The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Bax-of-Delights]

I suspect I might not be alone in listening to EA's hyperventilating of her "Unclassified" programme, listening to the electronic burblings of composers she believes are "wonderful" and thinking to myself that Tangerine Dream, Tonto's Expanding Head Band and Beaver & Krause produced more engaging music of this type some 40+ years ago.

[cloughie]

I suspect I might not be alone in listening to EA's hyperventilating of her "Unclassified" programme, listening to the electronic burblings of composers she believes are "wonderful" and thinking to myself that Tangerine Dream, Tonto's Expanding Head Band and Beaver & Krause produced more engaging music of this type some 40+ years ago.

The piece she played this morning really demonstrate, to my ears at any rate, the shear laziness of the composer - wrote a maximum of three bars and then repeated for what seemed far too long. I have to say that her plugging of ‘Unclassified’ means that I will never attempt to listen to the programme. On the positive side I usually enjoy Croissant Corner and the Josephine Baker either side Faure was good. Lizzie’s ignorance of the relationship between MVCs and pubs shone out as my guess is that the solo rendition of Malotte’s Lord’s Prayer (which is a lovely choir piece) in a Welsh pub in 1981 was not unusual as is the case here in Cornwall in 2021 spontaneous striking up of melodies sacred and secular in certain pubs is not unusual.
I enjoyed singing along to Myfanwy albeit with Englsh words about Cornwall.
Maybe Lizzie’s programme should be sub-titled ‘Parson’s Egg (Curate if you pedantically prefer Bryn) and Croissants’.

[AuntDaisy]

To avoid Thought for the Day, I switched on R3 for a few minutes and was assaulted by discordant accordion (?) music from "Kate's classical commute".
Whatever was it? And was there a health warning?

Update: It was Grains by Pauline Oliveros.
Quite a shock in the shower with much cursing, wish it had been the following Scarlatti.

[french frank]

To avoid Thought for the Day, I switched on R3 for a few minutes and was assaulted by discordant accordion (?) music from "Kate's classical commute".
Whatever was it? And was there a health warning?

Update: It was Grains by Pauline Oliveros.
Quite a shock in the shower with much cursing, wish it had been the following Scarlatti.

I suppose Kate Molleson's choices are always likely to feature (relatively) modern composers, mixed with jazz, popular and, unlike the late night shows, still with a majority of core classical. It does seem to me that the classical world of administrators and 'educators' feels it's important that classical music should merge naturally into a single musical landscape. Unfortunately, this is a goal seldom shared by the much larger non-classical world which with its abundance of genres doesn't need classical music merged in, and tends to ignore it almost totally. I'm not certain that this will benefit classical music in the long run.

[cloughie]

To avoid Thought for the Day, I switched on R3 for a few minutes and was assaulted by discordant accordion (?) music from "Kate's classical commute".
Whatever was it? And was there a health warning?

Update: It was Grains by Pauline Oliveros.
Quite a shock in the shower with much cursing, wish it had been the following Scarlatti.

Yes - mostly Kate’s choices are fine but there’s always at least one piece per day from the ‘ Billy No Tunes’ school of musical composition! Bottom of my list along with unpleasant voices.

[Old Grumpy]

Yes - mostly Kate’s choices are fine but there’s always at least one piece per day from the ‘ Billy No Tunes’ school of musical composition! Bottom of my list along with unpleasant voices.

Which unpleasant voice? Billy no tunes' voice or Kate Molleson's (IMV rather pleasant) voice?

[AuntDaisy]

I suppose Kate Molleson's choices are always likely to feature (relatively) modern composers, mixed with jazz, popular and, unlike the late night shows, still with a majority of core classical. It does seem to me that the classical world of administrators and 'educators' feels it's important that classical music should merge naturally into a single musical landscape. Unfortunately, this is a goal seldom shared by the much larger non-classical world which with its abundance of genres doesn't need classical music merged in, and tends to ignore it almost totally. I'm not certain that this will benefit classical music in the long run.

Yes, looking at the listings there were definitely pieces I'd enjoy - but not with the jarring assaults.
Good point about "the much larger non-classical world" - how often does "Classical" music appear on, say, Radio 1?

