The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[peterthekeys]

Since I got my internet radio, I've hardly listened to the breakfast show. However, this morning, I thought I'd give it another try (it's available via the internet.)

"Sounds of the earth" was just starting: I always enjoy that (particularly the stunning birdsong recordings by Chris Watson.) Then Martin Handley took it as a cue to start chattering on about a crow which had been annoying him, and asking listeners to get in touch to suggest what could be done about it.

Then a very nice piece which I didn't know, which turned out to be the Pastorale from the Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale by Rebecca Clarke. Why on earth couldn't we hear the whole piece? Then more natter about crows. (Whilst all this is going on, the internet radio is smugly displaying: "Radio 3: the home of classical music". Unlike the other internet stations, the BBC don't bother saying what is actually being played - maybe they take the view that no one cares anyway.)

Then an announcement that the next piece would be a Strauss waltz. At that point, I switched over to the internet station Audiophile Classical (by far the best of the internet classical stations which I've tried up to now.) d'Indy's Symphony no.1 (all of it!) Didn't know it - very enjoyable work.

Think it might be a while before I try the breakfast show again ...

[LMcD]

I'm afraid whole pieces appear to be somewhat out of fashion before 1.00 p.m. I'll investigate Audiophile Classical!

[BBMmk2]

I'm afraid whole pieces appear to be somewhat out of fashion before 1.00 p.m. I'll investigate Audiophile Classical!

This does sound interesting, as I do want to know about what channels are the better ones on internet radio.

[Nick Armstrong]

This does sound interesting, as I do want to know about what channels are the better ones on internet radio.

Investigate these pages on the Forum, Bbm:

http://www.for3.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?98-Internet-radio-stations

[Serial_Apologist]

Since I got my internet radio, I've hardly listened to the breakfast show. However, this morning, I thought I'd give it another try (it's available via the internet.)

"Sounds of the earth" was just starting: I always enjoy that (particularly the stunning birdsong recordings by Chris Watson.) Then Martin Handley took it as a cue to start chattering on about a crow which had been annoying him, and asking listeners to get in touch to suggest what could be done about it.

Then a very nice piece which I didn't know, which turned out to be the Pastorale from the Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale by Rebecca Clarke. Why on earth couldn't we hear the whole piece? Then more natter about crows. (Whilst all this is going on, the internet radio is smugly displaying: "Radio 3: the home of classical music". Unlike the other internet stations, the BBC don't bother saying what is actually being played - maybe they take the view that no one cares anyway.)

Then an announcement that the next piece would be a Strauss waltz. At that point, I switched over to the internet station Audiophile Classical (by far the best of the internet classical stations which I've tried up to now.) d'Indy's Symphony no.1 (all of it!) Didn't know it - very enjoyable work.

Think it might be a while before I try the breakfast show again ...

Occasionally the first few items on Breakfast seem to have been placed so as to retain the TTN listener, but the other morning the very first item was Respighi's The Pines of Rome, of which they played just the first 2 minutes!!! I mean - what the heck was the point of that???? No more hanging around to have my preconceptions challenged for me: for me from now on it's over to R4 for Toady, where I can at least shout at John Humphrys for either interrupting his subjects or not subjecting them to challenging questions without feeling I might be desecrating some venerated long-dead composer!

[french frank]

Occasionally the first few items on Breakfast seem to have been placed so as to retain the TTN listener, but the other morning the very first item was Respighi's The Pines of Rome, of which they played just the first 2 minutes!!! I mean - what the heck was the point of that???? No more hanging around to have my preconceptions challenged for me: for me from now on it's over to R4 for Toady, where I can at least shout at John Humphrys for either interrupting his subjects or not subjecting them to challenging questions without feeling I might be desecrating some venerated long-dead composer!

Hadn't noticed - not only are the little white track markers missing from Listen Again, so are all the timing details on the playlist, so if you wanted to find the Rebecca Clarke piece you'd have to fiddle about, backwards and forwards, with the slider until you identified something on the playlist and then fiddle a bit more refining it until you found the beginning of the piece. Not very user friendly.

