BBC4 to be cut by end of the year

[oddoneout]

Looking at the last 7 days output it seems to me that it was a reasonably good selection of what one might expect to find on a 'cultural' channel, with only Friday being a 'pop' focused schedule. For me the programme offering has been a great deal better in the past few weeks than in the past year or two in terms of things I want to see - but by definition that means that for A N Other it was not satisfactory.
However it is true that the lack of what one might call R3 interest music was noticeable, and what did turn up served to highlight the lack on 'mainstream' TV output that has been the norm for many years, but then it is not a music channel so it could be argued that there will always be a perceived lack. Whether that is a bigger deficit than it could or should be is another issue.
Although I would prefer the content to be of more sustained interest to me, I remind myself that that is not reasonable since it excludes whole swathes of what other people are interested in, in the way of arts and music, and which also fall under the wider umbrella of 'culture'.

[Serial_Apologist]

I like the places where we and others meet, musically, arriving from different places. They are creative, illuminating, good places.Pigeonholing is a very good way of stopping this happening, I suspect.

Grace Jones might easily be seen as Art Song, IMO. but it is just a label, and not the substance.

But there again, so is "kitchen knife". Isn't the defining question regarding "art" what is it for?

[LMcD]

Tonight's BBC4 schedule:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl6b

With the possible exception of the first item, was it really (from 8pm onwards) anything to do with the Arts? Discuss.

BBC 4 seems to have followed the example of the 2 -then 1 - Sky Arts channels.

[Count Boso]

But there again, so is "kitchen knife". Isn't the defining question regarding "art" what is it for?

Exactly. 'Music' is a label too. Where would we be without 'labels'? Equating labelling with pigeonholing, though, is false. This use of the term 'pigeonholing' is confined to people who in some (major or minor) way 'benefit' from it. It demonstrates how open-minded, adventurous, risk-loving etc one is compared with narrow-minded other people, for example. But mood and taste also affect what we want to listen to, and the reasons why we 'want' to listen to a particular kind of music and not another kind at a particular moment are many.

A person may have a wide range of musical tastes, but that is no more than a statement of fact. You may call Grace Jones 'art song', but if you play a recital of Schubert intermingled with Grace Jones, many lovers of Schubert, and of Grace Jones, will avoid listening to it. So 'art song' might not be a very useful label.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Exactly. 'Music' is a label too. Where would we be without 'labels'? Equating labelling with pigeonholing, though, is false. This use of the term 'pigeonholing' is confined to people who in some (major or minor) way 'benefit' from it. It demonstrates how open-minded, adventurous, risk-loving etc one is compared with narrow-minded other people, for example........

I agree with the points you make - the excerpt above in particular. Thanks very much for freeing us from the tortuous process of defending describing music, in a way between us we recognise, and then having to interact with responses of the nature you describe.

[teamsaint]

But there again, so is "kitchen knife". Isn't the defining question regarding "art" what is it for?

I’m not sure. It is an important question. But then the questions of, for example, authorial voice ,have been discussed long and loud.

( I don’t suppose that Mark E Smith wrote “ Touch Sensitive” for a Vauxhall Corsa TV advert, but it worked pretty well ).

[ardcarp]

Using the word 'pigeonholing' was a mistake..mea maxima culpa...and I didn't mean it that way. I just meant it would be good if BBC4 could dedicate a few hours, once a week, to stuff that I like!

[jayne lee wilson]

BBC 4 seems to have followed the example of the 2 -then 1 - Sky Arts channels.

Sky Arts can still surprise you.... startling doc recently on Dante's Inferno with stunning new dance sequences/graphics, many examples from centuries of art, and Italian readings/commentary.....Botticelli, Blake and Holbein stood out....

Got me looking about for a new bilingual.....anyone here know their trecento & can recommend...?

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita......

So I know one line by heart at least. But we are in a dark wood now aren't we? Hoping it won't become a global or local inferno....but in some hospitals and care homes, maybe it already has.....

Do check out Sandbrook's sci-fi thing on BBC4, its great... next ep 23/05 2330......and isn't about time someone threw all the horrors and splendours of CGI at Dante?

