Jon Johanning wrote:

>Last night I managed to catch two episodes of the (U.S.) public TV series
>on composers, the Tchaikovsky and Puccini episodes.  While I can see the
>New York Times reviewer's reasons for being down on these programs, and
>comparing them unfavorably with Bernstein's young people's programs, I
>didn't think that they were all that bad, actually.

I watched both episodes and a bit of the Wagner one earlier.  I thought
they were very good.  I mean, how much can you do about one composer in an
hour or so.  I reject the notion that all information has to be presented
in some kind of song and dance routine or everyone's eyes will glaze over.
I would far rather watch these episodes than a tuxedoed Hugh Downs feeding
fatuous questions to the performer du jour at Lincoln Center.  No, I
learned quite a bit about both composers and enjoyed the performance
snippets, especially the Tchaikovsky.

>On the other hand, if they mean to get ordinary Americans interested in CM,
>hitting them with long subtitled interviews in Russian and Italian won't
>help; we Yanks aren't interested in anything that isn't in English, and
>subtitles just give us the impression of something arty and pretentious.

I would like to think you sell your compatriots short.

Eric James