Archive for the ‘Music’ category

DAB+ turning up the broadcast quality?

Wednesday, 27 December 2023

Listeners to Classic FM will have recently heard adverts advising them that the digital broadcast of the station is going to switch from DAB to DAB+ from January. We are told that they are “turning up the broadcast quality” (by the mellifluous tones of John Brunning, no less, who is no longer regularly on the […]

Read the whole article...

Carl Davis and “Safety Last!”

Thursday, 10 August 2023

I was very sad to hear last week that we have lost the film composer Carl Davis. He produced an amazing body of work, composing for film and TV, conducting, and writing concert works, including several ballets in recent years. Among his scores and soundtracks are The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the acclaimed documentary series The […]

Read the whole article...

Classic FM scrap the Evening Concert after 30 years

Thursday, 30 June 2022

It’s been a while since I wrote about Classic FM, but the latest news about changes to the schedule and presenters from next week needs commenting on. Some people, particularly those who prefer Radio 3, look down on Classic FM as it is perceived to be lightweight, downmarket even, and not a station anyone who […]

Read the whole article...

20 years of internet shopping

Wednesday, 10 March 2021

Today marks twenty years to the day since I first bought something online. The item was a CD of Novák’s Slovak Suite and other works, and it was bought online from hmv.co.uk for the princely sum of £11.24, plus £1 for postage. The site still exists today, although HMV must have been in administration and […]

Read the whole article...

Orchestrating songs, or singing orchestral tracks?

Thursday, 11 May 2017

Classic FM is shortly going to release a new album, Pop Goes Classical. They have already played tracks from it on the station. It features the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra playing versions of famous pop songs. The track that they keep playing on the station is a version of the 1991 song (Everything I Do) […]

Read the whole article...

Classic FM HD stream

Sunday, 6 November 2016

For the latest post in my occasional series about digital radio, I was intrigued to receive an e-mail from Classic FM this week advertising “HD audio” in their mobile app. There are versions of the app for Apple and Android devices, and they allow users to listen to live broadcasts, as well as to a […]

Read the whole article...

James Horner (1953–2015)

Sunday, 28 June 2015

In March, I was fortunate enough to see the première of Collage, which was to be James Horner’s last concert work, at the Royal Festival Hall. At the end of the performance, the composer came on stage to take his bow, the same smiling, bearded gentleman as in the pictures accompanying his many obituaries this […]

Read the whole article...

Star Wars without the fanfare

Monday, 4 May 2015

As today is Star Wars Day, and marked with a public holiday in the UK, I’ll start with some reminiscing. When I was a child, the only place you could see a Star Wars film was on TV. The excitement and anticipation while waiting for it to begin were immense. Then finally, the screen faded […]

Read the whole article...

Proms queue diversity

Saturday, 26 July 2014

Last week when I was taking a look at what people were saying on Twitter about the first night of the BBC Proms, I came across a tweet by someone called Gavin Dixon: Time, once again, to lament the lack of social diversity in the #BBCProms arena queue. Quite literally #middleclassproblems As he refers specifically […]

Read the whole article...

Classical music poll descends into farce

Monday, 9 April 2012

Every year since 1996, British classical music station Classic FM has held a poll of the nation’s top 300 pieces of classical music, the Hall of Fame. Unlike the weekly charts that exist for both classical and other genres of music, the Hall of Fame is not intended to rank the best-selling recordings of the […]

Read the whole article...


By browsing this site, you agree to its use of cookies. More information. OK