Afternoon Concert - general thread

[oddoneout]

"Everything we do is a celebration of what it is to be human." What do you understand the controller to mean by this claim? Do you think it justified or not? Explain your arguments filling at least four sides of foolscap, and with detailed reference to the current Radio 3 schedule rather than general waffling or your experience of being a human being.

Well with the Brandenburg clanger they are certainly demonstrating that to err is human...

[antongould]

Simple - Stockton has a greater proportion of humans than any settlement in the U.K.

[french frank]

Don’t know if this has been seen/discussed ……. ????

https://bbc.in/3BWZXLK

"Everything we do is a celebration of what it is to be human." What do you understand the controller to mean by this claim? Do you think it justified or not? Explain your arguments filling at least four sides of foolscap, and with detailed reference to the current Radio 3 schedule rather than general waffling or your experience of being a human being.

[oddoneout]

I haven't been following this thread (or much else on daytime R3 recently), but switched on Afternoon Concert today to find a miserable mess: Ian Skelly wittering on unnecessarily but worse - far worse - we got random movements plus some shorter works.

Is this what "Afternoon Concert" is going to be now, a version of the slop put out in the mornings? It used to be a valuable programme where you could listen to whole concerts with minimal announcements, but - perhaps in honour of the joke new Culture Secretary - it seems to have been given the full dumbed down treatment. I hope that's not what is happening, but this is perhaps an indicator:



At first, I hoped that they'd discovered some more Brandenburgs, but no, just what some ignorant fool has provided.

Really, it makes you despair!

In my view it's worse than the morning set-up. For that you know it will be incomplete music, and talk, but Afternoon Concert implies something more complete and considered and should be something at least approaching "proper" R3 content. The morning listening is "find out afterwards", whereas in the afternoon it used to be that the works were listed so you knew what was on, and at least part of it would be recognisable concert format, as it would be a repeat of or a "bought in" actual concert. Now on the online listing they've resorted to using "including", omitting several of the items to be played, and the order in which they are listed will probably not tally with the order in which they are broadcast. Any original complete concert is now more often than not deconstructed, as I grumbled in a previous post.

[Rcartes]

I haven't been following this thread (or much else on daytime R3 recently), but switched on Afternoon Concert today to find a miserable mess: Ian Skelly wittering on unnecessarily but worse - far worse - we got random movements plus some shorter works.

Is this what "Afternoon Concert" is going to be now, a version of the slop put out in the mornings? It used to be a valuable programme where you could listen to whole concerts with minimal announcements, but - perhaps in honour of the joke new Culture Secretary - it seems to have been given the full dumbed down treatment. I hope that's not what is happening, but this is perhaps an indicator:

From the Afternoon Concert mention .

six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos from the Academy of Ancient Music Berlin
.

At first, I hoped that they'd discovered some more Brandenburgs, but no, just what some ignorant fool has provided.

Really, it makes you despair!

[oddoneout]

Don’t know if this has been seen/discussed ……. ????

https://bbc.in/3BWZXLK

From the Afternoon Concert mention

six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos from the Academy of Ancient Music Berlin

.
The other thing that caught my eye was

Northern Drift, a new night-time series

- to replace dumbtime in TTN slot I wonder?
Overall it seems to be business as usual, just the themes for some things changing with the seasons/current topics of interest. Any discussion probably needs to be elsewhere except I don't know that there's much to discuss?

[antongould]

Don’t know if this has been seen/discussed ……. ????

https://bbc.in/3BWZXLK

[oddoneout]

Yes the penny dropped for me too, when I was trying to find the Sibelius & Dvořák. Strangely random approach, they seem to have a contempt for the programme planning of the various orchestras etc

Yes contempt was the word that came to my mind. Take a carefully planned concert, disassemble the components then scatter them throughout a 3 hour programme slot. Why Villa-Lobos between the modern overture and the 18th Century Stabat Mater? What's wrong with having two pieces featuring the viola together ? (Viola joke specialists need not answer that question)

[Nick Armstrong]

After another confusing afternoon I think I may possibly have cracked the (or a ) reason for the "all the right [pieces] but not necessarily in the right order". I was assuming that xxx festival followed by a list of music from a concert meant that was how it would be broadcast, but when I factor in the word "including" which heads the lists I've come to the conclusion that it means "we'll play these pieces in a random order throughout the 3 hour Afternoon Concert slot, and include items not on the list just for the hell of it/ to confuse you/to make up the time". So 3 different festivals, 3 separate concert programmes, the contents of which were shuffled and then broadcast in no particular order with half a dozen random bits included as well. WHY? Do you suppose I might get an answer if I contact the Davey person, since emails to the AC address get no response?

