The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

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  • antongould
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 8774

    Originally posted by rathfarnhamgirl View Post
    ..... waves crashing onto a Norfolk beach, Roderick Williams singing 'Sea Fever', Charles Trenet singing 'La Mer' and an extract from Frank Bridge's 'The Sea' - what's not to like? ........
    For many, it would seem, the whole concept .........

    Comment

    • french frank
      Administrator/Moderator
      • Feb 2007
      • 30209

      Originally posted by rathfarnhamgirl View Post
      what's not to like?
      I think the only answer must be that different people want different things from their radio listening. I wouldn't say there was anything indisputably wrong with that sequence, but it doesn't provide what I want to listen to. That's all right: I don't have to listen. But I do have a nostalgia for the time when Radio 3 offered a more intellectually elevating programme.

      My feelings were encapsulated in what one FoR3 supporter wrote:

      "Some thirty years ago my musical taste in the sixth form and at university was formed by listening to R3 (and its predecessor) in the evenings. I am convinced that a lifetime of pleasure would have been denied me if I had not had that opportunity. I am equally convinced that that opportunity has now been witheld from my sons who are just entering that same critical stage of their development."

      Here today, gone tomorrow entertainment.
      It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

      Comment

      • cloughie
        Full Member
        • Dec 2011
        • 22110

        Originally posted by antongould View Post
        For many, it would seem, the whole concept .........
        In fairness I dislike the concept, particularly the Saturday ‘sounds’, and many of the Sunday ones, but this morning was I admit good!... and whereas years ago I was less keen I now really like French/Belgian/Armenian! singers such as Trenet, Brel, Aznavour and Becaud.

        Comment

        • Ein Heldenleben
          Full Member
          • Apr 2014
          • 6726

          Originally posted by french frank View Post
          I think the only answer must be that different people want different things from their radio listening. I wouldn't say there was anything indisputably wrong with that sequence, but it doesn't provide what I want to listen to. That's all right: I don't have to listen. But I do have a nostalgia for the time when Radio 3 offered a more intellectually elevating programme.

          My feelings were encapsulated in what one FoR3 supporter wrote:

          "Some thirty years ago my musical taste in the sixth form and at university was formed by listening to R3 (and its predecessor) in the evenings. I am convinced that a lifetime of pleasure would have been denied me if I had not had that opportunity. I am equally convinced that that opportunity has now been witheld from my sons who are just entering that same critical stage of their development."

          Here today, gone tomorrow entertainment.
          Yes agreed but I think it’s fair to say that , for example , a Words and Music on the Sea would offer a sense of intellectual challenge - if only in trying to guess the literary extracts. As for this morning’s sequence and Trenet’s La Mer if I hear the Tin Pan Alley chord sequence 1 - 6 - 2 -5 ( or if you prefer F - Dm7-Gm7-C7 ) again I think I will go mad.....(And then he KEEPS shoving it up a key) . Please Charles get a new chord sequence...

          Comment

          • Nick Armstrong
            Host
            • Nov 2010
            • 26516

            Originally posted by rathfarnhamgirl View Post
            I'm not the greatest fan of the 'Sounds Of the Earth' sequence on Sunday's 'Breakfast', but today's was truly magical - waves crashing onto a Norfolk beach, Roderick Williams singing 'Sea Fever', Charles Trenet singing 'La Mer' and an extract from Frank Bridge's 'The Sea' - what's not to like? I think Martin Handley is also to be commended for taking time to express so powerfully his obvious concern for locked-down and isolating choirs.
            Look forward to hearing this!
            "...the isle is full of noises,
            Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
            Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
            Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

            Comment

            • teamsaint
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 25190

              Originally posted by french frank View Post
              I think the only answer must be that different people want different things from their radio listening. I wouldn't say there was anything indisputably wrong with that sequence, but it doesn't provide what I want to listen to. That's all right: I don't have to listen. But I do have a nostalgia for the time when Radio 3 offered a more intellectually elevating programme.

              My feelings were encapsulated in what one FoR3 supporter wrote:

              "Some thirty years ago my musical taste in the sixth form and at university was formed by listening to R3 (and its predecessor) in the evenings. I am convinced that a lifetime of pleasure would have been denied me if I had not had that opportunity. I am equally convinced that that opportunity has now been witheld from my sons who are just entering that same critical stage of their development."

