International Women's Day: Tuesday 8 March

[vinteuil]

... too many cut glass accents for comfort.

You are Dave Spart, and I claim my £5.

[french frank]

But too much of everything seems to come from inside the same old places, with too many cut glass accents for comfort. IMO , of course.

Can't off-hand think of a single 'cut glass accent' on Radio 3 now. Unless, by grade inflation the term is now applied to any old RP

On New Music it's a no-win situation. I had emails from FoR3 supporters that went both ways on the New Year, New Music season, from 'This is magnificent' to 'I've never turned off the radio so much'. Much like forum members and whenever we say 'IMO' we need to remember that whatever we think someone else thinks the exact opposite.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I thought today was Radio 3 at its horrible worst. Even the most mediocre composers were "fabulous", "fantastic" or "magnificent".

In "Tüne" was as bad as it can be, with OTT ravings about "bütiferl müsic" sung by "Rüby Hüghes", with "Süzy" Klein being chummier than ever.

Even Afternoon on 3 seems to have gone downhill.


And the worst of it is that the main message of the day will now be quietly forgotten for another year.

[Richard Barrett]

Even the most mediocre composers were "fabulous", "fantastic" or "magnificent".

There you go. As with many other aspects of promoting various kinds of "classical" music, there seems to be a belief, or a desperate hope, that making something out to be what it isn't will somehow turn on (a new constituency of) listeners.

[Don Petter]

I thought today was Radio 3 at its horrible worst. Even the most mediocre composers were "fabulous", "fantastic" or "magnificent".

I dipped in a few times during the day, but nothing I heard made me stay.

[doversoul1]

I dipped in a few times during the day, but nothing I heard made me stay.

Through the Night? Composer of the Week (I suppose the latter is the matter of taste rather than the quality of the programme)?

I have not listened to the rest yet, so can’t make comment but is it the music or the presentation that you did not think it worth your time listening to?

[oddoneout]

Positive discrimination of any kind has an unfortunate tendency to bring about negative consequences,and 'bigging up' the work of women composers will sadly tend to further close the minds and ears of those who do not wish to hear. It's also, as noted above just plain annoying, not least because it shows an unhelpful lack of discrimination.The fact that a piece of music is/was written by a woman does not automatically confer greatness on it. The music should be heard and judged on its own merits and/or appeal, and as far as I can see that will only happen when it is played without prior information about the composer's sex, in the same way that selections for interview based on CVs that don't disclose any gender clues will show a higher proportion of female candidates than is the case when the selectors can see whether the applicant is male or female. It shouldn't be impossible to slip in items occasionally without giving the listener a chance to put up the prejudicial barriers.

[Don Petter]

Through the Night? Composer of the Week (I suppose the latter is the matter of taste rather than the quality of the programme)?

I have not listened to the rest yet, so can’t make comment but is it the music or the presentation that you did not think it worth your time listening to?

Various times during the day (in and out of the car). I always despair at the over-hyped presentation, but there was nothing that grabbed me musically.

[french frank]

Various times during the day (in and out of the car). I always despair at the over-hyped presentation, but there was nothing that grabbed me musically.

Just wondering about that: if one's principal interest is in the mainstream classical/19th-c repertoire - isn't that where women featured less than in the early and contemporary fields? If so, there might be less to appeal?

[jean]

An interesting thought.

What has struck me is that women composers of the C17 & C18 were far more likely to be performed in their own time than they have been since. I've known about Barbara Strozzi and had the odd CD of her music for ages, but until this week I had no idea how prollific she was - and all that music was performed.

Anothert thought: if your listening is mainly by 'dipping in a few times during the day' - an approach unfortunately encouraged by so many programmes without playlists - you might well not be 'grabbed' by anything on any particular day. But would you think it important to say so?

.

[Richard Barrett]

women composers of the C17 & C18 were far more likely to be performed in their own time than they have been since.

I would say that a primary reason for that was the gradual separation of the roles of composer and interpreter. In the 18th century, training in composition was still a regular part of general musical training and a musician was expected to be able to provide his/her own music when required; while subsequently women musicians became relegated to a position of principally interpreting music written by others while men got to do the more exalted creative work of composition. This of course continues into the present day, where you can easily see a symphony orchestra which is more or less 50% female, whereas the representation of composers in concert programmes is going to be very different.

Is "dipping in" really a way to get to know music?

[oddoneout]

[QUOTE=Is "dipping in" really a way to get to know music?[/QUOTE]
Not the way to get to know music possibly, but certainly one way to come across music to get to know.

[french frank]

Is "dipping in" really a way to get to know music?

Not the way to get to know music possibly, but certainly one way to come across music to get to know.

