Alan Davey, new controller, R3

[DracoM]

Mr Davey on Feedback next week.
Gosh, I bet he's sweating ahead of that grilling by RB.

[french frank]

Mr Davey on Feedback next week.
Gosh, I bet he's sweating ahead of that grilling by RB.

I've just gone through the BBC MM interview with James Naughtie. One thing occurs - I theeenk, that just like Mark Damazer when he was interviewing RW, Naughtie comes out with some atrocious news hack clichés because he assumes that anyone who criticises Radio 3 has to be discredited and demeaned. Above all, even if they're right, that mustn't be admitted.

Can't be certain, but Jim suggests that AD said he thinks Essential Classics 'works' because of the two presenters. I shall suggest that when HE was a teenager who didn't know anything much about classical music, he wouldn't have been attracted to it by silly quizzes and comedians who are jolly entertaining but don't know anything about the music themselves. For Jim's enlightenment, THAT is what people call 'dumbing down'. It's dumb and it's talking down.

[Honoured Guest]

(Cheap EBU feed on Mondays? Where did you get that from?)

From Pulcinella's summary of the press interview (#117).

"Okay, "feed" is the wrong word, but my point is that AD is dressing up a cost-saving cut - replacing one edition of Live in Concert every week with an EBU recording which would, up to now, have been broadcast on R3 in Through the Night or Afternoon on 3.

In fact, I tend to agree with you that listeners may well like this change on balance, but cutting one weekly Live in Concert and pumping out more EBU material (or repeating EBU material in a different time-slot) is technically a backward step in R3 distinctiveness, isn't it?

[Pulcinella]

From Pulcinella's summary of the press interview (#117).

"Okay, "feed" is the wrong word, but my point is that AD is dressing up a cost-saving cut - replacing one edition of Live in Concert every week with an EBU recording which would, up to now, have been broadcast on R3 in Through the Night or Afternoon on 3.

In fact, I tend to agree with you that listeners may well like this change on balance, but cutting one weekly Live in Concert and pumping out more EBU material (or repeating EBU material in a different time-slot) is technically a backward step in R3 distinctiveness, isn't it?

There is nothing in my post or in the interview that suggests cheapness in doing this: the paucity of live concerts (presumably in the UK, which is why the 'feed' from the EBU would be taken) is given as the reason.

PS: The interview actually says......
He's thinking of Monday nights as a stage for European orchestras.

[Anastasius]

I've just gone through the BBC MM interview with James Naughtie. One thing occurs - I theeenk, that just like Mark Damazer when he was interviewing RW, Naughtie comes out with some atrocious news hack clichés because he assumes that anyone who criticises Radio 3 has to be discredited and demeaned. Above all, even if they're right, that mustn't be admitted.

Can't be certain, but Jim suggests that AD said he thinks Essential Classics 'works' because of the two presenters. I shall suggest that when HE was a teenager who didn't know anything much about classical music, he wouldn't have been attracted to it by silly quizzes and comedians who are jolly entertaining but don't know anything about the music themselves. For Jim's enlightenment, THAT is what people call 'dumbing down'. It's dumb and it's talking down.

But that sums up the BBC's response to any criticism. 'Defending the indefensible'. Pace the execrable Playlister. The awful revamp of the BBC News online website. The BBC these days smacks of the 'Emperor's Clothes'. Too many Yes Men (or Women).

[french frank]

HG

Have you actually read the article (yet)? What was mentioned was 'foreign orchestras', which didn't immediately imply some sort of rehashing of Through the Night material ('He's thinking of Monday nights as a stage for foreign orchestras'). Some foreign orchestras can be really rather good …

For some people, myself included, the change from cancelling ALL live concerts in 2007 and then in 2011 switching crazily to having one EVERY night (on the grounds, apparently, that that wouldn't be a U-turn as Radio 3 had never previously had a live concert every night) was merely one example of Roger's hairpin changes of direction which showed no overall vision but panic measures to achieve whatever he'd decided he ought to achieve. And one which had some unforeseen adverse impacts on the rest of the schedule (the graveyard slot for the Sunday drama, the feeling that some of the concert repertoire made the classical output seem a bit tired).

For goodness sake, live concerts every night had only been going for 4 years and seemed a bit of an unbalanced use of scarce funding.

[And, looking back, Pulcinella accurately reported what the article had said - not what the words meant to you]

From Pulcinella's summary of the press interview (#117).

"Okay, "feed" is the wrong word, but my point is that AD is dressing up a cost-saving cut - replacing one edition of Live in Concert every week with an EBU recording which would, up to now, have been broadcast on R3 in Through the Night or Afternoon on 3.