              Here today, gone tomorrow entertainment.
              Not defending or supporting how R3 has changed here, , but 30 years ago access to music and information was really rather restricted, and linear radio was a critical channel. For most people that isn’t the case now.Trusted guides are still necessary, more than ever I would say given the abundance of available material, and that is where R3 can refine its role , but to suggest that something is being “ witheld” in the modern context is something I would disagree with, really.
              I think R3 does try to fulfill a role as a trusted guide, it just falls well short of how it might be done. And actually, I suspect that for the curious sixth former, they offer a good deal of what needs to be offered in terms of widening horizons. It’s important to see things from their persoective, with only a few years of listening behind them , and not many decades.
              I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

              I am not a number, I am a free man.

              Comment

              • Leinster Lass
                Banned
                • Oct 2020
                • 1099

                Originally posted by Heldenleben View Post
                Yes agreed but I think it’s fair to say that , for example , a Words and Music on the Sea would offer a sense of intellectual challenge - if only in trying to guess the literary extracts. As for this morning’s sequence and Trenet’s La Mer if I hear the Tin Pan Alley chord sequence 1 - 6 - 2 -5 ( or if you prefer F - Dm7-Gm7-C7 ) again I think I will go mad.....(And then he KEEPS shoving it up a key) . Please Charles get a new chord sequence...
                To be sure, I don't know what that's all about, but I do know that it's bit late (sic) for M. Trenet (1913-2001) to revisit his classic recording*. I find his upward key shift almost as exciting as what Mr Logan does at the end of 'What's Another Year?', but I'm not musically trained and, what's worse, Irish and therefore inevitably emotional in my response to some songs and performances. Is it bad to shift things up a key? As for intellectual challenges, I'm happy to wait until Monday nights when I can attempt the odd answer in 'Only Connect' while pretending I don't have any good reason to envy Victoria Coren Mitchell.

                * I don't faint, scream or turn the radio off in disgust if they play Bobbie Darin's version.

                Comment

                • Ein Heldenleben
                  Full Member
                  • Apr 2014
                  • 6726

                  Originally posted by rathfarnhamgirl View Post
                  To be sure, I don't know what that's all about, but I do know that it's bit late (sic) for M. Trenet (1913-2001) to revisit his classic recording*. I find his upward key shift almost as exciting as what Mr Logan does at the end of 'What's Another Year?', but I'm not musically trained and, what's worse, Irish and therefore inevitably emotional in my response to some songs and performances. Is it bad to shift things up a key? As for intellectual challenges, I'm happy to wait until Monday nights when I can attempt the odd answer in 'Only Connect' while pretending I don't have any good reason to envy Victoria Coren Mitchell.

                  * I don't faint, scream or turn the radio off in disgust if they play Bobbie Darin's version.
                  Do you think the Irish respond any more emotionally to music than any one else ? My folks were Irish and I think it’s fair to say they responded ‘emotionally’ to just about everything ...Must get on with that Irish passport application

                  Comment

                  • cloughie
                    Full Member
                    • Dec 2011
                    • 22110

                    Originally posted by Heldenleben View Post
                    Yes agreed but I think it’s fair to say that , for example , a Words and Music on the Sea would offer a sense of intellectual challenge - if only in trying to guess the literary extracts. As for this morning’s sequence and Trenet’s La Mer if I hear the Tin Pan Alley chord sequence 1 - 6 - 2 -5 ( or if you prefer F - Dm7-Gm7-C7 ) again I think I will go mad.....(And then he KEEPS shoving it up a key) . Please Charles get a new chord sequence...
                    Yes, Heldenlben, but no - sometimes things left simple work and it is a good tune - admittedly I prefer Debussy’s work bearing the same title, but there is room for both in this diverse universe.

                    Comment

                    • cloughie
                      Full Member
                      • Dec 2011
                      • 22110

                      Originally posted by rathfarnhamgirl View Post
                      I'm not the greatest fan of the 'Sounds Of the Earth' sequence on Sunday's 'Breakfast', but today's was truly magical - waves crashing onto a Norfolk beach, Roderick Williams singing 'Sea Fever', Charles Trenet singing 'La Mer' and an extract from Frank Bridge's 'The Sea' - what's not to like? I think Martin Handley is also to be commended for taking time to express so powerfully his obvious concern for locked-down and isolating choirs.
                      There are a few of us on the forum feeling the effects of this and keeping safe and trying to work out what is possible within the confusing Covid guidelines does not make the situation easy.

