Gardeners Can’t Like Beethoven?

This August, just like every year, the BBC will devote a sizable chunk of its schedule to presenting the BBC Proms, the world’s largest classical music festival. But its choice of host this year has some devotees in a snit: Alan Titchmarsh, host of a popular gardening program. But Titchmarsh is firing back at the highbrow crowd: “I was rather amused that people thought it was all right for a newsreader to present the Proms, not a mere gardener, as though gardeners, by definition, know nothing about music, which is very insulting to gardeners. I have loved classical music for 45 years… I come to the Proms from the perspective of a shared passion, not as a musicologist.”