Classic FM top 300

[Ceto]

Gah, what is it with the bloody Lark Ascending? It's a nice enough piece of music but it's a single theme that goes nowhere. How can it possibly be better than anything that the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Handel and Haydn can produce?

Ah, but it's British, isn't it, not that European music, coming over here and taking up our airwaves.

I wonder what proportion of Classic FM listeners voted for Brexit?

Altogether now: "Land of Hope and Glory,..."

Well, there you are, even Elgar's better than that effing Lark.

I hear you. Love classical music, of all kinds, can appreciate stuff even if it's not to my taste but I do not understand the love for Lark bloody Ascending.

The problem I find with these polls is I never know what to vote for: when I listen to the last movement of Beethoven's Sixth, I think it's the greatest music ever written; if I sit through Mahler's Second, then I'm convinced that's the pinnacle of musical achievement; but start up the opening bars of Schubert's String Quintet and it feels more sublime than anything... .

No, no, scratch that, I should have said Tchaikovsky's 6th, no - I mean Messiah, aagh no, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

I know what you mean, DadDadDad, but for me it's Schubert's 9th as No. 1 every time. The problem comes in deciding what comes 2nd and 3rd.

I'm glad to hear that there are people who are mystified by the "bloody Lark Ascending".

I've never voted though .... How to choose!?

Almost anything by Schubert or Beethoven please!

I go to a pub quiz where the previous winners have a handicap of 15 points.

Can Classic FM not handicap the bloody Lark?

The Lark Descending

They mentioned when they played Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1 that it had been top for some time but it's now gone down to no. 16, so I guess there's hope. I suspect there may be a degree of confirmation bias - people look at the top 10 or 20 and choose what they want to vote for out of those; or maybe it's because it gets played a lot precisely because of where it is in the charts.

I just went to see where Haydn's Creation is and see it's dropped out of the top 300 altogether. Hmmmpphhh. These people should just ask me, really.

Yep - confirmation bias! There's a whole hour a day of music from the hall of fame; it must just get dinned into everyone.

That said, my vote went to the highest placed Mozart piece, so I'm hardly ground-breakingly original myself...

We should do an MN Classical Music Hall of Fame... (and cry if The Bloody Lark is number 1 here too .)

The Lark Ascending is always played in the afternoon so I suppose many listeners associate it with snoozing smugly in their conservatories...

I too voted for the Mozart piece, which was no. 1 once. There was a year when the HoF was infiltrated with lots of "games" music which I bet baffled the conservatory crew. And it always makes dh and I laugh when the presenters try to make film music "proper" by using their smoooooth tone, eg, "And now, another piece by John Williams, the Theme from Harold Potter." Or it's accompanied by a tinkly little laugh to show that they're in the know that it's not quite the thing.

I have to switch station if they play Out of Africa ...

Oh yes, I think there will have been outrage in various snug conservatories at the high position of the Star Wars theme tune. But actually it's been quite nice that the DDs recognised some of the tunes!