The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[doversoul1]

OH NO!!

SMP has just announced that Breakfast is to have a spot for phoning in. Well, that’s it. That will really be the end of Breakfast for me. (or did I miss heard it?)

How very very sad.

[Norfolk Born]

In a desperate attempt to avoid Radio 4's blanket coverage of events in Libya, I abandoned 'Today' and tuned in to 'Breakfast', just in time to discover that the burning question of the day - or the hour - was whether Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights was the better novel (whatever that means). After some 20 minutes of this, plus what proved mainly to be mutilated chunks torn from longer works, I turned off my radio and am now listening to a Reader's Digest compilation of hits from the 30s and 40s - much more nourishing. Anne Shelton's version of all of 'Lili Marlene' is proving to be preferable to the last movement of Hummel's Trumpet Concerto...as doversoul says: 'how very very sad'.

[Bax-of-Delights]

7.30 to 8 is the only time I listen to R3 at this time of the day. Today we had:

Inane twittering about which of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights was the better book. I was quite pleased when one listener emailed in to say he hadn't read either.
THAT chunk from Carmina Burana which SM-P duly reminded us was the music for Old Spice aftershave.
The overture to Bartered Bride - again.
And no fewer than four announcements that "you are listening to Radio 3 and this is S M-P". (But maybe this is the only way we can distinguish between R3 and CFM because in all other respects they are now the terrible twins.)

[Frances_iom]

7.30 to 8 is the only time I listen to R3 at this time of the day. Today we had:
Inane twittering about which of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights was the better book....

I listen to the 5 or 6mins pre 7.30 news - liked the sub gcse bit that some caller couldn't hack the books as couldn't handle accents - however I suspect post proms it will get significantly worse as "It's your call" comes online in which great aunt Emma can recall the bit of music that consoled her when her cat died etc.
The race to the bottom is on and I suspect the beeb under RW will win.

[Bax-of-Delights]

You know, those constant invitations to email in your well-remembered holiday "tunes" are sirenical in their allure. I was almost tempted to suggest the following which I and two other chums sang up and down France (two of us on a tandem) in the summer of 1965.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzAmrNS164

But my guess is that it would be a little too ferocious for the puff pastry world of Breakfast....

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm surprised guess who hasn't been on here yet imploring us to likewise take account of demographics!

Nice version of a famous Vaughan Williams Breakfast hit, Bax-of-Delights!

S-A

[longinus]

I too gave up yet again and put JEG's Bach on instead - honestly, I don't know why I continue to hope against hope that something will be different. Today it was the prom guide that killed me - why oh why is it thought necessary to have a guide to Tchaikovsky's 4th?? Recherche it ain't.

[old khayyam]

7.30 to 8 is the only time I listen to R3 at this time of the day

Lucky for you. After an hour of gentleness, i hit the well-lubricated 'off' switch on hearing the 'Can-Can' at 07:28!

What next? Drivetime programming for the rush-hour?

[LeMartinPecheur]

OH NO!!

SMP has just announced that Breakfast is to have a spot for phoning in. Well, that’s it. That will really be the end of Breakfast for me. (or did I miss heard it?)

How very very sad.

I too heard the announcement of this feature, entitled 'Your Call', in which anyone can bore all the world with the reason they love a bit of music

My only thought was that we could all try ringing in to get a bit of Xenakis, Carter, Sorabji, Cardew, Cage, Feldman, Stockhausen (what you will as long as it's a tough cookie) played on the basis that it accompanied our passionate declaration, the birth of our 1st or 19th child, an unforgettable holiday in Milton Keynes, or whatever

They might just take the hint even if nothing got broadcast. We might even manage to block their phone-lines!

[french frank]

Oh, dear. For research purposes I listened to this morning's Breakfast and can confidently say that's the worst classical music programme I've ever heard on Radio 3. In the first part, every time the music stopped we got the invitations to email/text in about the two Brontë novels. My reaction was definitely at the point I was told "Well, here on Radio 3 Breakfast we're talking about two great novels ..." Correction - you're talking about them, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly .... every time the music stops.

And yes, it's true: 'we're' to get a new phone-in feature called Your Call after the Proms which sums up everything which is unspeakably dire and naff about Radio 3: people talking around the subject of music, what memories it has for them, how it makes them feel; whereas talking about music qua music is no longer allowed on the station. Self-indulgent twaddle from presenters and listeners alike. Abject surrender to mediocrity.

A composer introduced twice (two versions of the same piece) as 'Morales' appears on the playlist as a mysterious 'Mark Morales' with the helpful link: "We currently have no biography for this artist" - no, because Mark Morales is a rapper who appears under the name 'Prince Markie Dee'. If he's not the American 'inker' of the same name ("We currently have no biography for this artist" either). In fact, this is Cristóbal de Morales - if anyone at Radio 3 had bothered to find out. Not that the Breakfast listeners will have any interest, of course, as that's very élitist. Any more than they'll be interested in a work by Ešenvalds apparently called 'Polyphony' (Stephen Layton apparently conducts this without any musicians but you can check the details on the 'Hyperinon' CD if you're curious ...).

Plus there's 'Albinoni's Adagio', O Fortuna, a bit of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (memories of Becky's youth hostelling holiday many years ago, we are told, and then told again afterwards), Royal Fireworks, various bits from longer works and other favourite pieces.

It will be interesting to time it to see just how much of this programme was irrelevant chatter (there's some surfing event going on in Cornwall, by the way). My reaction was that this scrapes the bottom of the barrel, but I have a feeling they can do worse and will. And they have the nerve to talk about programmes being 'exclusive'. I certainly feel excluded from this.

[barber olly]

It will be interesting to time it to see just how much of this programme was irrelevant chatter (there's some surfing event going on in Cornwall, by the way). My reaction was that this scrapes the bottom of the barrel, but I have a feeling they can do worse and will. And they have the nerve to talk about programmes being 'exclusive'. I certainly feel excluded from this.

They undoubtedly will, once Rob has moved to a more favourable rising hour and PT shares the berth with SM-P we can be sure of further deterioration. CFM2 will rule!

[Stan Drews]

And while we're at it, the Bach/Busoni fugue in a very bright D major was announced (and appears in the playlist) as being in E minor. Do Ms M-P and her producer actually listen to their output?? (Maybe they've got better things to do!)

[Suffolkcoastal]

The playlists on the website are a shoddy mess at the moment and thoroughly unprofessional, giving a sense of a 'we don't really care about R3' attitude. If my work was as shoddy as this I'd probably be shown the front door fairly quickly!

[Frances_iom]

The playlists on the website are a shoddy mess at the moment and thoroughly unprofessional, giving a sense of a 'we don't really care about R3' attitude. !

the old R3 is mostly defunct - the surviving bits are the recently resurected live concerts and some of the surrounding talks (+ a few regular programs COTW + EMS) - even so several of the concerts are now mediated thro announcers/djs who would better be employed in TV adverts for dubious products - more gush than info. All I can assume is that RW wishes to turn R3 into an easy listening muzak station with an eye to near future privitisation

[Norfolk Born]

Might it not be a good use of some of the BBC's (by which I mean our) money to either put Radio 3 out of its misery, i.e. close it down, or flog it off, and plough the savings/proceeds, modest though they would very probably be, into BBC4, which is under threat but doesn't deserve to be?