How great that Monkman and Bobby Seagull have a six-part series on the BBC, travelling Britain. They are such fine young men, and have no pompous, self important attitudes. Monkman is like a big, amiable teddy bear - I want to hug him ! ☺☺☺
I'm sorry but I can't help thinking of the predator alien when i see this guy..like he's gunna suddenly jump up onto the desk and snarl at everyone..gives me the willies
Monkman is something else. I enjoy watching him with Seagull in their documentary shows together. Myself, I usually get about 18 of the questions right on the University Challenge quiz show. Of course, responses do have to be quicker than the team members' are, or at the least, synchronous with them Otherwise you are just parroting an answer you just heard, and that is true, even if hou knew it. Another thing... Actually hearing the questions has become a problem just recently. The sound on this particular show seems just a bit muffled to me. Each edition of the show is the same in this regard, as if there is a problem in the set-up of the sound channel within the studio, as if it is being recorded at a lower bit-rate, or something. This is noticable across both TVs we have, and does not occur with any other TV shows that I can recall. Anybody else noticed this? (The sound of the clips above seems fine, BTW, even when casting from a 'phone through the same TVs in question.)
0:35 --- Mussorgsky. "Trepak" from the song cycle "Songs and Dances of Death" --1875. I don't recognize the singer in the [UC] program. I'd recommend two recordings: *1)* Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano) in 1963, with Gorki State Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. *2)* Boris Christoff (bass) in 1957, with Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française conducted by Georges Tzipine. --To me, these two singers, especially Christoff, are the ultimate interpreters of Mussorgsky's entire catalogue of songs.
