# Vote in the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2010



## katiehs

Voting in the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2010 has now opened!

Classic FM wants to know your all time classical music Top 3, so it's down to you to vote for your favourite composers to make sure they win! Hall of Fame is Classic FM's biggest chart compilation that has been a huge success since launching in 1996.

Will the winner be Mozart who has had no less than a staggering 20 works in last years poll or will it go to one of England's finest, Edward Elgar? Perhaps James Horner's exquisite new score from Avatar might make a new appearance towards the top? Or will Vaughan Williams' stunning Lark Ascending maintain its three year lead at the top? The battle has commenced, so nominate your favourite to decide who is going to win!

Visit www.classicfmhalloffame.co.uk to vote for your favourites. Type the details of the piece or composer you'd like to vote for in the box and search from the list of thousands of pieces chosen in previous years by other listeners. If your favourite isn't listed, you can also follow the instructions to type it in manually. The list of suggestions is simply there to help you vote as easily as possible - but it's by no means restrictive.

Online voting closes at 23:59 on Sunday 31 January 2010. The brand new Top 300 will be revealed on Classic FM across the Easter weekend from 2-5 April 2010.

For further information visit www.classicfmhalloffame.co.uk


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## Andy Loochazee

In case anyone may not have heard of "Classic FM", it is the UK's commercial classical music radio station. Putting it as neutrally as possible, how it compares with the BBC's Radio 3 has been discussed on T-C several times before.

Below are just a few threads I quickly pulled together which discuss the situation in a little more detail (some comments are quite fun):

http://www.talkclassical.com/6403-classical-music-not-relaxing.html?highlight=cfm

http://www.talkclassical.com/1001-classic-fm-bbc-radio.html?highlight=cfm

http://www.talkclassical.com/6677-simon-bates-classic-fm.html?highlight=cfm

http://www.talkclassical.com/3053-room-101-a.html


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## Frederik Magle

Just a note about this thread so you know that it is not spam. Talk Classical has no affiliation with Classic FM but has allowed the station to link to their Classic FM Hall of Fame 2010 poll in this thread, just as we will from time to time allow other companies to mention events relevant to the topic of classical music if we get a request.

As Andy Loochazee has mentioned above there has been a debate going about Classic FM vs. BBC. Discuss that all you like, but please keep it in the threads linked to in the above post, or make new ones if appropriate. Please keep any discussion in _this_ thread on the topic of the poll.

Regards,
Frederik


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## Aramis

If people are going to vote for soundtrack from Avatar, if there even is such possibility then I won't even try to vote. I know my local classical radio station and from what I see now (and heard before) I assume this Classic FM is just like it and hundreds of others. I don't care to hang dogs over it but I belive that this whole thing doesn't have great value.


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## OperaSaz

What's the harm in it? It's just to see what the listners of the station enjoy listening to?

I'll be voting! It's interesting to see listener opinions, even though I know it doesn't represent the audience as a whole, of course.


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## Polednice

OperaSaz said:


> What's the harm in it?


There's no harm in it, it's just utterly pointless because Classic FM represents the portion of classical music listeners who believe that the entire genre exists purely so that they can 'relax'.


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## Artemis

Polednice said:


> There's no harm in it, it's just utterly pointless .....


It certainly is utterly pointless because voting has closed.


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## GraemeG

Polednice said:


> There's no harm in it, it's just utterly pointless because Classic FM represents the portion of classical music listeners who believe that the entire genre exists purely so that they can 'relax'.


I found this rather surprising, but ran straight into this attitude when posting on the ABC-FM forum (Australian) around the Top 100 Symphony voting last September. The '..this Turangalila is just noise, how could anybody relax to that..' attitude. It was bizarre. Apparently the first requirement for _any_ piece of music was that it had to be a free Valium substitute. Now, I wasn't exactly a voice in the wilderness, but it was rather eye-opening to find that some people just don't want to put any effort into their listening at all. Never could get anyone to justify why _everything_ had to be 'restful'. Very disturbing indeed.
cheers,
Graeme


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## mueske

Alternatives here on the classical radio channel always have the same outcome. 

1. Bach
2. Bach
3. Bach

Though I think in 2008 the third place went to another piece, don't remember.


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## Rasa

Hmm, turangalila isn't a valium, it's steroids with adrenalin!

Even though I find these list very tedious (Pieces that have become broken records, and super-sweetened honeypot pieces...), it is interesting to see that there are a lot of difference between classical FM's 09 list, and Klara, a Belgian radio station's comparable list.

