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For today’s Global Hit, we tackle a very serious subject: classical music. Or maybe not so serious, if you’re checking out Paganini, a comedy string quartet from Spain and Lebanon. The group’s mission is to get the world of classical music to lighten up. The World’s Gerry Hadden went to one of Paganini’s shows in Spain, and sent back this story, and video:
Marco: If the name of the Argentine river is spelled “Plato” the translation is “silver” not “plate”.
I propose a moratorium on offensive, trite stories about classical music letting its hair down.
Your program and Weekend All Things Considered seem to delight in putting down music that is a source of great pleasure and solace for many of us.
Indeed, the tastemakers in public radio (i.e. the Development Department) seem bent on smoothing away the rough edges of the classics, banishing certain forms of vocal music and — good grief! — the “King of Instruments” — the organ.
And if anyone thinks that humor is lacking in the world of “serious music”, let them listen, as I have been recently, to Rossini’s Cenerentola.
Please stop bashing one of the human mind’s great creation.