied cast taking on each of the fourteen movements: Ted Danson, Audrey Hepburn, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Arte Johnson, Walter Matthau, Dudley Moore, Deborah Raffin, Lynn Redgrave, Joan Rivers, William Shatner, Jaclyn Smith, Lily Tomlin and Betty White.
Did I stay tuned to Radio 3 for Music Matters? Contains strong language – how strong? – I didn’t want to find out. It transpires it’s a music festival in Coventry.