Never mind the end of the world
The lovely Sue Perkins, with whom I have had the pleasure of working, won Maestro. That means ... she is Maestro. Or Maestress. Or Maestro. It's been an odd series, Maestro, in that I've spent most of it listening to a type of music I don't normally listen to and failing at almost every juncture to divine from watching them doing it whether the contestant were being "good" at conducting, or "bad". No matter what I thought, the judges confounded me. So I gave up, sat back, and enjoyed the show. I must admit I got a bit bored of it last night. Mainly because there were only three of them left and that meant I had to watch them all conduct twice, if not thrice, and also because the BBC felt duty-bound to pad it out to 90 minutes, which meant all sorts of dull stuff.The facts: at the Grand Final, Sue beat Goldie. Before submitting to the public vote (why, oh why, did we have to get involved at the end? we know nothing!), Sue was in second place with 67 out of a possible 80 points. Sue conducted part of Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1, then the Finale from Stravinsky's ballet, The Firebird. She conducted them very well indeed, really getting into it.
Goldie led the judges' vote with 73 out of 80 possible points. In other words, he was the best. But he did not win because the public liked Sue more than Goldie. Hey, let's say they were both winners, even though they weren't. And Jane Asher, who scored 64 out of 80 points, was a bit too prim to win. Both Sue and Goldie did the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No.5 in its entirety, which was really boring, watching the same piece of music being played twice, identically, except for one wonky bit in Goldie's. It is sacrelige to say that Maestro got boring, I know, and I ultimately enjoyed it, and I'm more than happy for the BBC to spend my licence fee on it, but ... there's something still slightly wrong with the format, as it grew repetitive, which, for some reason, ballroom dancing doesn't. Maybe it's just not a five-week format?
But at least Sue and Goldie seem nice. The most ghastly folk usually win "reality" shows. Which shows how far apart from those this was.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 1:35 PM
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Well I was pleasantly surprised when Sue Perkins won as her Beethoven 5 was far superior to Goldie's with a better sound from the orchestra and far fewer mistakes (there was more than just one mistake from Goldie's orchestra, particularly towards then end). I thought the public would just blindly follow the judges' words and vote for Goldie, who though seemingly a natural, doesn't seem to have progressed much since the first week. Perhaps he got over confident. Sue had much more range I thought and had worked much harder, and it showed.
And didn't the sound Max Vengerov's conducting got from the orchestra show the gulf between amateurs and world class musicians? He was great to watch.
I'd agree with all of that. you forgot to mention that clive anderson got on everyones tits as usual though.
GOLDIE WAS ROBBED.
It was great too see how pleased Goldie was when the judges praised what he was doing.
It's the first series for a long time that I've made a point of watching each week.
Matt
Chris is bang on. I think there was a tiny bit of inverted-snobbery sympathy for Goldie not reading music. Like the thick kid who got more merit marks than the top of the class kid. He was really feeling the music, but not conducting it. I can't fathom the judges marks for him on merit. Perkins should have won on performance, and did. She led the orchestra. Granted, her grade 8 piano made it a very unlevel playing field when it came to the final, but so what? She was better, and hence, La Maestra.
Anna
Anna, chris: you may both have a point. Im no expert on conducting, but Goldie just looked the part.
On that thoroughly scientific basis, I awarded him the prize.
I hope that clarifies things.
Charlie Mingles
CERN Institute de musique, Switzerland
I loved the first programme, especially the relationships between the contestants and their mentors. When we went to the live shows that was lost to a quick clip.
The live shows also meant that the judges comments were cut off. I know as much about conducting and classical music as I know about the LHC (therefore bog all) and I think we needed fuller judges comments to put the performances into context for the uninformed viewer.
I think the format could definitely survive 90 minutes if it went to pre-recorded highlights rather than live.
I've found it difficult to tell which one is good, but it was interested to compare the two versions of the same piece.
It's been compelling viewing all the same.
The most important thing it did (albeit not brilliantly) was to show people what a conductor actually does - and why they are as crucial to the performance as any of the other musicians.
I agree that the last show felt padded, but I also thought that the opportunity to see the same piece performed twice was a great idea.
Maestro *is* an argument for the license fee, no doubt about it. And it's a hell of a better one than ballroom dancing, that's for sure...
