In his praise of the Guardian for masking the proms, it was disappointing to see Colin Bradbury use the outmoded distinction that classical music is “real” tunes in distinction with well known music (Letters, 31 August). That was the watch when I was at school in the 1960s, when one instructor claimed to us: “What you are listening to is rubbish. This is fantastic. Listen to it.” What self-respecting teen wouldn’t revolt at these types of a command? It prejudiced my watch of classical songs for a lot of a long time.
The a lot more enlightened trainer of nowadays embraces all sorts of songs, and teens can typically obtain their way as a result of pop songs on to the classics. I built certain that the songs in the car or truck on our loved ones vacations mixed the Beatles and Human League with Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, and I was delighted when my 12-12 months-old daughter asked to pay attention to “that pleasant piece of songs you played previous time we drove by this forest”. Beethoven, Mahler and Sibelius are repeated companions in my auto these days, but so are Del Shannon, Walter Trout and Dua Lipa. It’s all songs, Mr Bradbury.
Ron Fosker
Witham, Essex
Considerably as I admire Colin Bradbury as a musician and agree with him about the Guardian’s neglect of classical music, his defence of genuine new music, echoing that of true ale is unlikely to chime with a lot of viewers. The diversity of output that we usually incorporate below the classical umbrella emerged from the tunes of the Christian church, which experienced, uniquely, codified music via early notation. Further development of notation offered the possibility for tunes to evolve into a kaleidoscope of expressive sorts. A lot of generations of evolution and divergence have brought us a huge human body of audio, reflecting our complicated background and expressing many cultural identities. It is also a untrue equivalence for Nigel Turner (Letters, 1 September) to assert that it is an additional style together with ska, pop, samba, bhangra or R&B. Alas, songs journalism seems to fortify this crass categorisation routinely.
Paul Copas
Brentwood, Essex
Maybe it was a slip-up to explain classical music as true audio fairly than use Nicola Benedetti’s description of it as “long-form” audio, as it distracts the reader from the true issue, that of its neglect by newspapers. Classical music is not only “favoured by the European ruling classes”, as Nigel Turner set it, but liked by quite a few people today of all courses and ages. And what is a lot more, all moods are to be located in classical songs, which include “fun”.
Marie Paterson
Nuneaton, Warwickshire
The remit of the Proms is to examine what could possibly be termed western art audio of the past 400 a long time. It does this fantastically and with much more than a nod to the music of other genres and cultures. There are festivals devoted to jazz, rock, pop and folks. As considerably as I can explain to, they include no classical music. This is wonderful. I can not understand why other benchmarks should really be used to the Proms. Classical music is not posh. Promenade live shows are not posh. The Proms make it possible for any individual to accessibility the really greatest classical musicians for about £7. Fifty many years in the past, as a doing work-class boy, Promenade concert events opened up a earth of inexpensive and superb tunes. All being very well, it will continue to do so for anyone with an open up thoughts and ears to listen to.
Paul Michell
Bristol
Who could disagree with Colin Bradbury when he says that arts protection of classical, or serious music, performs next fiddle to that of pop new music. This can often be proved by evaluating obituaries. When David Bowie died, the Guardian’s tributes ran to a number of web pages. Nonetheless, Pierre Boulez, a dominant postwar determine in classical audio who died in the exact week, received a lot fewer awareness.
Alastair Mcleish
Edinburgh
Despite the fact that I agree with Nigel Turner that it is incorrect to assert that western classical tunes is serious music as opposed to other kinds, what it can claim is to be able to achieve human inner thoughts and creativity in a manner incredibly diverse from other musical varieties. It can be appreciated by any class of individuals, as I have often discovered for the duration of my prolonged occupation as a classical musician and trainer.
Luciano Iorio
London
I was amused to hear from Nigel Turner that western classical songs is the favoured variety for the “European ruling classes”. I’m fearful that in my 33 a long time in the BBC Symphony Orchestra I didn’t meet up with quite a few of those at our live shows. They ended up commonly significantly additional at residence at pop music festivals. I reckon that if he ended up to test becoming a member of the prommers someday (and not just on the past night time), he could not only get pleasure from the serious detail, but locate that there’s a whole lot additional enjoyable in a Haydn symphony than in a pop music.
Colin Bradbury
Ealing, London