PS I've contacted two R3 online techies to ask if the old BBC messageboards are now archived with a different URL - no response from either. So the pages are either hidden away or deleted.

[cloughie]

Occasionally the first few items on Breakfast seem to have been placed so as to retain the TTN listener, but the other morning the very first item was Respighi's The Pines of Rome, of which they played just the first 2 minutes!!! I mean - what the heck was the point of that?

Not so much a bleeding chunk as a bleeding liberty!

[Andrew Slater]

Hadn't noticed - not only are the little white track markers missing from Listen Again, so are all the timing details on the playlist, so if you wanted to find the Rebecca Clarke piece you'd have to fiddle about, backwards and forwards, with the slider until you identified something on the playlist and then fiddle a bit more refining it until you found the beginning of the piece. Not very user friendly.

From an earlier post (slightly edited):

The timings don't seem to be showing in the 'segments' (playlist) sections on the BBC pages. However, they are buried in there - if you append /segments to the end of a BBC programme page address and then append .json to the end of the resulting page address (don't try to do it in one operation - it doesn't work, as the PID changes!), you will get a listing which includes timings (version offset, in seconds!) (The list is neat in Firefox, but a bit of a mess in other browsers!)

Alternatively, with a week's delay you can use the 'playlists' tab on my listings page, and select either the linear or alphabetic version. e.g. for last week: https://www.radio-lists.org.uk/r3/r3...018-05-05.html or https://www.radio-lists.org.uk/r3/r3...018-05-05.htma.

Using these timings should allow easier navigation on the iPlayer slider.

If this carries on I'll see if I can set up a jscript file where entering a programme pid will bring up a playlist, including timings, for that programme.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... but the other morning the very first item was Respighi's The Pines of Rome, of which they played just the first 2 minutes!!! I mean - what the heck was the point of that????

Oh, S-A. Surely you've learnt by now, that no music is as important as simpering, idle chit-chat, preferably spoken in a gasping and unpunctuated manner (for a whole morning).

[french frank]

If this carries on I'll see if I can set up a jscript file where entering a programme pid will bring up a playlist, including timings, for that programme.

Wow! Awesome!

[antongould]

Wow! Awesome!

Indeed .......

[BBMmk2]

Investigate these pages on the Forum, Bbm:

http://www.for3.org/forums/forumdisp...radio-stations

Thanks, Cali!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Very interesting article from Stephen Moss covering much of Radio Three output including Breakfast which comes to the conclusion that Record Review is a model for what Radio Three should be-

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/17/radio-3-is-winning-the-breakfast-battle-with-radio-4-but-the-war-is-not-won

P.S the same article has just been linked to on the RAJAR thread . Difficult to place it exactly as the headline is about RAJARS and Breakfast but the article covers , in a very thoughtful way, much if R3 output.

[Bryn]

Very interesting article from Stephen Moss covering much of Radio Three output including Breakfast which comes to the conclusion that Record Review is a model for what Radio Three should be-

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/17/radio-3-is-winning-the-breakfast-battle-with-radio-4-but-the-war-is-not-won

P.S the same article has just been linked to on the RAJAR thread . Difficult to place it exactly as the headline is about RAJARS and Breakfast but the article covers , in a very thoughtful way, much if R3 output.

Hmm. Skimming through I see he wants shot of Though for the Day. While I certainly switch off the c. 05:45 Prayer for the Day, I always find TftD worth a listen. One does not need to be a theist to have a spiritual aspect to one's life. I have not tried Radio 3's Breakfast for years. Perhaps I should now do so.

[french frank]

I find it quite annoying that journalists have this platform to say what they like and don't like as if they are pontificating on excellence or lack of. Doesn't like Sarah Sands, likes Petroc Trelawny and Georgia Mann. No doubt others think the exact opposite.

Moss is saying what we've been saying (and what has been reported to the controller!) about Essential Classics. Will this article succeed where we/I failed, or will we just get a bit more jazz and George Formby on Breakfast and more of what Stephen Moss likes?