-- David
Sue's version of Beethoven 5 was more interesting than Goldie's. I can't for the life of me explain why, it just... was.
The boring last thirty minutes gave us a chance to watch a bit of Flight of the Conchords.
I hope she becomes the first female Doctor Who.
I wanted to see more of the 'learning' experience behind the scenes, so that I would maybe learn a bit through seeing the contestants being taught, and less of the 'live tv entertainment format' (which was pretty dumbed-down). I felt a bit disappointed that I was no more able to judge a good or bad performance by the end of the series - because I hadn't really learned anything. Enjoyed the series nevertheless.
Phil
I thought this would be a terrible idea for a show but I've been hooked. Could have been a bit shorter and it would have been nice if someone could have explained in a bit more detail why someone was good and someone was bad. But yes, bring it on again next year.
Andrew, you're enough of a celebrity - you should enter.
Now Maestro's over, will there be Collinsian coverage of The Restaurant?
I need
I thought Goldie would walk it once the public got their say but like others I thought Sue's No.5 was better even thou I have no idea what she did different.
If the public had voted from the start we would probably have had a Peter Snow\Bradley Walsh final.
This is not a programme I would ordinarily have watched, so thanks Andrew for your initial post on it. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, even though I think the format could be improved considerably. It's certainly stimulated my interest in listening to more classical music.
The show probably peaked a bit early with the excellent Baton Camp episode. This gave me as a complete know-nothing the greatest insight into what the conductor actually does, explanations that were lacking somewhat in subsequent episodes. I found myself watching some students performing, thinking "That looks impressive" but wondering what effect they were actually having on the sound.
I was impressed by how keen the students appeared to be to learn and how much they seemed to progress - Goldie, in particular, was inspiring - but must confess the cynic in me was thinking all the time: "Does it really matter what the conductor's up to? Surely the musicians can keep time themselves and know when to come in and how to play their bits - won't the orchestra just do its thing regardless?" Anyone else think the same?
For this reason I thought the audience vote was pointless. Sure, we can tell if someone can dance or sing a bit, but most of us are hardly qualified to judge the intricacies of conducting, are we?
A big thing was made of the fact Goldie couldn't read music, but were any of the others glancing at their score during their performances? I remember seeing Bradley Walsh doing so but none of the others.
Getting Goldie and Sue to both conduct the same piece in the final didn't work for me. I couldn't have told the difference between either of those performances of Beethoven's 5th, but I fully accept this could just be ignorance on my part. All the music just sounded great to me.
By the way, did anyone else think the judge on the left hand side with the curly hair seemed to have a bit of a thing for the ladies?
All in all, a fascinating, very enjoyable series. Could have done without Clive Anderson, though.
Not seen The Restaurant, I'm afraid. Too much backed up on the Sky+ right now. And all those 9/11 documentaries to get through. And Entourage is back! And this evening I discovered The Planners Are Coming, an eight part docusoap about council planning officers - a must-see.
I finally watched this, despite knowing who won, grrrr, and I thought it was marvellous and Sue was the rightful winner. Thank you for mentioning this, it has been a most enjoyable series. And yes, I know there's one more, but ugh, it has Lesley Garrett warbling, so, no thanks.
I thought it was a shame that we had to have the telephone vote bit, but getting them to do the same piece was a brilliant idea. It showed the differences between the two performances and I did much prefer Sue Perkins version - much crisper somehow.
This has nothing at all to do with Maestro, but I was idly browsing the BARB website today when I noticed that the fifth and sixth most popular programme on Bravo at the moment is a low rent reality show called Porn Week. The programme involves Nuts reading type "blokes" spending a week in the porn industry, directing and starring in an adult film. Now, I have stumbled across this programme myself before and, in spite of the documentary feel and arch commentary, this programme is clearly intended for one-handed viewing. That means that, at midnight on Fridays, at least 53,000 UK citizens are simultaneously wanking. A frightening statistic. Saturday's show reaches slightly fewer onanists - 46,000. Not sure why that should be. Anyway, just thought that was an interesting statistic. Jon, Lincoln
Just watching Maestro...
I can see why Sue won: her Beethoven was more free of technical errors than Goldie's, but the sound he got from the orchestra was more interesting - he's like a giant lion on stage (Lion Man), amazing!
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