Symphony - A Travesty

I have watched the first three episodes of the four part BBC series. My hopes were not high, having been disappointed by the similar BBC series on choral music some time ago, but any remaining hopes I did have were soon dashed.

1. Which idiot at the BBC decided that the appalling Simon Russell Beale was the appropriate person to guide us through this most fascinating of musical areas? I am aware that the BBC appears these days to be populated almost entirely by idiots but whichever one of their rapidly increasing number made this decision is a prize chump!

Beale [a man of moderate acting talents himself, who presumably feels that he needs three names to emphasise how important a chap he axtually is] was entirely the wrong person to present this series. He pops up at various places around the world, gurning into the camera at every opportunity and simpering sycophantically at everyone he meets. Seeing him riding a tram in Vienna or playing the piano with Sir Mark Elder  or admiring pictures of Dvorak's pigeons or [please fill in the blanks] does not enhance either my knowledge or appreciation of the symphonic tradition and form. Indeed he seems determined to appear in as many frames of the series as possible - even sitting at the back of the orchestra on occasion, nodding along to the music like the sort of toy dog we used to keep on the parcel shelf of our car when I was much younger. With a name like Beale, I presume he must be a fugitive from Eastenders. I can't imagine why anyone at the BBC would otherwise have employed him. He clearly has no insights of his own.

2. In a series about the symphony, why spend so much time on Wagner, who wasn't a symphonist at all, and Liszt [episode 2] who wrote only one symphony of any note. Even Beecham couldn't make the Faust symphony remotely interesting. And while a substantial amount of limited time was given over to these non-symphonists, only two minutes approximately was devoted to Tchaikovsky, one of the greatest symphonists of the 19th Century. And Mendelssohn wasn't even mentioned at all - when he wrote more great symphonies than Wagner and Liszt put together.

It is this kind of perverse approach that the BBC appears to favour these days in the interests of being 'challenging' or 'thought provoking', but which in reality arises either from ignorance or sloppy thinking.

Or perhaps it's simply further evidence of the Liszt/Wagner mafia in action.

3. Having devoted a measly couple of minutes to Tchaikovsky at the end of the programme and told us how deeply felt the Pathetique was and how searingly painful, the crass idiots who run the continuity department as usual intrude right across the closing credits and the glorious music by trailing the fact that we can listen to the symphonies on Radio 3, thus ruining the effect that the programme had presumably aimed carefully to provide. It seems to me that the BBC would be happiest these days simply running trailers without any actual programmes at all.

4. Redeeming features? Two only that I can think of - the playing of the various orchestras, which has been uniformly excellent. And the presence and insights of Sir Mark Elder, which really do lend the programme some much needed serious commentaries on the music. He is our greatest musical asset at the moment. Why didn't the BBC get him to present the series instead of the hopeless SRB?

I shall doubtless be watching the final part of the series next week in the hope that it won't involve sections on the 20th Century symphony and how it was shaped by the vital input of Alban Berg and Michael Jackson, but I am not hopeful.....