BBC Music Magazine

[Oliver Condy]

Go to http://www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/awards2010 to vote in this year's awards. To help you make your choices, we've put together videos of each of the nominated artists and posted excerpts of each nominated disc.

[Murray Steele]

Oliver,

A challenging and very well-thought competition, with plenty of opportunities to hear the performers speak as well as play/conduct. Having said that, I am sure there will be many who share my feelings that the ultimate choice out of three in each category is difficult, and may come down, all things being equal, to the work being performed and wheteer it is by a composer one likes (or not ). It should not be this way, but..

The first, opera, category is a good example. Shostakovitch puts a lot of people off, unaware of his ability to write musical satires of Russian society. Martinu is a closed book to many (not helped by the very low profile coverage given to the 50th anniversary of his death last year). So my bet is that Wagner will do well in this competition.

I wonder what others think?

[Alan Miller]

Mostly good choices, and well presented on the website. Personally, though, I was a little disappointed to find that Angela Hewitt's new recording of the Bach 48 didn't feature. Apart from the strange mermaid / swimming costume dress she wears on the cover photo, everything about it is beautifully judged and executed. Her 1st recording was a benchmark, but this one is even more fluid and spontaneous.

[Beagle]

Dear Beeb forum,

Forgive my ill-tempered debut, but I have been moved to communicate by what strikes my mind as an absurdity, or rather a pair of paradoxa implicit in The Vote, i.e. this on-line button-clicking. I confess that, yes I did participate, but I did so with increasing misgivings. I have not felt so conflicted since the last election.

Paradox number one:
As a person with far too much money and time, i.e. an audiophile, who has purchased and listened intently to approximately seventy new discs in 2009, I cannot regard the roster of eighteen discs here as a meaningful representation of the thousands of discs issued last year. Even in the rarified realm of SACD, approximately two new discs a day appear. However golden the ears and infallible the papacy might be, eighteen is a mathematically insignificant number here.

Paradox number two:
I am not one to dwell upon kiloHertz and sampling rates; I will merely state the obvious: On-line sound is laughably inadequate for the task to which it has been recruited here. I ask rhetorically, would one compare the merits of Fragonard to Manet on the basis of a black and white half-tone photograph in a newspaper? The addition of video images is mere distraction, since sound is invisible.

Were I the editor of this publication, I would poll the internet public throughout the year regarding every disc (inviting submission of any disc publication not already noted), and publish the results at year's end. --With the stipulation that the voter had audited his selections at leisure under optimal conditions.

Beagle of Westcock

[armandine2]

I had no strong misgivings ....I made a choice, a preference...my only hope was that I would win the prize. The artists are the ones who have to temper the appreciation. I remember my first (and only) musical applause as an appreciation of effort, front and being there, over any of the intermittent musical content.

[Murray Steele]

armandine2: I think this is a fair point. In any case an online competition of this type cannot possibly deliver the sort of sound one can hear on a CD - but at least all the samples offered will have been similarly affected. Like most things in lIfe, one often has to make compomises when the ideal is not available, which I quite cheerfully accepted in the sprit in which it was offered. As I commented above, I think the choice of composers offered in each category will be an important, possibly over-riding, factor.

[FailedPianist]

Sorry I'm late to add my opinion, was just sorting out some logging in problems!

I hate to say it, but you've missed off the 3rd one - the people who have no interest in this type of music and who are just after the stereo that's worth £1k - you can almost see the £ signs in their eyes when they see how much the stereo is worth. They won't have even listed to one second of the choices and will have just clicked randomly to get through to the form where you submit your details.

This was posted in various places around the internet - a friend of mine said he'd seen this mentioned on a "comps" forum and that at the time had had getting on for 1000 views - I doubt many of those would have made the effort to listen to the excerpts before choosing

It's a shame that any voting results can be so badly skewed like this but hopefully the "legitimate" votes won through in the end!

[goldlief]

Search & Social is holding this contest to introduce the search marketing & social media community to multiple blogs in various different genres and online marketing disciplines.Thanks to everyone for the fascinating discussion suggesting nominees for the Wine Person of the Decade. Now it’s voting time! To make the voting somewhat more manageable,

GMC Canyon Parts

[Murray Steele]

The first, opera, category is a good example. Shostakovitch puts a lot of people off, unaware of his ability to write musical satires of Russian society. Martinu is a closed book to many (not helped by the very low profile coverage given to the 50th anniversary of his death last year). So my bet is that Wagner will do well in this competition.

Well, there we go - as I predicted.