Is no one prepared to oppose dumbing-down?


News comes that composer and broadcaster Michael Berkeley has been made a peer in the House of Lords – that is him with his father Lennox on the Chandos CD above. I used to be a big fan of BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions programme which he presents, and in the past have written here in praise of it. But the programme has fallen victim to the BBC’s ‘dumb or die’ policy and now features Michael Berkeley indulging expendable media celebrities whose tastes in music are more Radio 2 than 3. Which means I - and probably a lot of other people - no longer listen to it. Is no one prepared to oppose dumbing-down?

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Pliable said…
Shame about Private Passions. But Lennox Berkeley's Third Symphony - which is on the featured CD - is a fine and neglected work.
1:49 pm
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