First of is the major suprise that Vaughn-Williams dominates the top, although on second thought, it IS an english radio station. I guess Vaughn-Williams is something of a local phenomenon in England?

In Belgium, the top three is Bach, and in the top 10, more then half is Baroque music. I thinkt he Belgian list is also more diverse: contains composers form all over Europe, whereas the english list barely has anything French (and certainly few 20th century french composers)


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## mueske

Rasa said:


> Hmm, turangalila isn't a valium, it's steroids with adrenalin!
> 
> Even though I find these list very tedious (Pieces that have become broken records, and super-sweetened honeypot pieces...), it is interesting to see that there are a lot of difference between classical FM's 09 list, and Klara, a Belgian radio station's comparable list.
> 
> First of is the major suprise that Vaughn-Williams dominates the top, although on second thought, it IS an english radio station. I guess Vaughn-Williams is something of a local phenomenon in England?
> 
> In Belgium, the top three is Bach, and in the top 10, more then half is Baroque music. I thinkt he Belgian list is also more diverse: contains composers form all over Europe, whereas the english list barely has anything French (and certainly few 20th century french composers)


Belgium is stupid in it's choice. Bach is wonderful of course, but seriously, we choose way too conventionally. And what annoys me as well is that there are possibly 10 Bach pieces too choose from, while other composers only get 2 tops 5.

Despite the diversity, it still could to a lot better.


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## Artemis

There does seem to be somewhat of a pro-English composer bias in the CFM Poll, but this kind of thing is well understood and hardly news. The same sort of thing tends to happen all over the world where there is a significant interest in classical music and where there is a decent stock of indigenous composers. 

For example, I understand that Schumann is very popular on German radio stations, but hardly scores much interest on the CFM poll. When I was in the States there was lots of Ives, Copland etc, on the radio (plus incessant adverts) all of which I was very glad to see the back of when I left.

The fact that there isn't anything similar bias in Belgium is probably due to the fact that there aren't many decent Belgian classical composers. Aside from Franck I can't think of any others who are widely considered to be any good. There is, I suppose, von Suppe but he wrote mainly light classical works. 

Aside from country of origin bias, the CFM polls obviously reflect the opinions of its listener base. A different set of results would result if Radio 3 polled its listeners. I don't listen to CFM and I make a point of not listening to it. I will say no more on that issue as there are several other threads where this is discussed.


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## TresPicos

Rasa said:


> First of is the major suprise that Vaughn-Williams dominates the top, although on second thought, it IS an english radio station. I guess Vaughn-Williams is something of a local phenomenon in England?


RVW wouldn't top such a list in any other country, I'm sure, but I wouldn't call him a local phenomenon either. Not more than Elgar, in any case.


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## Argus

Artemis said:


> I don't listen to CFM and I make a point of not listening to it. I will say no more on that issue as there are several other threads where this is discussed.


Why do you hate relaxing music?


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## TresPicos

Artemis said:


> The fact that there isn't anything similar bias in Belgium is probably due to the fact that there aren't many decent Belgian classical composers. Aside from Franck I can't think of any others who are widely considered to be any good. There is, I suppose, von Suppe but he wrote mainly light classical works.


I agree with your explanation of the differing amounts of bias.

However, not being "widely considered to be any good" is probably more due to "not being widely considered" than "not being any good". Although Belgium is no match for the UK here, there _are _other composers: Ysaÿe, Vieuxtemps and Jongen, for example. And some others, lesser-known but still "decent"...

I wouldn't count von Suppé as a Belgian, though.


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## Aramis

> there aren't many decent Belgian classical composers.


What about so called Ludwig van Beethoven?


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## Rasa

Aramis said:


> What about so called Ludwig *van* Beethoven?


Oh, and I don't suppose the Flemish Polyphonists count? 
Ockeghem, Lassus, Desprez....

Flanders has historically been a very rich area culturally.

Other then that, quite a few romantic composers: De Boeck, Mortelmans...


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## mueske

And aren't we forgetting the Flemish masters? Not that I'm defending Belgium, I don't even like Belgium.

Rasa: De Boeck? Hardly worth any ones trouble. I personally find that Peter Benoit wrote a few decent pieces of music, but nothing of great value.


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## Rasa

mueske said:


> And aren't we forgetting the Flemish masters? Not that I'm defending Belgium, I don't even like Belgium.
> 
> Rasa: De Boeck? Hardly worth any ones trouble. I personally find that Peter Benoit wrote a few decent pieces of music, but nothing of great value.


Dahomenian Rhapsody is more then decent. But I fear we're going off-topic


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