Joseph Elliott Needham Cooper (7 October 1912 – 4 August 2001), pianist and… Read Full Bio ↴Joseph Elliott Needham Cooper (7 October 1912 – 4 August 2001), pianist and broadcaster, best known as the chairman of the BBC's long-running television panel game Face the Music.
Cooper was born at Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, England. He was educated at Clifton College, and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar, During the 1930s he worked initially as a church organist and piano teacher before joining the GPO Film Unit, where he wrote incidental music for documentaries, including Mony a Pickle (1938) and A Midsummer Day's Work (1939). Here his colleagues included the poet W.H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten. He had already embarked on a promising career as a concert pianist when the outbreak of World War II forced him to give up the concert platform for the duration of hostilities. He resumed his career in 1946, studying briefly with Egon Petri and making his London debut in 1947.
Cooper made a number of successful recordings and also began broadcasting on radio. In 1954 he accepted an invitation to work on the BBC radio quiz show Call the Tune. In 1967 the show transferred to television under the title Face the Music. Transmitted on BBC2 and repeated on BBC1, it ran until 1979 and was briefly revived in 1983-4. The show kept Cooper in the public eye, and the "Hidden Melody" round, a regular feature of the show in which he improvised in the style of a composer and cloaked a well-known tune in his elaboate extemporization, served as a vehicle for his great pianistic talent. Face the Music also featured the Dummy Keyboard, in which Cooper played a well-known piano piece on a silent keyboard and the panel had to identify it. The music was gradually faded in for viewers at home.
During the 1960s, Cooper occasionally appeared as one of the presenters of Here Today, a daily 15-minute light current affairs programme broadcast by the independent company TWW, which served South Wales and the West of England. He became known for his acerbic, rather irascible interviewing style and for the fact that he regularly played out the programme with a gentle piano piece.
Cooper was awarded the OBE in 1982. He was married twice, first to Jean Greig from 1947 until her death in 1973, and then Carol Borg, from 1975 until her death in 1996.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cooper"
Cooper was born at Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, England. He was educated at Clifton College, and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar, During the 1930s he worked initially as a church organist and piano teacher before joining the GPO Film Unit, where he wrote incidental music for documentaries, including Mony a Pickle (1938) and A Midsummer Day's Work (1939). Here his colleagues included the poet W.H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten. He had already embarked on a promising career as a concert pianist when the outbreak of World War II forced him to give up the concert platform for the duration of hostilities. He resumed his career in 1946, studying briefly with Egon Petri and making his London debut in 1947.
Cooper made a number of successful recordings and also began broadcasting on radio. In 1954 he accepted an invitation to work on the BBC radio quiz show Call the Tune. In 1967 the show transferred to television under the title Face the Music. Transmitted on BBC2 and repeated on BBC1, it ran until 1979 and was briefly revived in 1983-4. The show kept Cooper in the public eye, and the "Hidden Melody" round, a regular feature of the show in which he improvised in the style of a composer and cloaked a well-known tune in his elaboate extemporization, served as a vehicle for his great pianistic talent. Face the Music also featured the Dummy Keyboard, in which Cooper played a well-known piano piece on a silent keyboard and the panel had to identify it. The music was gradually faded in for viewers at home.
During the 1960s, Cooper occasionally appeared as one of the presenters of Here Today, a daily 15-minute light current affairs programme broadcast by the independent company TWW, which served South Wales and the West of England. He became known for his acerbic, rather irascible interviewing style and for the fact that he regularly played out the programme with a gentle piano piece.
Cooper was awarded the OBE in 1982. He was married twice, first to Jean Greig from 1947 until her death in 1973, and then Carol Borg, from 1975 until her death in 1996.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cooper"
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6 Movements musicaux Op. 94 D. 780: No.3 In F Minor
Joseph Cooper Lyrics
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@saarlooswolfhund6237
Alfred Brendel ist der mit Abstand größte noch lebende Pianist unserer Zeit. Er und Schubert sind Brüder im Geiste. Möge er uns noch lange erhalten bleiben, ich verneige mich vor ihm.
@nofasternan
Brendel: What a memory! Piece after piece, every note, every tempo, every forte and piano, every mood and feeling,! No other Schubert interpreter has it,
@Masacre29
Arrau first
@militaryandemergencyservic2376
NO HE DOES NOT PLAY EVERY NOTE. You clearly do not know the fact that Brendel MISSES out MANY sections of Schubert.
@gregorurban3222
@y not 'p'(iano) 'ff'? which sections? Only in the first piece there existed a second Trio-part by the composer, who afterwards deleted it by himself.
@militaryandemergencyservic2376
@Gregor Urban if you listen carefully to that first one he not only doesn't play the beautiful bit that Schubert crossed out - but also shortens that section. Then there's the second klavierstuck - this he also shortens (in the c section).
@schubert2921
That second piece is divine! Out of this world!
Schubert, the master of melody!
@richardwhitehouse8762
God, this is marvelous. Here is an artist completely engaged with the music he is performing, to the point where witnessing the intimacy of his relationship with the composer feels like an intrusion.
Thank you for sharing.
@ellireivalk3564
Soo schön geschrieben ... ❤
@brandonmatuja6498
Piece No. 2 is one of the most deeply felt--if not THE most deeply felt--piece of solo piano music in classical music. And whoever criticizes or dismisses Alfred Brendel for being too "cerebral" has not seen him fighting back the tears in his performance of this piece, at around the 13 or 14 minute mark.