In a post that is (for a change) targetted precisely at the overall theme of this blog I want to share with you yet another insight into my own ignorance….
When I was younger I learned to play the cornet. The fact that I was already ‘competent’ when I left primary school marked me out (at least as far as the music teacher was concerned) as a suitable ‘volunteer’ to learn to play the French Horn. So – one thing led to another. Through the early years my playing was only within the school orchestra, but when I reached the stage of doing my O levels and Highers (this was within the scottish education system, so no A levels) and had chosen music as one of my subjects there was an expansion of both my playing and my listening.
In particular, the Higher Music studies meant that I, for the first time, really went into some music “in depth”, learning about structure, style and widening my knowledge. Up until that point my “classical” music consisted of a 12 LP set from Readers Digest of favourite classics that my father had purchased. Although this was a limited repertoire, it did have one saving grace – it spanned the centuries as far as the music was concerned from Bach and Handel to Stravinsky and Richard Strauss
Listening to the “Music of the World’s Great Composers” over and over again burned some works into my psyche and they have remained there ever since – Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony, Beethoven’s “Eroica”, Cesar Franck’s Symphony, Rimsky Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Festival Overture”, Verdi’s “La Forza Del Destino” overture and more….
Not only did my studies at school widen my listening (Sibelius’ second Symphony became a favourite) it also resulted in an invite to participate in the Glasgow School’s Orchestras – at that time there were summer schools for three orchestras of different standards, a concert band and a brass band.
All of this kicked off a period of about fifteen years when I was playing, listening, buying records (and then CDs), attending concerts – in many ways simply drinking in the many different flavours of music. I had the opportunity of sampling playing in different orchestras, bands and chamber groups and even attended a “Horn Symposium” in Wien to celebrate the centenary of the Wiener Waldhornverein.
At that time my “alarm clock” was BBC Radio 3. In those days it started at 7am – with a sort of ‘warm up’ for a few minutes beforehand – first of all there was a series of “beeps” then a piece of music (the same one each morning) would be played before the programming proper started. I can’t now remember what the music was – it did change from time to time – but that was my ‘gentle’ introduction to the new day most mornings.
My ‘alarm’ on my phone these days reflects that – it plays Bruckner’s “Locus Iste”!
Although music remains part of my life my participation was much reduced after this time – listening switched to the “new kid on the block” – Classic FM. Main reason for this was that most of my listening was done when I was driving somewhere for work and the levels on Classic FM were set to remove the extremes of the quiet and loud passages which meant that it ‘worked’ well to listen to in the car.
Within the last year I have returned to Radio 3 for my drive in to work – now a daily commute of round forty to forty five minutes instead of the brief drive that was my ‘usual’ for many years. This longer time has made the music more important and I am really glad that I have refound Radio 3. Classic FM is great – if you are a ‘peripheral’ classical music lover. It does a great job of playing the sort of music that attracts the ‘casual’ listener.
For me though, it is limited by the fact that it has a (seemingly) small-ish and ‘conservative’ playlist and you often find yourself listening to the same music several times in the week. For a commercial station, this is, of course, a good thing since this makes things more familiar and most people enjoy that familiarity (as do I on occasion – it often reminds me of music I haven’t listened to for a long time and which contains memories for me).
In contrast, having been listening to “Breakfast” on Radio 3 for the best part of a year it never ceases to amaze me that very seldom do I hear something that I remember hearing on the programme before. This, of course, is more reflective of the fact that there is such a huge amount of music available. I will admit that (unlike Classic FM) there are occasionally some pieces of music that “don’t do it” for me – but those are the exceptions.
Here we come to the subject of the blog – Dora Pejaèeviæ – a composer featured on this morning’s programme. There seems to be a slight bias in favour of female composers in the breakfast playlists. I do get the feeling that there is “positive discrimination” at play here. So, it is not surprising that a woman is featured, but Dora Pejaèeviæ is not only a woman, but a composer that I have never heard of before.
My ignorance is exposed again…..
I am not so arrogant as to think that I “know everything” about music and composers – so this is NOT a shock – I am well aware that there are gaps – big gaps – in my knowledge and that these will (probably) coincide with types of music that I was less interested in. It was still a useful (timely?) reminder that these gaps exist – and well done to Radio 3 for being sufficiently ‘free’ in their programming to be far enough away from the “mainstream” that they are highlighting this sort of gap in my knowledge.
I think (with some justification) that my musical knowledge is “better than average” – but the many years of imbibing music in all sorts of ways certainly did not give me a ‘complete’ knowledge. This is a reflection of every area of my life – the more I know, the more I realise that I do NOT know.
The tagline in the header of this site is a quote from Terry Pratchett. Having this disability myself is, I guess, something that I am just a little proud of! I see that as one disability worth having!