What a Karajan at the BBC


Apologies to readers, who like me, tuned in vain to BBC Radio 4 at 7.15pm this evening to hear the 'reassessment' of Herbert von Karajan's life and work that I mentioned in one of today's post.

I picked up information on the programme from today's Guardian radio listings which highlighted the Karajan programme. This information would have been supplied by the BBC publicity department. As programmes sometimes change I went to Radio 4's webpage. This clearly says:

19:15 Front Row 23 January 2008
Arts news and reviews with Mark Lawson, including a reassessment of the life and work of Herbert von Karajan as the centenary of the maestro's birth approaches.

Just to make sure doubly-sure I googled 'BBC Radio 4 Karajan' and found another page on the BBC website which confirmed that the programme was being aired today at 7.15pm. So I linked to it.

At 7.15 there was no Karajan feature, no explanation, and no apology. Like so many things the BBC does today, totally hopeless.

In the old days at least we made our mistakes with style.
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Comments

Garth Trinkl said…
Well, Classical WETA-FM, in Washington, D.C. -- which celebrated its first birthday on Tuesday, January 22 -- had announced that it was going to be broadcasting the Naxos American Classics recording of Charles Tomlinson Griffes's Symphonic Fantasy for Two Pianos (with pianists Michael Lewin and Janice Weber) at 11 PM, so I dragged myself downstairs at 11 PM to listen to it but was greeted by some Neopolitan baroque music (the listing of which is now missing in action from the archived schedule). When I tuned-in last night at 11 PM -- again dragging myself downstairs --I did hear the outstanding Griffes's token American work.

I assume that Classical WETA-FM did not want to have American classical music on its First Anniversary playlist. (Sharon Percy Rockefeller, the President and CEO of Classical WETA-FM, was recently elected to the eight-member Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art, in Washington. Ms. Rockefeller's in-laws -- of course -- were major collectors, and donors to American museums nationwide, of outstanding American classical painting and sculpture.)

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