@thane16 Aaron Copland owes much to Charles Ives. It’s the whole “standing on the shoulders of giants” foundation and progression that is art. Copland’s music (the more programmatic pieces, anyway … not so much the avant garde ones from later in his career) do give a sweeping sense of Americana. Maybe it’s that sense of nostalgia that appeals to…[Read more]

Ooops that was @whohar too. And @ps1l0v3y0u @JanetteB glad you’re spared, this time. The heat wave is impressively awful though.

I remember in the 80s with weeks of heat at C37+ & school letting us out at 11:45 with arvos at friend’s pools or a cheeky sneak into the back of cool movie theatres.

The kettle story is a great one. I had similar exp…[Read more]

@thane16 @nerys @mudlark @whohar @whisht

Much (though far from all) my knowledge of Classical comes via the prism of Prog. Mind you first time I heard Tapiola by Sibelius it was a ‘building a library’ program… basically a Head of David like 1/2 hour wall of sound interspersed with two terribly educated gents asking each other… ‘which one do yo…[Read more]

@PS @whohar

ooh yes, I’m a Brahms fan. And I also like him because he understood the significance of technique (you mentioned this too, Whohar & its application to written structures) & that the pre-Romantic tradition of tight, organised, quite rules-driven composition needed to be understood before moving into an area where breaking rules c…[Read more]

@whohar @thane16

Howard Goodall (of multiple tv theme contributions) presented an interesting program a decade or more ago called ‘The Story of Music’, about the Western Classical Tradition. Not sure if it’s still in circulation.

However, I found I parted company with his narrative after Beethoven. Not because I don’t like Romantic Classic…[Read more]

@mudlark. Good to hear from you but sorry to hear about your friend, (and the health issues. I hope they are all in hand.) Your story about the kettle made me smile. Back in 1983 my friend and I, newly arrived in London, bought a kettle. We had no idea of how to attach the plug. In Australia appliances always came with plugs attached. We were…[Read more]

@whohar (I’ve DMed you too).

honestly, one of the best books on the Romantic style of music (ie 19th century) & its relationship with the social & political climate of its time, is Leon Plantinga’s [Yale] Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style… the chapter on Brahms is revealing. It can be borrowed.

The other is Jan Swafford, Brahms, A B…[Read more]

@whohar

one of my dear professors, Bebbington, loved Brahms, though himself, a student of Wagner & his conducting, recalled how Wagner enthusiasts fanatics interfered with the premiere of Brahms’ 3rd. Brahms, eternally calm, wrote hidden allusions to Wagner in some of his works.

It’s rarely played, & like a lot of his work, sometimes met…[Read more]

@whohar will do! It’s very kind of you.

@thane16 Wow, what an experience! Did you continue playing oboe after that?

I had something similar happen last April, when my five-piece local band was still rehearsing together. We were about a third of the way into our first piece when I fainted. I was only out for a few seconds. Fortunately we were seated in chairs on a thick rug in the home…[Read more]

@janetteb @nerys @whohar

Merry Christmas / New Year / solstice.

I’ve been absent [minded] for a while, time always sneaks past when I’m not looking. Been swimming every day, here (water’s warm!) And also indexing all my digital photos, of which I have literally tens of thousands, I tend to binge on shots. A luxury I could never afford with film,…[Read more]

@whohar @devilishrobby

Hope this doesn’t give too much away. Overall, yes watch it!

Positive:

Acting… though Russel Tovey does his best, Barclay the character could become annoying.

Theme… why ARE we specularly failing to control plastics?

Effects… those are great rubber suits! No really it’s fine and we’ll be watching that water flow down t…[Read more]

@whohar watched the first 2 episodes on Sunday, given that  to my knowledge the series is only 5  episodes long and appear to be 45 minuets long I thought they were a bit slow in progressing the story much to the point that I think for some it will be better to watch all the episode in a binge almost as a single film. Having said that the acting s…[Read more]

@nerys   @whohar   I’ve quite intentionally never owned a DVD player that wasn’t multi-zone or region-free.   It allows me to buy DVD’s on Ebay without worrying what region they are (Region 1 is US, Region 2 is UK).   We’re Region 4 in Aust/NZ.   But obviously the potential selection is far wider if I’m not limited to Region 4, particula…[Read more]

@whohar @ps1l0v3y0u Based on what information was released, the hasty rewrite to the finale of Ncuti Gatwa’s second season was due to Gatwa’s decision not to return for a third season. But all the last-minute changes had to be stressful for RTD. So I wonder about how enthused RTD is to return. (Mind you, I’ve only read about this situation. I fear…[Read more]

@nerys @whohar @dentarthurdent

@whohar… that prescience got you at least one other returning classic Who villain… do you have a source or is it rude to ask? btw if you do, and the 2026 special looks precarious, then it IS bad news for bonkerising of all kind.

But you might want to think about Oct 5th. Boom wasn’t broadcast on that date. 3 and 3…[Read more]

@whohar The pace of filming is interesting. I think it points to Gatwa moving on quite quickly. What it means for the next season is open to debate. Maybe RTD has a fully fleshed-out, season’s worth of stories or maybe he is having to write quickly due to other constraints. Given he got burn out last time, I do wonder how much appetite he will h…

[Read more]

@WhoHar    Oh, thanks for reminding me of that.   It was of course under RTD’s oversight, but how could I have forgotten?

@whohar

Ok. I knew about new showrunners choice and the rationale. My response was a bit Carry On.

Though coming straight after Dharwan stepped out in Whitaker’s it was uh… THERE.

Really, 13>14 WAS more loaded than 12>13. Again, does this reflect the unrelenting blandness of 13?

@whohar @ps1l0v3y0u Thanks, and yes, I agree. In many ways, Chibnall’s tenure was a disappointment. But I always have it in the back of my mind that the blame may not land squarely on him, because I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes. Still, in most cases, the writing just did not come together for me, and since he did most of it, it…[Read more]