Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: music@classical-music.com Social media: contact us on Facebook and Twitter
Letters
LETTER of the MONTH
Master of the small screen
With regard to your The Listening Service column on Sounds of our Lives (November), among the most effective television themes must be Wilfred Josephs’s score for The Great War series, first broadcast by the BBC in 1964. The initial chords immediately define a sense of catastrophe, which we rapidly follow seemingly into hell itself, before the appearance of a sombre minor figure which is echoed throughout each episode. What made this music especially powerful was the way in which it was synchronised with the programme’s opening visuals, with an ascending musical figure being displayed across a descending visual, as if the viewer is being flung into a battlefield trench. These moments remain with me decades later. It is more than likely that this was the first orchestral music that I ever heard, a formative experience for which I remain grateful.
Andrew Kirby, Tucson, US
Glière gems
What a refreshing change to read Erik Levi’s December Composer of the Month feature on Glière, a composer who has been undeservedly neglected. A friend in America long ago brought to my attention Glière’s piano piece Romance Op. 16 – arguably more Rachmaninov than Rachmaninov. I also found in an antiquarian music shop several years ago his ‘Rusalka’, a song for soprano and piano. This work is a tour de force for both participants and, again, Rachmaninov would have been happy to have composed it. Both of these works are in my personal Top 10 to perform, but are just two of many works gathering dust on shelves. Is it not time for performers to give the overplayed composers a rest and re-introduce these neglected jewels?
Brian Lamb,
Zeist, The Netherlands
The editor replies:
We are glad you enjoyed the Glière feature. In Composer of the Month each month, we aim both to shed light on under-represented composers as well as explore particular perspectives on the more familiar ones. We have had pleasing feedback with regards to a number of this year’s lesser-known composers, and would welcome readers to get in touch and tell us about others they would like to see covered in future issues.
Percussion preference?
I agree with Stephen Binnington (Letter of the Month, December) about this year’s BBC Young Musician Grand Final. It once again had me questioning how percussion can be compared with other instruments. When the chair of the judges, Anna Lapwood, unwisely said that percussion was her favourite
