So what do we think about this new initiative from the BBC, this idea to create a UK-wide scheme to introduce children to classical music through a proscribed list of "Ten Pieces"? You'd think "not much", if you browsed certain areas of the worldwide web. The classical cognoscenti, many of them, are adopting a kind of 'well yeah great but can't shake the feeling that this will monumentally naff' attitude.
I have only one negative thing to say about this, and it's a barb not directed at the BBC. Such a grand, ambitious scheme to educate our children in classical music -- in most cases to give them their first introduction to that heady world - it should have come from the government. Well, an introduction to classical music should come from the parents, but look at us. We're several generations away now from the 1980s, when pop music dropped its ties to classical and teachers all but stopped teaching it and today's parents grew up in that age. In other words, they aren't qualified because they are often as ill-versed in classical music as their kids (though let's not forget the millions who chill out to Classic FM). But one longs for an Education Ministry that could get something as creative and well thought-through as this together.
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