LOL did anyone notice the poem?
Ode to The Classic 100 Ten Years On
We’ve Swoon, Mystery Tenor and Tears On
Toast to intrigue and enthral,
But The Classic 100 Ten Years On
Makes all other gimmicks seem small
Our fans are glued to our transmitter,
Our switchboard is feeling the pace,
The tweets are quite twitchy on Twitter,
And Facebook has gone off its face.
The betting is getting frenetic.
Intense speculation is rife.
The tension is quite energetic.
The air you could cut with a knife.
If I had to plonk an amount down
And take a wild stab in the dark,
I’d bet that the King of the Countdown
Was Beethoven, Mozart or Bach.
With Schubert perhaps worth a mention.
Prokofiev not, I’m afraid.
And Brahms? He’s now out of contention.
His biggest works now have been played.
But who knows... The winner may well be
A single Hungarian Dance.
And as for Brett Dean... and Ketèlbey...
I wonder if they stand a chance.
The 1812’s over and done with.
Boléro’s departed the scene.
The Third of Saint-Saëns (that’s the one with
The organ): unlucky thirteen.
Swan Lake only made it to forty.
Peer Gynt to just seventy-five.
At thirty: there’s Pärt. Who’d have thought he
Would figure. The guy’s still alive.
And so is another: Gorecki.
His Sorrowful Songs: Ninety-six.
Though not turbo-charged like a jet ski,
It’s one of our popular picks.
I know that forgetting is human,
But some of the greats have been missed.
Where’s Verdi? And Bruckner and Schumann
And Haydn and Wagner and Liszt?
And others I (browsing through Grove) itch
To mention. And not before time.
(I wanted to list Shostakovich,
But just couldn’t think of a rhyme.)
I’m tipping we’re gonna have more Beethoven.
Chopin perhaps.
And Fauré? No. Merely a sorbet
Reduced to just filling up gaps.
We’re now at that “barely can wait” stage
When riddles are finally twigged.
If John Cage crops up at this late stage
We’ll know that the voting was rigged.
With nerves all a-tremor, now Emma
And Mairi take up this affair.
Tomorrow we’ll end the dilemma
When Colin and Marian chair.
by Bob Maynard