The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[mercia]

I wonder if there's a parallel here with a story about a Bristol art exhibition. Do we put on popular to bring in the crowds (that's what they want, we've asked them) or something more demanding.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-13955024

[mercia]

is the Tuesday breakfast specialist chart thing 'plugging'? or CD review? or everytime RC says "that's a new release from ........"

[french frank]

I wonder if there's a parallel here with a story about a Bristol art exhibition. Do we put on popular to bring in the crowds (that's what they want, we've asked them) or something more demanding.

That looks like a parallel with the university administrators taking over from the academics. Here it's administrators ("My job is to get more people into the building") v. academicians.

[mercia]

do the Radio 1 punters complain about all the repetition?

[mercia]

Isn't Mr Wright's job to get more people listening to Radio 3?
(oh dear, I think we're about to go round in circles again)

[french frank]

Isn't Mr Wright's job to get more people listening to Radio 3?

He says not

The paradox is that the Trust says that R3 should continue its attempts to attract a new audience.

But it isn't required to increase its ratings.

Now, ponder the sinister implications of that ...

[antongould]

I take ff.'s point about the target audience being 30-40 year olds but I have a son of 32 - sample of one I know - but he says he does feel a very mild and distant pull from classical but that it is the Rhapsody in Blues of this world that appeal; he seems to have no wish for long unfamiliar pieces.

Two further points does being in the CFM charts make a piece of music way beyond contempt?
I have never, ever felt patronized by Radio 3.

[french frank]

Two further points does being in the CFM charts make a piece of music way beyond contempt?

Not at all. The worst thing about the Hall of Fame is the frequency with which they repeat the pieces - something which R3 is beginning to do.

I have never, ever felt patronized by Radio 3.

I wouldn't use the word 'patronised' either, but that's a matter of attitude: I have felt pretty contemptuous of some the efforts.

Rhapsody in Blue is a very fine piece of music but it seems to crop up fairly often. If your son likes it perhaps he would prefer some of the jazz programmes on R3

[Suffolkcoastal]

Both of my younger brothers like some 'classical' music, but it isn't necessarily the 'popular' pieces they enjoy. Having heard me play Copland (not just the well known pieces), Harris, W Schuman, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartok & Shostakovich, they indicate hearing more works like this would attract them to classical music as 20th century music seems they feel, has more relevance to say to them.

[antongould]

Quite probably. But not every station has an audience knocking 60 which is not dashing anywhere, only a third being in full-time employment. Such an audience surely has a right to be catered for - since every other station caters for a younger audience. ...........................5 hours every morning devoted to your 'potential' audience seems excessive. Doesn't it?

a couple of further questions / points -

Is it felt any time should be given over to either the "potential audience" or the seeming 33% of us stiil in full time employment who cannot really give our full concentration at breakfast time?
And how many Rhapsodys in Blue should Breakfast be allowed?

[Suffolkcoastal]

I don't think there really is a need for any work to appear more than a dozen times during the course of a year on R3 generally. As for Breakfast 6 or 7 times a year is surely enough for any piece.

[french frank]

a couple of further questions / points -

Is it felt any time should be given over to either the "potential audience" or the seeming 33% of us stiil in full time employment who cannot really give our full concentration at breakfast time?
And how many Rhapsodys in Blue should Breakfast be allowed?

1. As a preamble : it's always something of a puzzle to me that people who can't give their full concentration at breakfast time are so clear in their minds as to what it is they don't want to be listening to with their full concentration. And that although most people are quite resigned to switching on the radio in the middle of a piece of music there is some resistance to switching off in the middle of a piece of music (hence short pieces so that you never have to wait long for the end).

In answer, I think that ten to twelve years ago they were catering for the 'working' breakfast audience and had been ever since the 'drivetime' concept arrived on Radio 3 (early 90s?): relatively short pieces of music and nothing much out of the mainstream of classical music (see below). This seemed to me to hit a happy medium - workers and not-workers both happy. And not even anything 'scary' (to quote Mr J) for the keen new listener, or 'potential' audience.

I wouldn't have objected to something a bit heavier but was happy to compromise. But three hours every morning of increasingly short, increasingly repetitive pieces of music, punctuated with trails, snippets and chat that no one seems terribly keen on and which almost without exception plays to the weaknesses of the presenters and not to their strengths seems not even to serve the intended audience as well as it should.

2. Four times a year


Larsson: Little Serenade Op 12
Vivaldi: Concerto in C Minor RV 198a
Don Paolo da Firenze: Amor deh dimmi
Fibich: A Night at Karlstein
Beethoven: Sonata in C minor, Op 10/1
Johann Strauss II: Vienna Blood Waltz
Mozart: Violin Sonata in B flat K 378
Smetana: Polka in E minor Op 12/2
Copland: Clarinet Concerto
Corelli: Concerto grosso in D minor
Gluck: Quel chiaro rio
Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty (Act 3 - excerpts)
Poulenc: Concert champêtre

No trails, no emails or texts

[aeolium]

Which D minor Concerto grosso is that by Corelli, ff? I can't think of any in the op 6 set. Or are you simulating a typical website error?

[french frank]

Which D minor Concerto grosso is that by Corelli, ff? I can't think of any in the op 6 set. Or are you simulating a typical website error?

Would you accept D major, aeo? Op 6/7 was the one (Or it could have been the way T Pinnock played it?)

Not so much simulating as copying. I'm not so familiar with the Corelli set (now if it had been Torelli, I could have checked for myself ...)

[aeolium]

Sorry to be a bit pedantic there, ff. Though there is a real point behind the complaints about website errors from Suffolkcoastal et al. If you were checking the playlist in advance to see about listening to particular works and saw that Corelli work listed, you might be uncertain as to whether it were a misprint for the very frequently played G minor concerto ("Christmas") or the fine op 6 no 4 concerto in D major, or indeed the one it actually was, op 6 no 7 also in D. In my case I would not be especially keen to hear the G minor but would be interested in hearing either of the D major concerti. So you might listen in at the scheduled time to find out which concerto was to be played, or you might just give it up as a bad job.

I agree with your general points though.