irritatedSo much, so dull.
What amused/irked[4] me beyond belief, though, is Stephen Fry's comment about "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, which came top of the list. As reported in the BBC News article, he pronounced: "For some reason, it almost sounds satanic, although it's actually a religious piece."
Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce! Religious? It's a setting of a poem about the capriciousness of fate. The text is here, if any of you should be unfamiliar with it.
I know that some of you happen to be Twitterers, so if any of you want to twit Fry about this, get composing your pithy one-liners. I can't wait to hear him blustering "But Fortuna was a Roman goddess, you know!"
[1] For those of you not in the know, Radio 2 is not normally considered to be a "classical" music station; that would be Radio 3.
[2] Most-played, that is, on TV, radio, online streaming and in public places such as shops. Background music for advertisements and elevator music, in other words.
[3] See rants on this passim: the Classical period in music runs roughly from J S Bach to Beethoven. Just about everything on the list is actually from the later Romantic and Modernist periods (with a few honourable exceptions including JSB, Vivaldi and, my goodness, Zipoli). Calling every piece of serious music "classical" is about as egregious as calling all architectural columns "Corinthian" would be.
[4] There should be a single word for this feeling.