                      Comment

                      • Ein Heldenleben
                        Full Member
                        • Apr 2014
                        • 6726

                        Originally posted by cloughie View Post
                        Yes, Heldenlben, but no - sometimes things left simple work and it is a good tune - admittedly I prefer Debussy’s work bearing the same title, but there is room for both in this diverse universe.
                        I think the playing of La Mer (Trenet) on pre 12.00 R3 programmes has become a bit of a lazy producer’s selection . “We’re doing a bit on the Sea ...Oh Let’s have La Mer . “
                        I listen a lot and it’s on a lot - too much In fact . I like the song and I like Trenet but aren’t there other chansons about La Mer .... ?.
                        Same goes for Scheherazade- on at least twice last week...

                        Comment

                        • french frank
                          Administrator/Moderator
                          • Feb 2007
                          • 30209

                          Originally posted by teamsaint View Post
                          I think R3 does try to fulfill a role as a trusted guide, it just falls well short of how it might be done. And actually, I suspect that for the curious sixth former, they offer a good deal of what needs to be offered in terms of widening horizons. It’s important to see things from their persoective, with only a few years of listening behind them , and not many decades.
                          First, to be fair, the quote was made at the time when we first launched our website (it's still one of the featured quotes), so things have also changed in the almost 20 years since then. I agree that R3 has a concept of itself as a 'trusted guide', though there are few presenters who genuinely seem able to fulfil that role, and don't seem employed to do so. In an ever expanding musical horizon, even the oldest, most informed listener has plenty to learn about, new music, old music that's been newly discovered, new ideas, new ways of performing, interpreting. How wonderful to have a radio station that is a 'trusted guide' in all that. Most of the time R3 - apparently - treats all listeners as the same, and placed somewhere near the bottom of the learning curve.

                          From which, three things: maybe it does provide what 'newbie' listeners need to get on the first rung of the ladder in discovering what classical music has to offer. But maybe it doesn't provide enough incentive, inspiration or lead to encourage anyone to climb further. And, then, maybe, people are quite happy to remain on the bottom rung, now and again hearing something new that they like, passing the morning agreeably with Breakfast and Essential Classics?
                          It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

                          Comment

                          • cloughie
                            Full Member
                            • Dec 2011
                            • 22110

                            Originally posted by Heldenleben View Post
                            I think the playing of La Mer (Trenet) on pre 12.00 R3 programmes has become a bit of a lazy producer’s selection . “We’re doing a bit on the Sea ...Oh Let’s have La Mer . “
                            I listen a lot and it’s on a lot - too much In fact . I like the song and I like Trenet but aren’t there other chansons about La Mer .... ?.
                            Same goes for Scheherazade- on at least twice last week...
                            Try this then:

                            Comment

                            • Ein Heldenleben
                              Full Member
                              • Apr 2014
                              • 6726

                              Originally posted by cloughie View Post
                              Which one are you ?
                              Filmed the Polperro Fisherman’s choir once in the 90’s - only had two fishermen in it ....

                              Comment

                              • Leinster Lass
                                Banned
                                • Oct 2020
                                • 1099

                                First - an apology!

                                Johnny's 1996 Eurovision winner was, of course, 'What's Another Year?'. It's difficult to keep track when you've won the competition as many times we have. At one time it was suggested in these parts that the rest of Europe was trying to bankrupt us by forcing us to keep organise the event so often.

                                Do you not think that, for a fair number of people, several of whom contact the programme, without being prompted, to express their interest and gratitude, remaining on the bottom rung, as you put it, passing the morning agreeably by listening to the Breakfast programme cheers them up and even gives them the confidence (I would go so far as to say, for some, even the courage), to face the remainder of yet another day of personal hardship or loneliness, grim headlines and statistics? The chances are that at least some might follow my example and climb a little way up the ladder. My recent discovery of Lunchtime Concerts suggest it's possible!

                                As for alternative 'sea pieces', perhaps one of Grace Williams's 'Sea Sketches' might prove of interest.

                                Comment

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