Classic FM Hall of Fame
I had a lovely Easter weekend. The one thing that cast a pall was listening to the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2014 - for the non-classical-music-inclined, the Hall of Fame is a countdown of the top 300 classical music works of the year, as voted for by Classic FM listeners. It is broadcast over the four days of the Easter weekend, 12 hours a day, and, frankly, sucks life out of you quicker than a leech the size of a dustbin lid.
It's the sheer inevitability of it that is so depressing. As per usual, none of my choices featured at all. As per usual, the top two tracks were Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 2, which I loathe, and Vaughan William's The Lark Ascending, which I also loathe, but not quite as much as the Rachmaninov and which won this year.
I just get so fed up of this stupid competition. Year after year, people vote for the same tired old works, which means that the bulk of the chart never changes at all. They are ably assisted in this by Classic FM, which plays the works in the Hall of Fame for most of every day, and therefore renders the competition totally pointless, as people are led to vote for the music they are listening to and the chart is a self fulfilling prophecy. There might be some movement on the edges, a new movie theme or a modern composer sneaking in for one year only before disappearing again. In essentials though, since the Hall of Fame started, only four works have ever held the number 1 spot; Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, and the inevitably Rachmaninov and bloody Lark. How is that competition?
I prefer to vote for different things - to pick new works each year, the works that spoke to me, that formed my soundtrack for the year. Clearly that renders me unusual. I should be sitting at home suckling on the teat of Vaughan Williams with my fingers in my ears, pretending that classical music begins and ends with the 250 or so works that feature permanently in the Classic FM chart. Apparently that's what everyone else does...
It's the sheer inevitability of it that is so depressing. As per usual, none of my choices featured at all. As per usual, the top two tracks were Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 2, which I loathe, and Vaughan William's The Lark Ascending, which I also loathe, but not quite as much as the Rachmaninov and which won this year.
I just get so fed up of this stupid competition. Year after year, people vote for the same tired old works, which means that the bulk of the chart never changes at all. They are ably assisted in this by Classic FM, which plays the works in the Hall of Fame for most of every day, and therefore renders the competition totally pointless, as people are led to vote for the music they are listening to and the chart is a self fulfilling prophecy. There might be some movement on the edges, a new movie theme or a modern composer sneaking in for one year only before disappearing again. In essentials though, since the Hall of Fame started, only four works have ever held the number 1 spot; Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, and the inevitably Rachmaninov and bloody Lark. How is that competition?
I prefer to vote for different things - to pick new works each year, the works that spoke to me, that formed my soundtrack for the year. Clearly that renders me unusual. I should be sitting at home suckling on the teat of Vaughan Williams with my fingers in my ears, pretending that classical music begins and ends with the 250 or so works that feature permanently in the Classic FM chart. Apparently that's what everyone else does...