“ ‘I’ve got Wagner-itis,’ said His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales,” writes Charlotte Runcie in Wednesday’s (5/27) Daily Telegraph (U.K.). “ ‘I’m not sure it’s a communicable disease, but it’s something like that.’ That was, thankfully, one of few mentions of diseases of any sort during the two hours that the Prince spent in conversation with Alan Titchmarsh for A Royal Appointment (Classic FM), the first of two programs this week in which the Prince shares some of his favorite pieces of music…. The Royal family are always at their most effective when they champion causes for which they have a genuine passion…. Titchmarsh invited the Prince to speculate on whether the country’s arts organizations will survive once the pandemic has passed…. ‘I hope so,’ he said, firmly, ‘because otherwise we’ve all had it. Life becomes insupportable.’ … If there was ever a time to make a case for music and arts as a central pillar … this is it, and the Prince of Wales has risen to the moment in style…. He ended the program … with Bach’s ‘Be near me, Lord, when dying’ from the St. Matthew Passion…. It felt like a movement towards consolation in an ongoing time of international grief.”
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