The renowned radio station Classic FM, in its
tireless search to popularise classical music, here presents
another of its collections of popular classics. To ensure the
popularity of the chosen pieces of music, many of them have
been selected by celebrities from the ever-popular television
series EastEnders and Coronation Street.
For example, Peggy Mitchell, the ever-popular
landlady of the Queen Vic pub (played by the ever-popular Barbara
Windsor, star of Carry On Flying Brassiéres) has chosen
Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 - because,
she says, it reminds her of Queen Victoria, who gave her name
to the ever-popular public house featured in EastEnders.
Steve McFadden, who plays Peggy's gentle, lovable, ever-popular
son Phil Mitchell, has chosen Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture,
because it reminds him of the time the Walford Spartak football
team beat Emmerdale Wanderers by 18 goals to 12. And Adam Woodyatt,
who plays the ever-unpopular Ian Beale, has chosen Shostakovich's
16th Symphony because, as he says self-deprecatingly:
"I don't know much about music but I don't know what I
like".
Meanwhile the cast of the ever-popular Coronation
Street unanimously chose William Walton's Coronation
Te Deum, although they couldn't explain why but they felt
that at some time it had been down their way.
The rest of the disc consists of tracks chosen
by other celebrities. Richard Dawkins selected Bach's Jesu,
Joy of Man's Desiring; Ronnie Corbett chose Chopin's Minute
Waltz; Tony Blair's favourite was Mars from Holst's
Planets Suite; the managing director of Ryanair chose
Mendelssohn's Oh For the Wings of a Dove; Carol Thatcher's
choice was Debussy's Golliwog's Cake-Walk; while Peter
Mandelson preferred Richard Strauss's Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
This disc of ever-popular favourites will be
played regularly on Classic FM - on the hour, every hour, to
ensure that listeners know the sort of classical music which
people really like. The CD retails at a very reasonable
£16.99, including a free EastEnders poster signed by
the member of the cast who can write.
Some of the pieces on the album have been reduced
in length to get them all onto one disc and to ensure that listeners
don't get bored.
Tony Augarde
Classic FM 123456