Yes the penny dropped for me too, when I was trying to find the Sibelius & Dvořák. Strangely random approach, they seem to have a contempt for the programme planning of the various orchestras etc

[oddoneout]

After another confusing afternoon I think I may possibly have cracked the (or a ) reason for the "all the right [pieces] but not necessarily in the right order". I was assuming that xxx festival followed by a list of music from a concert meant that was how it would be broadcast, but when I factor in the word "including" which heads the lists I've come to the conclusion that it means "we'll play these pieces in a random order throughout the 3 hour Afternoon Concert slot, and include items not on the list just for the hell of it/ to confuse you/to make up the time". So 3 different festivals, 3 separate concert programmes, the contents of which were shuffled and then broadcast in no particular order with half a dozen random bits included as well. WHY? Do you suppose I might get an answer if I contact the Davey person, since emails to the AC address get no response?

[oddoneout]

And yet, they are included in this week's Radio Times - almost as if intending to needle those who don't buy the mag. First the Prokofiev Classical Symphony, then Shostakovitch's PC No 1, both from the Verbier Festival. This is followed by Schubert Symph 6 from Schleswig-Halstein Festival, Kahn's Serenade Op 73 from Solsberg Festival, ending with Anno Schreier's Sinfonia amoroso e guiocosa from a Brussels festival, the programme all ending at 5pm. Or is it the order in which the works are actually being broadcast that is problematic? I'm afraid I haven't been following this afternoon's concert.

That's what appears on the schedule online as well, but as you can see under Music Played https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000yf0v that's not quite what was broadcast. The first hour and quarter only included the Prokofiev from the advertised list, which is rather a chunk of time to be wondering when what you were expecting to hear would actually materialise. I got as far as the Shostakovich but then had things to do elsewhere.

[Serial_Apologist]

The online schedules for Afternoon Concert have been particularly bad recently in terms of bearing some relationship to what is played, something which becomes glaringly obvious once the full "Music played" list appears. I emailed twice last week to ask why and give examples, needless to say no response, not even autoreply now. This week I notice that the word "Including" appears above the schedule, perhaps as a copout? Trouble is that of the 6 pieces actually played/currently playing in this first hour only one is in that schedule. So will the remaining pieces all appear as writ in the less than 2 hours(as I write 1 hr45) or so I wonder? Who knows, it's a bit like a full fat (ie whole items) version of Breakfast and Essential Classics. Less chat but still crass adverts, and no way of knowing what is going to be played when. I realise that those who, like me, listen in real time are negligible and ignorable, but don't those who listen differently use the schedules at all, eg to see what's on for later perusal?
The (non-publicised) Haydn Cello concerto has just finished and we are back with the published list, having apparently left out a Shostakovitch concerto and Schubert symphony - except that of course they may appear later...

And yet, they are included in this week's Radio Times - almost as if intending to needle those who don't buy the mag. First the Prokofiev Classical Symphony, then Shostakovitch's PC No 1, both from the Verbier Festival. This is followed by Schubert Symph 6 from Schleswig-Halstein Festival, Kahn's Serenade Op 73 from Solsberg Festival, ending with Anno Schreier's Sinfonia amoroso e guiocosa from a Brussels festival, the programme all ending at 5pm. Or is it the order in which the works are actually being broadcast that is problematic? I'm afraid I haven't been following this afternoon's concert.

[oddoneout]

The online schedules for Afternoon Concert have been particularly bad recently in terms of bearing some relationship to what is played, something which becomes glaringly obvious once the full "Music played" list appears. I emailed twice last week to ask why and give examples, needless to say no response, not even autoreply now. This week I notice that the word "Including" appears above the schedule, perhaps as a copout? Trouble is that of the 6 pieces actually played/currently playing in this first hour only one is in that schedule. So will the remaining pieces all appear as writ in the less than 2 hours(as I write 1 hr45) or so I wonder? Who knows, it's a bit like a full fat (ie whole items) version of Breakfast and Essential Classics. Less chat but still crass adverts, and no way of knowing what is going to be played when. I realise that those who, like me, listen in real time are negligible and ignorable, but don't those who listen differently use the schedules at all, eg to see what's on for later perusal?
The (non-publicised) Haydn Cello concerto has just finished and we are back with the published list, having apparently left out a Shostakovitch concerto and Schubert symphony - except that of course they may appear later...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Can't take credit for that, I just emailed the programme with the question and had a pleasant email back from someone who was happy for me to share the answer.
Bit of a contrast to sending a thank you to Breakfast for the Yorkshire journey project, which just generated an auto reply to the effect they were too busy with the vast volume of mail they receive to respond to mine.

It’s interesting : Biddy Baxter , who was the editor of Blue Peter for decades , was so irritated by getting the same reply twice from ‘Enid Blyton’ to a fan letter she determined that all children would get an individual reply every time they wrote in . She kept all correspondence on file to ensure that happened.

[oddoneout]

Good detective work . So it was a good old fashioned c*** up !

Can't take credit for that, I just emailed the programme with the question and had a pleasant email back from someone who was happy for me to share the answer.
Bit of a contrast to sending a thank you to Breakfast for the Yorkshire journey project, which just generated an auto reply to the effect they were too busy with the vast volume of mail they receive to respond to mine.