![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Radio Roundup
Jan. 30th, 2014 08:52 pmThis is an ever-decreasing list, I'm afraid, as my endeavour to wean myself off the internet at work* means more radio than ever is passing under the figurative bridge. It doesn't help that it's been a bit of a lean week radio-wise, in my opinion. But addictions die hard, so here are my picks for the week as we know it:
Who Killed Classical Music? - The grandson of Prokofiev, also a composer, looks at the effect Schoenberg, the 12-tone movement, and formalism had on the shape of 20th century classical music, and the part these played in driving popular audiences away from the concert hall. (At one point he and another young classical composer bemoan orchestras' tendency to be stuck in the past, but I'd like to point out most discerning concert-goers I have known have been trained to avoid anything written after 1930 because it tends to be unpleasantly atonal, so being rigorously retrospective is in any orchestra's best financial interest.) Some of the ideas mentioned for how to bring classical music into the mainstream again remind me a lot of what the Independent Shakespeare Company does to bring the original humanity and popular appeal of Shakepseare out from its stuffy closet.
The Problem with Adam Bloom: Technology - I link to this mainly because I've been waiting SEVEN YEARS to catch this episode again and record that bit about the inherently sinister nature of chain letters ... now that chain emails have more or less moved to Facebook and Tumblr. Oh well.
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme - The Emperor's New Epilogue, Romulus and Remus, and a series of songs from the zoo which makes astute reference to how moulting penguins are reminiscent of the walking dead. (It doesn't go quite that much into depth on them but they are!)
The Unbelievable Truth - The panel game about truth and lies, which was the first thing in a long time to reduce me to gasping giggles, though that may have had something to do with the gallon of tea I'd had beforehand. Featuring John Finnemore, and Rufus Hound's hilarious interruptions.
Things I would like to listen to before they expire:
Frozen in Mawson's Footsteps - that ship trapped in Antarctic ice this year had on it a bunch of fanpeople hoping to retrace the journey of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson. This show appears to be presented by one of them. My people.
Tim Key's Late Night Poetry - I've enjoyed the previous episodes of this, as I have much of Mr Key's surreal sense of humour, and this one's about survival, so much in keeping with the week's potential theme.
Undone - A comedy scifi series set in and out of a sort of secret alternate London. Given that it's written by Ben Moor, I suspect I will like it much better than Neverwhere, apologies to Neil Gaiman.
NEXT WEEK
I am so happy to see The Voice of God coming back. Experiments with sonic weapons in the Australian Outback have unintended consequences and alarming parallels with native Australian mythology, written by the master of modern radio pulp (of the best sort) Simon Bovey, with his usual confidence and strong female characters.
*I wish I could say this was out of a noble desire for self-improvement, but the truth is, in order to use the iPlayer I have to lug my laptop into work and I'm trying to do that as little as possible in the interest of saving my backpack and back.
Who Killed Classical Music? - The grandson of Prokofiev, also a composer, looks at the effect Schoenberg, the 12-tone movement, and formalism had on the shape of 20th century classical music, and the part these played in driving popular audiences away from the concert hall. (At one point he and another young classical composer bemoan orchestras' tendency to be stuck in the past, but I'd like to point out most discerning concert-goers I have known have been trained to avoid anything written after 1930 because it tends to be unpleasantly atonal, so being rigorously retrospective is in any orchestra's best financial interest.) Some of the ideas mentioned for how to bring classical music into the mainstream again remind me a lot of what the Independent Shakespeare Company does to bring the original humanity and popular appeal of Shakepseare out from its stuffy closet.
The Problem with Adam Bloom: Technology - I link to this mainly because I've been waiting SEVEN YEARS to catch this episode again and record that bit about the inherently sinister nature of chain letters ... now that chain emails have more or less moved to Facebook and Tumblr. Oh well.
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme - The Emperor's New Epilogue, Romulus and Remus, and a series of songs from the zoo which makes astute reference to how moulting penguins are reminiscent of the walking dead. (It doesn't go quite that much into depth on them but they are!)
The Unbelievable Truth - The panel game about truth and lies, which was the first thing in a long time to reduce me to gasping giggles, though that may have had something to do with the gallon of tea I'd had beforehand. Featuring John Finnemore, and Rufus Hound's hilarious interruptions.
Things I would like to listen to before they expire:
Frozen in Mawson's Footsteps - that ship trapped in Antarctic ice this year had on it a bunch of fanpeople hoping to retrace the journey of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson. This show appears to be presented by one of them. My people.
Tim Key's Late Night Poetry - I've enjoyed the previous episodes of this, as I have much of Mr Key's surreal sense of humour, and this one's about survival, so much in keeping with the week's potential theme.
Undone - A comedy scifi series set in and out of a sort of secret alternate London. Given that it's written by Ben Moor, I suspect I will like it much better than Neverwhere, apologies to Neil Gaiman.
NEXT WEEK
I am so happy to see The Voice of God coming back. Experiments with sonic weapons in the Australian Outback have unintended consequences and alarming parallels with native Australian mythology, written by the master of modern radio pulp (of the best sort) Simon Bovey, with his usual confidence and strong female characters.
*I wish I could say this was out of a noble desire for self-improvement, but the truth is, in order to use the iPlayer I have to lug my laptop into work and I'm trying to do that as little as possible in the interest of saving my backpack and back.
