Who dares wins

Two programmes this week made the case that popular music has taken over the tradition of the great classical composers. In Howard Goodall’s Twentieth Century Greats (Channel 4, Saturday) the composer told us that modern ‘serious’ composers had abandoned the Western musical traditions of melody and harmony. By going on their journey to nowhere, they had forfeited their claim to the public taste. In contrast, Lennon and McCartney followed the paths cut by Bach, Beethoven and the rest. No wonder, and I paraphrase, that ‘Sergeant Pepper’ was more popular than Harrison Birtwistle.

This was far from the usual dumbed-down, relativist, ‘it’s all a matter of what you like, innit?’ attitude behind so much television. Quite the opposite. Goodall carefully analysed many of the Beatles’ songs, some still greatly loved, such as ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’; others frankly awful, like ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, which may be subtle, sinuous and inventive, but which makes us yearn to hear ‘Kajagoogoo’, or John Cage’s latest waxing.

He showed how ‘I Am The Walrus’, which for the most part consists of John Lennon wailing, works through incredibly complicated chords in the background, and how ‘Penny Lane’ would be just another pert and bouncy pop number if it wasn’t for the daring key changes that McCartney included.

It was all fascinating stuff, and Goodall makes his points with passion and verve. The puzzle is why it works at all on television. Since the programme is devoted to listening to sounds, the topic should be perfect for radio. Instead, the empty screen had to be filled with images of one sort or another — ships passing along the Mersey, an overgrown cemetery, to illustrate ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Or just Goodall himself standing at a keyboard and singing phrases to illustrate his point.