Yes - mostly Kate’s choices are fine but there’s always at least one piece per day from the ‘ Billy No Tunes’ school of musical composition! Bottom of my list along with unpleasant voices.

I loved your "Billy No Tunes" description - spot on & an instant off-button. Forgive my ignorance, but what is "unpleasant voices"?

[Quarky]

There was a Smetana String Quartet played as the last item on TTN, which seemed to me very poorly conceived, in part. KM's first choice of Avro Part's Summa reset my feeling about String Compositions, and all was well with the world. For that I can forgive her everything - not that I need to!

Well blimey, she did play as a request Theme Music for the Onedin Line (also known to some as the Theme from Spartacus)!

[cloughie]

Yes, looking at the listings there were definitely pieces I'd enjoy - but not with the jarring assaults.
Good point about "the much larger non-classical world" - how often does "Classical" music appear on, say, Radio 1?


I loved your "Billy No Tunes" description - spot on & an instant off-button. Forgive my ignorance, but what is "unpleasant voices"?

Unpleasant voices - a very personal thing as some I like others wouldn’t and vice versa but for me dreary ones that drone on, heavy vibrato, over intense sobby voices, trilly not always on the note sopranos, and recently a superfluity of Joyce di Dinato, although she toned it down in the Mozart this morning. OG definitely not Kate - I find her voice ideal for radio and really good for Breakfast! Also I’m not over-keen on diddly violins!

[AuntDaisy]

Unpleasant voices - a very personal thing as some I like others wouldn’t and vice versa but for me dreary ones that drone on, heavy vibrato, over intense sobby voices, trilly not always on the note sopranos, and recently a superfluity of Joyce di Dinato, although she toned it down in the Mozart this morning. OG definitely not Kate - I find her voice ideal for radio and really good for Breakfast! Also I’m not over-keen on diddly violins!

Now I understand exactly what you mean & can think of examples.


The elderly lady in Steven Isserlis' tweet nicely summed up my thoughts to certain parts of R3 + recent "improvements" (but without the hasty apology.)

[cloughie]

Now I understand exactly what you mean & can think of examples.

I sometimes think than anyone who likes all the music they here all of the time are very tolerent or more likely not very discerning or very musical.


The elderly lady in Steven Isserlis' tweet nicely summed up my thoughts to certain parts of R3 + recent "improvements" (but without the hasty apology.)

Yes I think the elderly lady sums it up for many of us! Mention of Chipping Campden reminds me of the couple of concerts I have had the good fortune to attend at the Chipping Campden Festival - what wonderful enthusiastic, dedicated and professional playing from the mix of seasoned orchestral players and younger recently qualified musicians together with their leader Ruth Rogers and conductor Thomas Hull. Musical energy at its best.

[Quarky]

Yes Kate Molleson is making a success of the Breakfast Show, and is the only presenter to rival Petroc, IMV.

Her approach of combining relatively lightweight music, with profound commentary is working for me. She is a major musical mind:: http://katemolleson.com/about/

Dissonance? Well as Tom Service pointed out the other day, some of Mozart's most popular works are full of it.

[cloughie]

Yes Kate Molleson is making a success of the Breakfast Show, and is the only presenter to rival Petroc, IMV.

Her approach of combining relatively lightweight music, with profound commentary is working for me. She is a major musical mind:: http://katemolleson.com/about/

Dissonance? Well as Tom Service pointed out the other day, some of Mozart's most popular works are full of it.

[antongould]

Yes Kate Molleson is making a success of the Breakfast Show, and is the only presenter to rival Petroc, IMV.

Her approach of combining relatively lightweight music, with profound commentary is working for me. She is a major musical mind:: http://katemolleson.com/about/

Dissonance? Well as Tom Service pointed out the other day, some of Mozart's most popular works are full of it.

[cloughie]

I think Martin Handley’s finishing piece today was rather overpraised. There are many things I enjoy hearing her sing even in ‘crossover’ but I would question Renee Fleming’s tuning in ‘All the things you are’.