It's a funny thing, but I actually feel that we here at your favourite blog, Is the BBC biased?...
...the ultra-hip bad girl of BBC bias blogs which, with sharp stilettos, loud lipstick, a burqa and an AK-47, well and truly out-Corbyns Jeremy Corbyn, Tarantino-style, when it comes to Hamas-style coolness - both in reaching the masses and blowing the heads off Beeboids...
...that, as I was saying,,..
...that we here at Is the BBC biased? have actually pointed out a fair few plausible examples of BBC bias over the course of this weekend.
That said, what follows is surely the worst example yet...
So returning to BH...
After Paddy's stonewalling over Edward Heath came the most shockingly pro-bassoon segment I've ever heard on the BBC. Apparently, bassoons are being passed over by the young in favour of saxophones and BH was amplifying the complaint that that's an issue which needs bother us.
Only a bassoonist was invited to appear (no oboists, clarinettists or flautists were invited, for counterbalance) and, worse still, the bassoonist was then allowed to perform a bit of Gramps from Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (more Monbiot-style pro-wolf bias from the BBC!) and later encouraged to play a transcription of Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King (more pro-troll bias from the BBC!)
Bassoons, of course, are the buffoons of the orchestra. The rhyming of "bassoon" with "buffoon" proves that point. The BBC shouldn't be pandering to them...unless they are playing Mozart's beautiful youthful Bassoon Concerto...which, in fairness, BH's Tom the Bassoonist also did...
Craig, if I were you I would take it easy on the wacky baccy !
ReplyDeleteWe don't have this thing you call 'wacky baccy' in Morecambe, Grant. It's the non-stop sunshine we get high on!
DeleteSurely we all remember the good old days of dozens of famous, swashbuckling bassoon soloists bestriding the classical music world. Not. Since when has the bassoon not been passed over for the saxophone? When I was growing up, and through my time as a young musician, the only people who played bassoon were the ones who didn't want to be the eleventh tenor sax or eight flute or fifth oboe back in sixth grade. Everybody else wanted to play saxophone anyway. Typical BBC manufacturing a story as an excuse for a segment.
ReplyDeleteThe cliché' Peter & the Wolf' excerpt was their choice? How about the at least as famous opening line from the 'Rite of Spring'? Typical BBC dumbing down. There was a premier of a contra-bassoon concert piece by John Woolrich at the Proms, featuring a black woman as soloist. Did they mention that?
I'm a bassoonist. Not as in I play it but I like it.
ReplyDeleteThe prince of instruments.
I like it too. Mozart's use of it got me into Mozart - not the clarinet.
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