Ramblings Around Derbyshire

A collection of shamblings culled from the local press written by Bob Ellis.

CLASSICAL GAS

Keep moving, that's the best thing. They say a moving target is the hardest to hit so, from a safe house this side of Ashbourne, I can report the MP's ain't got me yet. I've been on the run from the Music Police of BBC Audience Research since word got out of my defection from Radio Three to Classic FM.

I suppose the rot set in while I was still at Derby School. First amongst equals in the new buildings at Littleover, when it was all boys together long before it became incomprehensive, the last period on a Thursday was Music.

The music room was isolated from Form Room B2 by a soundproof wall, a wall that could deaden The 1812 Overture to a sort of Sonata for Trio with random gunfire. There, under the direction of Mr. C Daly Atkinson, we got our first taste of the Classics. We learned that if the music from the Hamlet ad was played in full you could get through a box of the things, that Beethoven's Ninth never really got going until the end, although I'm still not sure just what it was we owed to Joy.

We also learned that classical music has moments of magic at the end of some dreary quarter-hours so, if it's the magic we remember then why shouldn't Classic FM play only these?

With the sales of compilations of Classical Music's Greatest Hits at an all-time high, I put the more populist view to Nicholas Kenyon, then Controller of Radio Three. He said he could not agree more that what the new classical music lovers need is a "point of entry" to Radio Three and changes to morning programmes will try to provide this. I’ve done my best to listen, but it's still a party I've not been invited to.

The Guardian in its Media Section berates Classic FM for gaffs in pronouncing composer's names. I agreed with them until I walked into W. H. Smiths to buy the Classical Chart's Number One only to find that I could neither spell or say it. I had to point to it like a child in a sweet shop.
I had to smile when the gloriously named Petroc Trelawny announced the music used for the World Cup theme as Nissan Dorma, a small Japanese camper van. It's all part of the fun, really...

Must close now as I think the MP's are at the door. I'll come out, Mr Kenyon, if you will tell me the name of that wonderful piece of opera sung as the bloke in the Citizen ad man-handles his departed girlfriend's watch and could you play it for Mum and Jen, a dog named Ben and everyone else that knows me ...