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Topic: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!  (Read 2561 times)

Offline opus10no2

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Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
on: September 20, 2006, 10:59:58 AM
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/classicaltv/piano2006.shtml

Alot of essential stuff not to miss.

In particular - the Leeds features, and this documentary -

Tue 26 Sept
9-10pm: The Piano: the Love Affair

which features interview with Hamelin among others.

Can someone please record all of these for those of us who don't live in britain?  ;D
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Offline leahcim

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #1 on: September 20, 2006, 12:17:10 PM
Excellent, about time one of these 160+ channels had some classical music, and piano on them.

Something other than Richard Madely talking to Jools Holland "So jools, you press these black and white things, err what did you call them again? Keys! ...I imagine learning the piano needed the same dedication as learning a musical instrument? You must need at least 2 people at a gig to carry the piano in?"

Dunno about the Jazz, does Arensky have a TV, did they make a mistake? :D

Now this piano party on Friday, a school day, a work day for most I suspect [who have fairly recently had a couple of weeks off their annual leave most likely], and the day when the roads going oop North are busier than, err, a busy thing. Who organised that. ::)

As for the competiton "...13, come from Russia. Korea, China and the USA are also well represented. There are two competitors from the UK." So immigration isn't as bad as they say - otherwise we'd probably have 3 people that could play the piano :)

Offline thalbergmad

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #2 on: September 20, 2006, 07:17:42 PM
There are two competitors from the UK

WOW
Curator/Director
Concerto Preservation Society

Offline jre58591

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #3 on: September 20, 2006, 11:50:41 PM
aaargh you brits get all the good stuff on tv.
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Offline opus10no2

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #4 on: September 21, 2006, 11:39:35 AM
But hopefully there is someone on this forum who can capture all of this and upload to post here?
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Offline dave santino

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #5 on: September 21, 2006, 10:27:49 PM
I thought the piano party is on Saturday? BTW, do not miss the Leeds Finals next week; I was listening to the semis on BBC R3 today, and the standard is phenomenal.
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Offline dave santino

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #6 on: September 21, 2006, 10:41:08 PM
Just checked, the Piano Party is indeed tomorrow. Good job I've got frees all afternoon!
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Offline leahcim

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #7 on: September 21, 2006, 10:43:35 PM
I thought the piano party is on Saturday?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/articles/2006/09/01/music_bbc_big_piano_party_feature.shtml

You will get the chance to take part because, on Friday 22 September, there'll be an array of pianos in 10 unusual places.


edit: Ok, you'd seen it :)

Offline dave santino

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #8 on: September 21, 2006, 11:49:32 PM
Anyone going to the free recital in Millenium square on Saturday? Apparently the program will be "eclectic".
"My advice to aspiring musicians? Wear sunblock and use a condom!" - Steve Vai

Offline gruffalo

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #9 on: September 22, 2006, 10:10:24 AM
aaargh you brits get all the good stuff on tv.

actually, no we get sh*t all. excuse my language, but its incredibly annoying how much of a lack of music there is on tele. This is a once in a blue moon thing that channel 4 decides to do. apart from that, yes we have proms, but hardly anything piano related.

Gruff

Offline pianolist

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #10 on: September 22, 2006, 11:39:57 AM
But we do have Radio 3!

I'm old enough to remember it before it was dumbed down, but even so, you should try tuning the radio on a hired automobile while driving along some turnpike in middle America. It makes even Petroc Trelawney sound knowledgeable.

Why do you want to watch anyway? It's much better to listen; you don't get all that awful acting.
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Offline gruffalo

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #11 on: September 22, 2006, 10:01:30 PM
i just love collecting and watching piano vids. I just love watching performances. are you telling me you havent been to a live performance before?

Gruff

Offline pianolist

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #12 on: September 23, 2006, 05:57:48 PM
I love live music! I go to concerts frequently, and I was at half a dozen or so Proms, for example. I love the live atmosphere, but most of that comes from the audience. There are occasions when seeing the performers can make a concert come alive. Frank Peter Zimmermann played the Szymanowski 1st Violin Concerto very beautifully at the Proms, and the odd glance between him and Simon Rattle helped to share the enjoyment of the music.

But generally, I don't find watching musicians helps much, unless they are the very best. Even then, it's the little things they do away from the music that I remember. Richter almost sidling on to the stage in France in 1983, with his music falling to pieces, clutched under his arm. Rubinstein at the age of 80-something, jumping up two steps at a time at the Royal Festival Hall, and a rather younger Horowitz having to hold hand rails in his frailty.

Since my wife is in the music business, we normally sit in the Stalls for the Proms, but I had to miss the first half of one of the concerts, and I ended up in the Gallery for the Rach 2nd Symphony, conducted by Tadaki Otaka. I simply lay on the floor at the back, and let the music waft over me. I saw nothing of the performers, but I'm very glad I was there, for the sake of the atmosphere.