[Count Boso]

Got me looking about for a new bilingual.....anyone here know their trecento & can recommend...?

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita......

So I know one line by heart at least.

Oh, come on - you know Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate too . Appropriate? <long sigh>

[vinteuil]

Got me looking about for a new bilingual..[I]...anyone here know their trecento & can recommend...?

... The Charles Singleton translation for Princeton is the recommended scholarly choice (3 vols text, plus 3 vols commentary, expensive).
I have much enjoyed the parallel text using the Allen Mandelbaum translation, in a bantam paperback series 3 vols, very cheap. The translation bounces along in a very readable way.
If you have the French (of course you have the French... ) the 3 vol paperback GF Flammarion edition, translation by Jacqueline Risset, is well worth trying. I find it easier to stick to the left hand Italian pages if, as here, the alternative is in French - only moving across to the French when I get lost ; the temptation in Italian/English parallel texts I find is that once you have swerved over to the English side it is all too easy to keep on reading on that side...

.

[Joseph K]

Sky Arts can still surprise you.... startling doc recently on Dante's Inferno with stunning new dance sequences/graphics, many examples from centuries of art, and Italian readings/commentary.....Botticelli, Blake and Holbein stood out....

Got me looking about for a new bilingual.....anyone here know their trecento & can recommend...?

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita......

So I know one line by heart at least. But we are in a dark wood now aren't we? Hoping it won't become a global or local inferno....but in some hospitals and care homes, maybe it already has.....

Do check out Sandbrook's sci-fi thing on BBC4, its great... next ep 23/05 2330......and isn't about time someone threw all the horrors and splendours of CGI at Dante?

Yes - when I used to hang around with Romanians and misc. other students in Birmingham on more than one occasion we hung out with Italians and I quoted 'Nel mezzo...'. I know quite a bit more German than I do Italian (not difficult: my Italian is non-existent). I have to say, the Italians I came across seemed to appreciate this more than the Germans to whom I quoted Goethe and Rilke...

I have a dual-language version of the Inferno but have to admit, I haven't yet finished it...

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes - when I used to hang around with Romanians and misc. other students in Birmingham on more than one occasion we hung out with Italians and I quoted 'Nel mezzo...'. I know quite a bit more German than I do Italian (not difficult: my Italian is non-existent). I have to say, the Italians I came across seemed to appreciate this more than the Germans to whom I quoted Goethe and Rilke...

I have a dual-language version of the Inferno but have to admit, I haven't yet finished it...

The two places I have learned the little Italian that I know are in food (recipes and menus) and music. These sources were nearly enough to enable me to translate the liner notes on those often beautifuly illustrated Italian jazz bootlegs that came out in the 1980s: I grandi di jazz beiong the one that comes to mind.

[jayne lee wilson]

... The Charles Singleton translation for Princeton is the recommended scholarly choice (3 vols text, plus 3 vols commentary, expensive).
I have much enjoyed the parallel text using the Allen Mandelbaum translation, in a bantam paperback series 3 vols, very cheap. The translation bounces along in a very readable way.
If you have the French (of course you have the French... ) the 3 vol paperback GF Flammarion edition, translation by Jacqueline Risset, is well worth trying. I find it easier to stick to the left hand Italian pages if, as here, the alternative is in French - only moving across to the French when I get lost ; the temptation in Italian/English parallel texts I find is that once you have swerved over to the English side it is all too easy to keep on reading on that side...

.

Thanks V.... will check out....

[Bryn]

The Tom Philips translation has the original text embedded in its page by page illustrations. It is very much pot luck whether the particular word or phrase of the original is visible in any given illustration. ;-)

[alywin]

BBC Annual plan for 2020/21
[...]

BBC Four will increase focus on bringing together collections of the most distinctive content
from the BBC’s rich archive.

Translation: more repeats.

Arts will continue to be a centrepiece of Four as we carry on
showcasing Culture in Quarantine through this period.

This is the 20/21 plan, so they're obviously not confident that the pandemic will be over any time soon :(