Afternoon Concert - general thread

[oddoneout]

Come on! Bach was German; so was Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn wrote an "Italian" symphony; Florence is a city in Italy. Innit?

The brainpower to come up with that exceeds the amount that was used to assemble the whole programme I reckon.

[french frank]

Wouldn't it be more honest - and more accurate - to simply call it 'Afternoon On Three'? (Possibly introduced by the Dave Clark 5's 'Bits and Pieces')

It was called Afternoon on 3 . Afternoon Concert was intended to be a proper (recorded) concert, as I remember featuring one or other of the BBC orchestras.

Edit: I'm not sure that it was an actual concert, more selected recordings to form a 'concert': overture, concerto, symphony by the chosen orchestra. Have I remembered correctly?

[oddoneout]

It was called Afternoon on 3 . Afternoon Concert was intended to be a proper (recorded) concert, as I remember featuring one or other of the BBC orchestras.

And then someone thought it would be better to split up the components of a recorded concert and spread them out across the 2.5 or 3 hours, with other(largely random) chunks of music in between, even go one step further on occasion and spread the items over more than one day. In effect someone in an office decided that the care put into assembling a concert programme for, often, top class orchestras to perform at, often, notable venues and/or occasions could be thrown out the window in favour of some latest gimmick or "fresh approach to music broadcasting".

[french frank]

In effect someone in an office decided that the care put into assembling a concert programme for, often, top class orchestras to perform at, often, notable venues and/or occasions could be thrown out the window in favour of some latest gimmick or "fresh approach to music broadcasting".

My impression was always that the various innovations that "we" objected to had been introduced very deliberately and in line with reaction from target audience focus groups, market research on how "people" were listening at a particular time of day &c. So there was no point at all in objecting, criticising, complaining or anything else. If you don't enjoy it, you're not our target audience, so hard cheese.

[Frances_iom]

My impression was always that the various innovations that "we" objected to had been introduced very deliberately and in line with reaction from target audience focus groups....

there are several posts on this thread that fully support this view - since it seems us oldies are departing and those CDs lovingly gathered are no longer of interest to their descendants and thus turn up in charity shops at small fractions of their original cost - I can put a large library on my small laptop at very little outlay..

[LMcD]

My impression was always that the various innovations that "we" objected to had been introduced very deliberately and in line with reaction from target audience focus groups, market research on how "people" were listening at a particular time of day &c. So there was no point at all in objecting, criticising, complaining or anything else. If you don't enjoy it, you're not our target audience, so hard cheese.

I'm afraid you're right, and if Radio 3 manages to hold onto, or even increase, its present listenership our views will continue to be disregarded. .

[cloughie]

I'm afraid you're right, and if Radio 3 manages to hold onto, or even increase, its present listenership our views will continue to be disregarded. .

I listen to less radio now than I have done in my life to date. The main reason is to avoid listening to music that I do not wish to hear.

[smittims]

What? Not even Joan Armatrading's Symphony (I kid you not) which is to be aired in Radio3 in Concert next Tuesday?

[oddoneout]

The confusing and contradictory online information for yesterday's Afternoon Concert is still up - with Chausson not in the 3pm slot according to the Music Played list, although I'm pretty certain that's what I heard - and switched off - at that time.
I've found a bit more about the L'Arpeggiata pieces

https://oudemuziek.nl/emtv/premium-content-agenda/fom23/fom23-larpeggiata-christina-pluhar-marco-beasley-emtv-31-aug/

which makes a bit more sense of some of the other pieces the scenes have been sandwiched with, but still doesn't justify the 3 day deconstruction in my view. I'm not a great fan of Christina Pluhar but that doesn't mean I think it is reasonable to mess around with this carefully constructed sequence of music in such a cavalier fashion.

[Ein Heldenleben]

What? Not even Joan Armatrading's Symphony (I kid you not) which is to be aired in Radio3 in Concert next Tuesday?

Thanks for the tip-off . I’m rather looking forward to it. She was on In Tune last night and it was , as always , a pleasure to hear her and her outstanding musicianship. Though by going from short song form to complex extended musical structures she is flying in the face of trends in the media.

It strikes me that the Afternoon concert these days is no more bizarre than those 19th century concerts and indeed early Proms which were essentially pot-pourris with movements pulled from larger works and popular music of the day . Although I prefer to hear a major symphonic work as a whole I wonder if they’ve worked out that the Afternoon audience simply switches off if they run one. With Sounds they can derive that information - something that’s not possible with Rajar figures. I suppose the question is then whether the Sounds live audience is an accurate reflection of the live radio audience . That’s something they could test through market research.

I suspect that the afternoon sequence audiences have been falling , unlike Breakfast and Essential Classics which seem to be static even slightly rising. Though that’s a trend across radio. Local Radio at the moment is planned to be very “unlocal” after midday. The audience pretty much disappears. I also think the budget cuts mean they are having to transmit concerts in the AC skot that might not have passed the quality threshold a few years back.

As a general media trend there is also a general tendency for things to get briefer . A typical example would be the way the half hour current affairs film (unlike Radio 3 something I do have inside knowledge on) have been replaced by magazine programmes.There’s much less depth analysis of the world on TV these days . Peoples’ attention spans are falling - the average teenager watches an hour of TikTok a day and gets most of their “news” (or to be more accurate often unsourced and unchecked disinformation) from there,

In comparison the Afternoon Concert is the media equivalent of the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel.

