Guardian obituary
I remember with great affection his series talking about music which was a fixture of the radio schedules when I was at school and university. I mean no disrespect to my teachers and lecturers when I say that I probably learnt as much about music from listening to his talks on the radio as I did from any other person.
His narrative approach to musical analysis is now very out of fashion but to a young learner it gave me exactly what I wanted. In the short time since I read the obituary I have been remembering the music that I got to know through his talks. Three that come to mind - still on my favourites list are
- Tippett string quartet no 2
- Britten violin concerto
- Schumann violin concerto
I also remember a couple of talks on pieces I knew well. First of all Scheherazade, where he was totally un-snobbish about a piece of popular repertory and was very illuminating about Rimsky managed to tell a story in musical terms. Secondly a programme about Beethoven 5. This was the days before historically informed performances but he played a version conducted by Hermann Scherchen, which at the time was one of the very few performances which didn't introduce a massive ritardando before the recapitulation of the opening motive. I remember thinking that that was exactly the right way to do it.
I can't imagine that on the current radio 4 (or even radio 3) schedule such broadcasts could ever find a place, which is a great pity. Hopkins was a broadcaster of real distinction.
Hopkins was a Norfolk man like me, and I think that he once acted as an adjudicator in a music festival I was playing in. But I was only 8 or 9 at the time so I can't be sure.
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