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Tim Smith & Hans Rott

When Stratton asked Richie if he knew of a 20th Century composer whose music was reviled at first, but whose reputation is enjoying a reappraisal, he answered immediately, “Tim Smith, leader of the Cardiacs”. As luck would have it, Stratton claimed not to know Tim Smith’s name; nor had he ever heard of the Cardiacs. Richie sent him some files.

Entering Music 2026
Latest Episodes
  • Touring could be dangerous, as both Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Enrique Granados found out when they were forced to make untimely departures from the United States.
  • There came a day not too long ago when Richie asked Stratton if he would listen to one of the greatest Rock albums ever recorded. How could Stratton refuse? The album turned out to be “Loveless” by the band, My Bloody Valentine. After Stratton had listened to “Loveless” Richie asked Stratton what he thought. Stratton replied, “I now know what it was like for listeners who were used to hearing Haydn’s Symphonies when they first heard Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the 'Eroica'. Nothing would ever sound the same again.”
  • Stratton didn’t think he had heard Richie right. Richie had dropped the name of a long-forgotten pianist who was once the best-known and highest-paid pianist in the United States. Radio made him a star. His name was Oscar Levant. So, Stratton said, let’s talk about him.
  • Stratton has often been asked if he and Richie ever disagree. His answer has been that, in musical matters, he can’t think of any disagreement, putting the emphasis on the adjective “musical”. Well, that was true enough until they decided to talk about opera by discussing the two greatest opera composers of the 19th century, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.
  • Composers are rarely happy people. How do we know this? Because a few composers have told us this in their memoirs. Two of the best are the Memoirs of Hector Berlioz and X-Ray.
  • Stratton often tells Richie how lucky they are because they have available to their ears over one thousand years of music. That’s why Stratton encourages Richie to introduce him to the popular music he pointedly refused to take notice of.
  • Richie can’t really believe that Stratton has spent so much of his time listening to classical music that he has no notion of who Frank Zappa is or who Van Dyke Parks might be. But Richie knows that Stratton, who has a soft spot for Olivier Messiaen and Michael Tippett, is just the kind of guy who’d like the wild music-making of Zappa and Parks.
  • When a listener begins to concentrate on a single composer’s works, they often listen for the piece in which the composer has found his or her own voice, a voice that from then on will mark the music they write as their own.
  • The tale of the careers of two of the most famous women in the 19thcentury is now portrayed as a narrative of suppression and even oppression.
  • Richie invites Stratton to listen to something he has actively avoided for 50 years – PUNK. There’s no telling how he’ll react…