[oddoneout]

Thanks for the tip-off . I’m rather looking forward to it. She was on In Tune last night and it was , as always , a pleasure to hear her and her outstanding musicianship. Though by going from short song form to complex extended musical structures she is flying in the face of trends in the media.

It strikes me that the Afternoon concert these days is no more bizarre than those 19th century concerts and indeed early Proms which were essentially pot-pourris with movements pulled from larger works and popular music of the day . Although I prefer to hear a major symphonic work as a whole I wonder if they’ve worked out that the Afternoon audience simply switches off if they run one. With Sounds they can derive that information - something that’s not possible with Rajar figures. I suppose the question is then whether the Sounds live audience is an accurate reflection of the live radio audience . That’s something they could test through market research.

I suspect that the afternoon sequence audiences have been falling , unlike Breakfast and Essential Classics which seem to be static even slightly rising. Though that’s a trend across radio. Local Radio at the moment is planned to be very “unlocal” after midday. The audience pretty much disappears. I also think the budget cuts mean they are having to transmit concerts in the AC skot that might not have passed the quality threshold a few years back.

As a general media trend there is also a general tendency for things to get briefer . A typical example would be the way the half hour current affairs film (unlike Radio 3 something I do have inside knowledge on) have been replaced by magazine programmes.There’s much less depth analysis of the world on TV these days . Peoples’ attention spans are falling - the average teenager watches an hour of TikTok a day and gets most of their “news” (or to be more accurate often unsourced and unchecked disinformation) from there,

In comparison the Afternoon Concert is the media equivalent of the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel.

Yes the pot-pourri concerts of old is something that increasingly crosses my mind when contemplating AC options. Is that really an idea worth resurrecting?
If 'they' have concluded that bits is what AC audiences should have then that is what will be provided and will serve to train the audience to expect such an approach; the lack of attention (span and concentration levels) is the inevitable result. My issue is the removal of choice. Making the afternoon hours similar to the morning schedules means that the evening concert becomes the only(in terms of broadcast radio) option for extended listening - and too bad if much of that content now seems(to me) really quite limited.
However, as always now, I have to accept that what I like(whether R3 or how modern life is run) is increasingly at odds with what is provided. In this case listening to the radio and expecting a certain amount of quality. "No-one listens to radio in realtime, or needs to, and quality is higher than ever". That's nothing new in human history - change brings gains and losses. Doesn't mean I have to like it, or keep quiet about my dislike! And I certainly don't think it unreasonable to expect, given all the ways available to get it right, that the online information be useful and fit for purpose. If having lots of bits makes for too much work to provide a full listing for AC ahead of broadcast(although I gather that probably isn't the reason for the omissions) or accurate playlists after then perhaps(off the wall idea here) think about having fewer, longer, items...
Time to go and find something more positive with which to occupy myself I think!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes the pot-pourri concerts of old is something that increasingly crosses my mind when contemplating AC options. Is that really an idea worth resurrecting?
If 'they' have concluded that bits is what AC audiences should have then that is what will be provided and will serve to train the audience to expect such an approach; the lack of attention (span and concentration levels) is the inevitable result. My issue is the removal of choice. Making the afternoon hours similar to the morning schedules means that the evening concert becomes the only(in terms of broadcast radio) option for extended listening - and too bad if much of that content now seems(to me) really quite limited.
However, as always now, I have to accept that what I like(whether R3 or how modern life is run) is increasingly at odds with what is provided. In this case listening to the radio and expecting a certain amount of quality. "No-one listens to radio in realtime, or needs to, and quality is higher than ever". That's nothing new in human history - change brings gains and losses. Doesn't mean I have to like it, or keep quiet about my dislike! And I certainly don't think it unreasonable to expect, given all the ways available to get it right, that the online information be useful and fit for purpose. If having lots of bits makes for too much work to provide a full listing for AC ahead of broadcast(although I gather that probably isn't the reason for the omissions) or accurate playlists after then perhaps(off the wall idea here) think about having fewer, longer, items...
Time to go and find something more positive with which to occupy myself I think!

I sympathise with your playlist frustration having just spent 10 minutes tracking down the name of a singer from an Amazon CD listing after hearing it on Essential Classics.

Yeletsky's Aria: I Love You - Pavel Lisitsian With The Orchestra Of The Bolshoi Theatre Conducted By Alexander Melik-Pashaev

the name of the wonderful singer Pavel Lisitsian isn’t listed on the Essential Classics website!
Talk about Hamlet without the Prince.
If R3 is to go down the pot pourri route we need to know the exact species and origin of the dried flowers.

[Serial_Apologist]

To me, you see, the narrowing of perspective led to by shortening works, dicing them up, and interspersing their performances with misleading and misrepresenting chit-chat, has much more than to do with catering for our individual tastes. .

[french frank]

If R3 is to go down the pot pourri route we need to know the exact species and origin of the dried flowers.

[french frank]

To me, you see, the narrowing of perspective led to by shortening works, dicing them up, and interspersing their performances with misleading and misrepresenting chit-chat, has much more than to do with catering for our individual tastes. .

One of the old FoR3 principles, swept aside by the BBC/R3, was that R3 should focus on what the service was designed to do, what part it was intended to play within the extensive BBC radio portfolio; NOT what does a broad middle-of-the-road-sort-of-classical audience want to hear that will reach a wide audience. In other words should the focus be on dedicated content or audience preference?