A la recherche du Third Programme perdu

[Guest]

I've just found three examples of old-style Third programme talks by Deryck Cooke and it made me all nostalgic about bothe the content, the style and the time allocated to it.

The first is from 1960 and Cooke talks about his work unravelling what Mahler left behind of his Symphony No 10. There is also a performance here of the early drafts of Cooke's work by conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt. On the new Testament 3CD release, there is a CD devoted to this talk and performance each, and another gives us the performance of 13 August 1964, at the Proms, when Goldschmidt conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of the Cooke realization.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/DeryckCookeWeb/videos/1

This next recording comes from !970 and here Cooke gives a 15 minute pre-concert talk about Mahler symphony No 4 and the songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/DeryckCookeWeb/videos/4/

Lastly, Cooke does a comparison of performances of Mahler Symphony No 4' in an attempt to divine an authentically Mahlerian performing tradition.' There is no date given for this 49 minute talk but Deryck Cooke died sadly young at 57 in 1976 and the performances available for his comparison will give listeners a clue or two.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/DeryckCookeWeb/videos/2/

Elitist radio?

Marvellous radio?

I'd love to hear your thoughts

[Bryn]

Thanks for those links, a51. The first downloads quite easily as an FLV file from which a 128kbps joint stereo (no idea why that was used - it's a mono source, afet all) mp3 can be extracted. A very handy 'pre-hear' of at least some of the forthcoming Testament content.

[Sydney Grew]

I've just found three examples of old-style Third programme talks by Deryck Cooke and it made me all nostalgic about the content, the style and the time allocated to it. . . . I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for those links - to which we will listen properly in a few days' time.

Here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/aiihg4 is a sixteen-minute talk we recorded from the Third Programme on the day previous to the 28th June 1965, when the first two acts of Schönberg's opera Moses and Aaron were for the first time performed in Great Britain. Mr. Hall the producer called it "the only great tragedy this century has produced." The talk consists of a description of the opera and musical excerpts from its pivotal moments, which we remember finding very helpful and memorable at that time.

History does not relate the identity of the male speaker, but could this too have been Deryck Cooke? Some one will know. There is also a short comment from the second Mrs. Schönberg, who had come over from her northern American exile especially for the performance. Her view, as well as that of the interviewer, and that of the composer himself she says, was that the opera was essentially complete in its two musical acts, and that the script of the third act was "only for reading"!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Let's not get too nostalgic. Remember too those Hans Keller "Potter's Wheel" style fillers which were factually reliable, but rather like listening to a dalek in auto mode.

[french frank]

Let's not get too nostalgic. Remember too those Hans Keller "Potter's Wheel" style fillers which were factually reliable, but rather like listening to a dalek in auto mode.

Alps, I've been emailed and asked to post this talk by Hans Keller in response to your 'dalek in auto mode' comment

[Wary]

That Schoenberg talk really doesn't sound like Deryck Cooke's voice. And Cooke didn't like Schoenberg very much, if you read his 'Vindications' collection.

I wonder if that was Humphrey Searle?

W.

[Chris Newman]

Alps, I've been emailed and asked to post this talk by Hans Keller in response to your 'dalek in auto mode' comment

Although Hans Keller came across as an earnest and very serious man (rather like Gerard Hoffnung without that magic twinkle in the voice) he was (along with fellow critic Percy M. Young) a complete football fanatic. They both wrote books on the game and Keller was for many years Football Correspondent for the Observer. He did try to crack jokes in his talks but without a hint of humour showing.

Perhaps his greatest moment came when he and Susan Bradshaw instigated the infamous 'Piotr Zak' hoax on unsuspecting Third Programme listeners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Zak not on April the 1st but in June of 1961. Here is a bit of the "performance" by Keller and Bradshaw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6maWI85kSxU

He was perhaps a bit out of his depth with Pink Floyd but had the good grace to say not enjoying them was his fault. Funny to see a young Robert Robinson who has hardly changed over the years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2vc7...eature=related

[Mark Sealey]

Are there many (any) other such clips on You Tube: could be useful in helping jog memories about just how outstanding the Third was?

And - even - in helping build a platform from which to advocate making a better job of updating the Third than has been done so far :-).

[amateur51]

Great stuff Chris - Keller's voice brings it all back. My word, he packed a lot in ... and there was no iPlayer to enable you to do 'what did he say?' playback

[aeolium]

There is a list of Isaiah Berlin's radio broadcasts here, many of them on the Third and Radio 3. Some items are available to listen to, either on Youtube or elsewhere:

http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/broadcasts/index.html

[ahinton]

That Schoenberg talk really doesn't sound like Deryck Cooke's voice. And Cooke didn't like Schoenberg very much, if you read his 'Vindications' collection.

I wonder if that was Humphrey Searle?

W.

No; I've just listened to abit of it and, although I'm uncertain as to the identity of the speaker, it certainly wasn't Humphrey Searle; I'd have recognised his voice from having studied with him, for all that I did so more years ago than I care to remember...

[Sydney Grew]

Whoever it is, he towards the end pronounces "allegory" in a curious way, emphasizing the second syllable, and eliding the third almost to vanishing point, making it essentially a word of three syllables: a pronunciation not sanctioned by the Oxford English Dictionary and one we have never before heard.

[kernelbogey]

Whoever it is, he towards the end pronounces "allegory" in a curious way, emphasizing the second syllable, and eliding the third almost to vanishing point, making it essentially a word of three syllables: a pronunciation not sanctioned by the Oxford English Dictionary and one we have never before heard.

Miserere nobis.

[PJPJ]

The third clip about M4 is fascinating - how can I save as mp3?

[Bryn]

Actually, the FLVs for M2 and M4 have their audio in aac format. Only M1 uses mp3. You would need to use something like HiDownload Platinum Edition to grab the FLV, then FLVExtract.exe to extract the aac file. That can then be transcoded to mp3 with Free M4a to MP3 Converter.

PM me if that all seems too much.