I will admit that half the enjoyment of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, under Ivan Fischer, was watching them. They gave the best Prom this year, I think, and Garrick Ohlson played the Bartok 3rd PC. That was a superb performance. At the very end, there was a second encore, in which a violinist, a viola player (actually one of the horns) and a double bass played Hungarian gypsy music. You had to watch, but you had to be there. Watching on a video would not have had the same magic.

We don't have a TV, and as far as recorded music goes, give me audio any time. Or actually, piano rolls are the best. The secret's in the thousands of tiny perforations.
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Offline leahcim

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Re: Piano Season on BBC 4!!!
Reply #13 on: September 27, 2006, 03:31:34 AM
But generally, I don't find watching musicians helps much, unless they are the very best.

Yes.

There was a documentary on BBC 4, after the Song guy [who probably doesn't stand a chance, not because he picked a piece that's too short and hammered away a little bit harshly IMHO, but because every time anyone says "Song was playing" the rest of the thread will be "OH FFS IT IS PIECE! PIECE! PIECE! NOT SONG!" A bit of a  PR disaster in the piano world having a name that's the no no word :D]

Anyway, this documentary had a buffoon and was really dumbed down. The premise seemed to be this guy learning to play a difficult piece whilst meeting a bunch of people who love piano. He had Hamelin and a woman that does some kind of relaxation / performance thing on the same show, and he might as well have been a blue peter presenter for what he asked / discussed with them.

As well as evidently not knowing the difference between rock music and Blur [and also clearly being completely ignorant of a fair number of rock musicians who, although they might not be Hamelin, can certainly play piano to a standard as good as a number of the people he was happy to stick on TV, like himself, and despite his prejudice they have an interest and knowledge of playing classical music on piano too] Oh well, at least he didn't get Paul McCartney, he gets one point for that.

It didn't need to be high brow or anything [Hamelin seemed refreshingly down to earth for that anyway, especially compared with the appalling presenters and 'experts' for the competition concertos - does that ginger girl have the power of speech?] but it could have been far more informative.

That said, I thought the bits with Hamelin playing "This is one of the earliest pieces I learnt....in E major" and the other bits and pieces around that skill level were educational, perhaps far more so than his flash mind-boggling stuff. If for nothing else seeing how much better he was, even when playing something that perhaps everyone on the program could have played to some level. I think I learnt more from watching him play that than I have from watching anything else being played.

But the guy ruined it, because rather than focussing on what the women was trying to tell him about relaxing, and looking at Hamelin in detail to see why he's playing better [as well as considering that brain scan element] he rejected what they were telling him, or did silly willy waving comparisons with himself "How big is your stretch Hamelin?"

He told the women he was a cynic and later ridiculed her [with a bit of help from Jules Holland although it was largely because he'd forgotten what she'd told him to do that they made a joke of it]

He talked to Hamelin about the size of his hands and the fact he thought they looked like they were made of rubber rather than any of the plethora of things he could have asked that were relevant [and at least partly visible] to explain his control and performance of the piano compared with us mortals. No it's "Tell us about your big rubbery hands please Mr Hamelin." Thanks Mr BBC :)

His amazement at how Hamelin could play the Godowsky Chopin Etude and he couldn't looked foolish when he didn't consider [in detail - and by getting the answer right] how Hamelin could play an easy E major piece, which in the sense that Hamelin could play it, the presenter couldn't either. No, we're left with "Genius" and "big rubbery hands" as the reason for Hamelin's ability. Even if he is a genius some of what he played should be within the ability of most people, and the reasons why he played that easier rep so well could have been explored far better IMO.

The fact he considered himself qualified enough to be a piano teacher made me smile.

That wanna-play attitude went to the presenter's derision of rock piano too. It seemed the presenter was happily elite because he tried and couldn't play classical piano, and believed that the mere attempt and interest in those pieces set him apart from other pianists.

Yet he clearly couldn't play the easier and [as he considered] more mundane rock, boogie woogie or classical pieces either. His attempt at satire and ridicule of rock piano would have been funnier had he played it well. Extras on BBC 2 last week did the funny rock song much better - a song that would fit this presenter :)

It was a program that had all the right ingredients to be great, the right pianists to interview [mostly, I think they could have gotten a better rock example], the trip to the hospital to look at how the brain of a pianist works etc, yet all the detail seemed missing and the whole thing seemed watered down by the presenter's ignorance of the subject and disinterest in actual presenting the good things he had to show if he'd wanted to.

Although the program was interesting to watch, I ultimately felt annoyed that the BBC was paying this buffoon to make the program and as a result he was getting the opportunity to meet these people. An opportunity that was so clearly wasted on the guy.
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