Classical music on television is less of a gift to audiences, more a calculated risk. Especially at Christmas. Behind every festive broadcast sits a set of assumptions about who’s watching, what they’ll tolerate, what they need comforting with, and how far they can be nudged without switching off. Look closely at two broadcasts among many this year and the difficult decisions are laid bare.
Classical music on TV is a difficult one. Especially at Christmas. Commissioners have to anticipate who their broadcast audience is, what that audience might tolerate, what they need to be reassured by, and what might stretch them. Then you’re either looking for a concert already programmed that might work as a broadcast, or you’re lining one up yourself and hoping the audience will come and make the whole thing look good on camera. Then you’ve got to decide when it’s best to put out. The return on investment is potentially low.
Two TV broadcasts this Christmas are worthy of attention where this challenge is concerned.
First, the BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Singers in a filmed Christmas concert captured at Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
Fun, jaunty, colourful and playful. Presenter Petroc Trelawny appears dapper on stage, surely doubling as a cocktail waiter back in the bar during the interval. Some slips are a little too evident.
Some of the ensemble isn’t taut – speeds are a little loose with a creeping sense of urgency in the popular sleigh bell decorated light music. Richard Bissil’s Christmas Carnival is a cracking technicolour romp packed full of gratifying harmonic contortions.
The BBC Singers are on form. The vocal soloist is disappointingly unsupported in the upper range in what is a well-meant and well-intended selection of 20th century Christmas songs, but in execution prompts fast-forwarding to the end. Sometimes the strings are underpowered, and a suspected production error sees a prominent clarinet line I’ve never heard before in the Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije. Editing done at pace with insufficient budget for review and necessary tweaking – those with a keen eye and even keener ear pick up on this kind of stuff.
Regardless, there’s something very present-day BBC about this production – a TV capture of a Friday Night is Music Night – resourceful, straightforward, and rewarding. It reminds me of my chosen home and transforms my mood. Watching it on catch-up three days after broadcast achieves two things: it confirms that Christmas music can still be heard after the event and preserve the Christmas bubble. It also highlights how the argument that linear broadcast is dying is misdirection. Armed with more choice people are probably watching outside of broadcast hours when they’re ready. The return on investment here demands looking at different data not released in real time and not usually made available the morning after either.
Sky Arts has come in for a bit of stick on social media as they do every year for programming Andre Rieu with his saturated bonbon programme. Those bemoaning his inclusion in the schedules this year will no doubt find the considerably heavier dollop of Rieu found across the UK next year (including two London concerts at Wembley Arena) distressing. Rieu’s business like brain shines a light on the UK audience often overlooked and frequently dismissed.
Sky has the budget to broadcast a range and satisfy that audience: Rieu, the 2025 Classic FM Live concert and notably, a special Belfast recording of Nicola Benedetti’s Ulster Hall concert from earlier this year. It’s a typically Benedetti piece of programming – a folk quartet comprising violin, cello, guitar and accordion, playing arrangements of a wide range of classical and folk music that is spirited and joyous in its sparseness and virtuosity.
Benedetti’s presentation is a warm enthusing hug matched by uncompromising collaborative musicianship. In the grand interior of Ulster Hall, the four of them are also joined by violinist Yume Fuji, and Belfast musician Brìghde Chaimbeul. It’s a fringe programme that feels like an event we’ve missed out on, but we must watch. The running order is perfectly pitched Twixmas fodder – an antidote to the melancholy of Christmas – and the arrangements maintain a sense of intimacy necessary for a compelling piece of television without tipping into something that sounds under-resourced. Even if you don’t know the music seeing musicians enjoying what they’re doing as they’re doing it is infectious.
Inside Classical from Snape Maltings is available on BBC iPlayer
Nicola Benedetti and Friends is on Sky Arts on Monday 29 December, 7.30pm