In fact, I tend to agree with you that listeners may well like this change on balance, but cutting one weekly Live in Concert and pumping out more EBU material (or repeating EBU material in a different time-slot) is technically a backward step in R3 distinctiveness, isn't it?

[Barbirollians]

If Monday night is European orchestra night leads toOpera on 3 being back permanently on a Saturday night then that would be a plus .

[MrGongGong]

If Monday night is European orchestra night

Can we have this one?

http://www.vegetableorchestra.org

[french frank]

If Monday night is European orchestra night leads toOpera on 3 being back permanently on a Saturday night then that would be a plus .

"Opera, he think, sits more happily at the weekend than on a Monday night (where it often went because it's a quiet night for live orchestral performance) and he speaks about how he might find a way of repeating some of the ground-breaking work done by David Munrow and Antony Hopkins in years gone by in opening a door on music to audiences young and old."

(And that suggests another reason for thinking Roger's 'every night is live concert night' wasn't a very good one in the first place.)

[MrGongGong]

"Opera, he think, sits more happily at the weekend than on a Monday night (where it often went because it's a quiet night for live orchestral performance) and he speaks about how he might find a way of repeating some of the ground-breaking work done by David Munrow and Antony Hopkins in years gone by in opening a door on music to audiences young and old."

I think folks will find that this will be more like the extension of the 10 pieces project than a "return" to David Munrow et al
I do think (again..... sorry ) that it is really important for those of us who are often totally consumed by music to remember that we are unusual.
For all the folks who were 'switched on' to Classical music by hearing our teacher play Götterdämmerung in Primary School assembly there is a much much larger group who had the opposite response. I don't think it's enough to suggest that for those folks there is R1,2,5 & 6.

[Richard Tarleton]

Opinion piece by Catherine Nixey, Times radio critic, on p. 26 today, welcoming the abandonment of the populist agenda. Now, finally, things seem to be improving, but there is much to do......

[french frank]

I think folks will find that this will be more like the extension of the 10 pieces project than a "return" to David Munrow et al
I do think (again..... sorry ) that it is really important for those of us who are often totally consumed by music to remember that we are unusual.
For all the folks who were 'switched on' to Classical music by hearing our teacher play Götterdämmerung in Primary School assembly there is a much much larger group who had the opposite response. I don't think it's enough to suggest that for those folks there is R1,2,5 & 6.

I would have probably been switched off by Götterdämmerung in Primary School (though The Ride of the Valkyries might have been all right), but don't speak of Munrow and Hopkins in the same breath. You dislike 'Ten Pieces'? And the 'In Harmony' project? It seems as if you only conceive of one way of introducing children to 'classical' music - your way??? Carry on doing it but leave others to do it their way

RT - I've had The Times piece 'shared' with me. Not quite our terminology ("Switch off the Radio 3 populists for good
Let’s back to proper classical music listening") - but at least she didn't say 'dumbing down'

[Don Petter]

I thought it was quite a good piece. I'm on the lookout for some vellum.

[french frank]

I thought it was quite a good piece. I'm on the lookout for some vellum.

Roger seemed particularly sensitive about Radio 4 comedians (eg Dead Ringers) making fun of Radio 3. But in fact it was Radio 4 satirists (Ed Reardon writers, Mitchell and Webb) who made fun of what he was doing. A bit of entertaining quirkiness can be a USP.

[MrGongGong]

I would have probably been switched off by Götterdämmerung in Primary School (though The Ride of the Valkyries might have been all right), but don't speak of Munrow and Hopkins in the same breath. You dislike 'Ten Pieces'? And the 'In Harmony' project? It seems as if you only conceive of one way of introducing children to 'classical' music - your way??? Carry on doing it but leave others to do it their way

I don't "dislike" Ten Pieces at all, I think it's been a great success so far and it will be interesting to see what happens when it expands next year.
I think some wonderful things DO happen in the 'In Harmony' projects. BUT there are some big issues around it (hence this https://geoffbakermusic.wordpress.co...l-perspective/) which some folks find hard to talk about.

The potential 'problem' is that some ways of working with music become the ONLY way, what we need is more diversity of approach IMV
I have no desire for anyone to do things in the way that I do at all, that's the kind of thing that folks involved in politics tend to say. Why think in such a binary way?

I can conceive of many many ways of involving (and introducing) children and young people to music.

All I was pointing out was that the folks who post on messageboards about these things are unusual.

(have a listen to the Martyn Bennett, it's got your man Dave on it :big grin:)