The problem with 'dipping in' in that way is that to be effective that sort of programming has to sprawl out for hours on end ready to be 'dipped into'; and that reduces or forces out completely the more focused programmes. The whole point of the changes to Radio 3's mornings was to 'encourage sampling' [sic] by new listeners, or coax them to 'dip in'. Compare that with 2001 (Morning Performance was soon replaced by CD Masters):

6:00am Morning on 3
Including 6.00, 7.00, 8.00 News With Penny Gore. 6.05 Saint-Saens: Odelette, Op 162. Clara Novakova (flute), Orchestre de Paris Chamber Ensemble/Jean-Jacques Kantorow. 6.30 Finzi: Suite `Love's Labours Lost'. English SO/William Boughton. 7.05 Galuppi: Harpsichord Concerto in C minor. Rita Peiretti, Accademia dei Solinhi. 7.40 Cornelius: Love, Op 18. Polyphony/Stephen Layton. 8.10 Field: Romance in E flat. Helge Antoni (piano). 8.30 Buxtehude: Jubilate Domino. Andreas Scholl (countertenor), Freiderike Heumann (viola da gamba).
9:00am Composer of the Week: Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880). With Donald Macleod.
10:00am Work in Progress: Barry Purves
Six weeks into a nine-month shoot, animation director Barry Purves describes the intricate process of giving life to a latex aardvark, the star of a major new animation to be shown on BBC1 next year.
10:05am Masterworks
With Stephanie Hughes. This week featuring piano works by Schubert and recordings by Ruggiero Ricci. Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus (exc). Berlin PO/Claudio Abbado. 10.26 Paganini: Caprices, Op 1 Nos 1-5. Ruggiero Ricci (violin). 10.43 Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy, D760. Murray Perahia (piano). 11.06 Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen. Ruggiero Ricci (violin), LSO/Piero Gamba. 11.17 Stravinsky: Four Etudes. CBC SO/Igor Stravinsky.
11:30am Morning Performance Towards Schnittke
This week, Gerard McBurney anticipates the BBC's weekend celebration of Alfred Schnittke's music by exploring the diverse musical influences on the composer and placing his work in its social and political context ...
1:00pm News; Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert
Live from London's Wigmore Hall. Barry Douglas (piano). Beethoven: Piano Sonata in A, Op 101; Piano Sonata in F minor, Op 57 (Appassionata).

[ahinton]

I would say that a primary reason for that was the gradual separation of the roles of composer and interpreter. In the 18th century, training in composition was still a regular part of general musical training and a musician was expected to be able to provide his/her own music when required; while subsequently women musicians became relegated to a position of principally interpreting music written by others while men got to do the more exalted creative work of composition. This of course continues into the present day, where you can easily see a symphony orchestra which is more or less 50% female, whereas the representation of composers in concert programmes is going to be very different.

Whilst I cannot but agree with you here, isn't part of this change also down to the more general move away from composers as performers and vice versa - i.e. not just in terms of impact upon women's rôles in musical creation and recreation? Whereas it would have been unthinkable to Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven et al to be a "composer" or a "performer" rather than treating each such activity as inseparable from one another, it seems that, since the days of Berlioz the not very accomplished guitarist, these rôles have largely become separated from one another to the point that, in the 20th century, composer/performers were much more the exception rather than the norm; indeed, were the first part of your second sentence to be taken due note of in conservatoires and other music teaching institutions, the results could only be positive for future generations - the encouragement of musicians to hone their performing, conducting, composing and improvising skills rather than just one or two of those, in order to work towards a much more rounded musicianship, would surely represent progress?

[teamsaint]

Whilst I cannot but agree with you here, isn't part of this change also down to the more general move away from composers as performers and vice versa - i.e. not just in terms of impact upon women's rôles in musical creation and recreation? Whereas it would have been unthinkable to Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven et al to be a "composer" or a "performer" rather than treating each such activity as inseparable from one another, it seems that, since the days of Berlioz the not very accomplished guitarist, these rôles have largely become separated from one another to the point that, in the 20th century, composer/performers were much more the exception rather than the norm; indeed, were the first part of your second sentence to be taken due note of in conservatoires and other music teaching institutions, the results could only be positive for future generations - the encouragement of musicians to hone their performing, conducting, composing and improvising skills rather than just one or two of those, in order to work towards a much more rounded musicianship, would surely represent progress?

...But a pipe dream ,I suspect, sadly.

Fear of lower grades drives students to avoid risk, in far too many cases, at the cost of creativity.

and, to state the obvious perhaps, in the second half of the C20, rock and pop became rather overly obsessed ( IMO)with the idea of the composer /performer, in contrast to the Classical world.