Daisy Dunn

A Radio 3 doc that contains some of the best insults I’ve ever heard

Plus: why the bee community loves Bach

One pioneering early-music ensemble in 1980: the Consort of Musicke, with founder Anthony Rooley, centre, and soprano Emma Kirkby, centre left. Credit: Malcolm Crowthers / ArenaPAL

A recent Sunday Feature on Radio 3 contained some of the best insults I have ever heard. Contributors to the programme on the early music revolution were discussing the backlash they experienced in the 1970s while reviving period-style instruments and techniques. Soprano Dame Emma Kirkby remembered one critic complaining that listening to her performance was ‘as about as interesting as eating an entire meal of plain yoghurt’.

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