Tv Music Programme

The rock music programme Later... With Jools Holland occupies a pretty unique position in music television, in Britain. Certainly there’s no other programme where you can watch a man with a clipboard incompetently interviewing someone on a piano stool, and here the programme has made a successful, if slightly crazy, niche for itself. No teenage pop videos here, no boy bands with carefully marketed brand images or dull-as-dishwater interviews. The programme welcomes the world of rock music with all its mess, its pauses, the unwanted feedback, even the occasional rubbishy nature of some songs.

At times the programme doesn't really seem designed for the viewer's benefit at all. The studio audiences are small, and in some cases rather subdued. The set resembles something from a political discussion programme. It’s a set-up that says “We are musicians, we don’t jump through hoops”, and this works perfectly. It may not be a sumptuous visual feast, but the programme is likely to be the television engagement that makes a musician feel more like an artist and less like a performing seal.

The key figure in all this is presenter/performer Jools Holland himself. So uncomfortable does he appear in front of a camera, that it's extremely hard to credit that he has been a television presenter for the best part of 20 years. As far as the programme is concerned, though, Holland’s style is ideal.

1) Which words in the second paragraph continue the writer’s attack, begun in the first paragraph, on ‘teenage pop’?

A)a political discussion programme;

В) We are musicians;

С) a sumptuous visual feast;

D)like a performing seal.

2) Which possible slogan for the programme best captures the image it projects to the viewer?

A)A music show with endless variety;

В) Only the best music;

С) Real music with all its imperfections;

D)Music that’s loud and wild.

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Opera Audiences

It was curious to say the least, the sheer hostility with which the recent production of Aida, at the Covent Garden Opera House, was received by some audiences. Opera audiences, at the best of times, enjoy a licence to be rude that elsewhere in the theatrical world would be considered bizarre, so the man who shouted ‘Rubbish!’ was not considered to be behaving in any unseemly fashion. Indeed, he spoke for many.

Patrick Gibson, the director whose work had so irritated the booers, is a grown man who can look after himself, and it is not that I feel in the least outraged on his behalf. But it was not a bad production – indeed, the concession some people have made, that the stage looked beautiful, is to my way of thinking a large one.

What seemed to have annoyed people was an unnatural quality in the acting and movement. Groups moved as on a frieze. Individuals were aware of each other without turning to face each other. Now, I don’t necessarily want to see, say, La Boheme done this way, but for every opera that calls for naturalism there must be 100 in serious need of something else. A voice behind me was complaining, “I mean, he’s just come back from the war, he hasn’t seen her for two years, she hasn’t seen him – she doesn’t look at him, she doesn’t seem pleased …” I thought to myself, “Yes, but they’re Ancient Egyptians. Surely they can be allowed to preserve a little of their ancient mystery”.

3) What does the writer say about public reaction to the production?

A)Even those who were critical admitted that one aspect of it was successful.

В) It was out of character for an audience at this particular theatre.

С) Не disagreed with public sentiment about the scenery.

D)He felt personal sympathy towards the director.

4) What point does the writer make about the non-naturalistic approach adopted by the director?

A) He thinks the approach suits other operas better than it does Aida.

В) He’s not a great fan of the approach but thinks it was appropriate for Aida.

С) It is ill-informed of critics to single out Aida for adopting this approach.

D)It would be unfair to blame the approach for the failure of the production.

11. For questions 1-4, read the following texts about live and recorded music. Answer with a word or short phrase. Then summarise in your own words what advantages, according to the two texts, attending a live concert has over listening to recorded music at home.

Music’s significance for the listener at home has been greatly increased by modern methods of recording. Nevertheless, critics of recorded music are right to point out that repeated hearings of a particular performance may cause the listener to think that the interpretation to which he has become accustomed is the only one possible. Moreover, modern recording techniques, which often, though not invariably, involve repeated “takes” of short sections of a work in order to eliminate minor flaws, may in so doing eliminate spontaneity. Great music requires an emotional commitment from performers which cannot be combined with an obsessional insistence on perfection.

One famous pianist retired from the concert platform at the age of twenty-eight. He deplored the applause at concerts and became increasingly affected by stage fright. In any case, he thought that the concert hall would soon disappear because of progress in the technology of recording. He claimed that the listener at home, by adjusting controls to his or her personal taste, could come closer to an ideal performance and reach a depth of musical experience unattainable at a live concert.

This pianist’s dislike of performing in public was rooted in his own peculiar temperament. He was predominantly solitary, preferring telephone conversations to face-to-face encounters. However, his ideas should not be dismissed lightly just because of his personal idiosyncrasies. Music can and does affect the listener without having to be experienced live or in the company of others.

1. What, according to the text, is the danger of “an obsessional insistence on perfection” when recording music?

2. Explain in your own words the underlying reasons why the famous pianist disliked performing at concerts.

For me, listening to records has many advantages over concert-going. I choose what I want to hear, when I want to hear it, without having any of the distractions of the concert hall. Even in the case of opera and ballet, the absence of the visual element enables me to appreciate the musical content to a greater degree than would otherwise be possible, and, for this reason, I have often found it helpful to listen to a recording of an opera before I see it for the first time: conversely, when I know an opera well I can visualise the scene as I listen to the recording.

Of course, none of this is to say that a recording can ever completely replace a live performance. The personalities of those taking part and the interaction between the audience and the performers give live performances a character of their own which cannot be reproduced in the studio. Nor can these be retained in recordings of live concerts; indeed all that the latter tends to do is to reveal more clearly the kinds of imperfection one often fails to notice in the concert hall, where one's attention is held by the general momentum of the music. In the last analysis it will always be the live performance which really matters; nevertheless, the satisfaction to be gained from playing records is almost limitless.

3. What allows the writer to have a better appreciation of an opera when listening to it at home rather than a live performance?

4. Which phrase in the first text echoes the “kinds of imperfection”?

12. Render the following extract into English using the vocabulary of the unit. Consult the Appendix if necessary.