The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Nick Armstrong]

Martin Handley presenting today... so I get two Breakfasts this weekend!

… and none next weekend?

Good news for now, though

[LMcD]

BBC Radio 3 schedule for 25th of November shows Martin Handley as 'Breakfast' host
(Schedule for 26th not yet available)

[antongould]

BBC Radio 3 schedule for 25th of November shows Martin Handley as 'Breakfast' host
(Schedule for 26th not yet available)

Indeed has EA suffered the fate of the Home Secretary …. ????

[hmvman]

I don't usually listen to Breakfast, but "Today" was depressing...
Petroc T accidentally cut in with "Do you want to talk me through what we're going to have here?" during a cheerful Buxtehude trio sonata. ~1:40:13 in today's Breakfast.

One recalls with affection various R3 'moments' of the past including Patricia Hughes playing an LP at 45rpm and not noticing until a listener rang in, Tony Scotland shouting "Oh s***" when something had gone wrong and the mic was still open, and the tea-in-the-mixing desk incident....happy times

[french frank]

One recalls with affection various R3 'moments' of the past including Patricia Hughes playing an LP at 45rpm and not noticing until a listener rang in, Tony Scotland shouting "Oh s***" when something had gone wrong and the mic was still open, and the tea-in-the-mixing desk incident....happy times

Not forgetting 'getting the pips' (noteworthy but not within my memory).

[AuntDaisy]

Not forgetting 'getting the pips' (noteworthy but not within my memory).

Or poor Tomasz Schafernaker not managing to complete the Shipping Forecast due to illness 4/12/2016.

[kernelbogey]

Also a Third Programme spoof concert featuring a new work by (IIRC) Piotr Zak. It was seriously reviewed in the press, but was revealed to be BBC staff hitting percussion instruments randomly in the studio.

[AuntDaisy]

Also a Third Programme spoof concert featuring a new work by (IIRC) Piotr Zak. It was seriously reviewed in the press, but was revealed to be BBC staff hitting percussion instruments randomly in the studio.

You're right, it was "The Strange Case of Piotr Zak", Thrid Prog. 13/8/1961, "Mobile" for tape and percussion - by a composer who refused to allow his music to be published. (It was a Transcription Service production.)

As part of its policy to broadcast new works, the BBC Third Programme offered an adventurous evening of modern chamber music. It included works by Petrassi, Webern and None: and then came "Mobile" for tape and percussion...

[french frank]

It's strange: for all the Third has the posthumous reputation for being stiff, staid, starchy - choose your description - it seems to have had a better/finer sense of humour than today's R3. Some may not have perceived/appreciated the wit, of course.

[AuntDaisy]

It's strange: for all the Third has the posthumous reputation for being stiff, staid, starchy - choose your description - it seems to have had a better/finer sense of humour than today's R3. Some may not have perceived/appreciated the wit, of course.

The Hilda Tablet plays still make me laugh, all-star casts and great writing help.

Composer of the Week 18/3/2011 - Donald Macleod at his finest for Red Nose Day... including a "Mobile" extract.

Donald Macleod's Unbelievable Spoofs

The world of classical music is a funny old place. Donald Macleod should know - he's been charting its every quirk for over a decade. And along the way, he's discovered that separating the fact from the fiction is not an easy task. In a special live edition for Comic Relief, the two intertwine as Donald plunges into the history of the musical spoof. But who are the spoofs, and who are the unlikely musicians whose lives are so utterly absurd they can only be true?
With the help of silent film accompanist Neil Brand we meet such dubious figures as Bolognese theatre composer Lasagne Verdi, famously submitted (and nearly printed) in the music world's most trusted encyclopedia, served for good measure with an accompaniment of Pietro Gnocchi. There's a chance to hear the music of Pietro Raimondi, the man who composed three oratorios to be performed simultaneously, centuries before Charles Ives conceived of such an adventure. Avant-garde composers reemerge from the BBC archive too, including Hilda Tablet whose 'reinforced concrete music' found its way into the repertory of Covent Garden in the 1950s. Plus a bizarre encounter with the man said to be a reincarnation of Merlin and Francis Bacon, variously described as a courtier, adventurer, charlatan, inventor, alchemist, pianist, violinist and amateur composer. But did he really exist? You'll have to make up your own mind.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fp3m3

[LMcD]

Or poor Tomasz Schafernaker not managing to complete the Shipping Forecast due to illness 4/12/2016.

Was it Peter Barker who played the movements of a Haydn symphony in the wrong order and then said it didn't really matter as he doubted whether anybody would have noticed?
I distinctly remember a broadcast of John Cage's 4'33" - possibly on April the 1st or as a contribution to Children In Need or Red Nose Day/Comic Relief - during which one listener complained that it was being played at the wrong speed and another claimed that it was being played backwards.
And let's not forget Michael Berkeley's interview with the 112-year-old Manfred Sturmer.

[kernelbogey]

It's strange: for all the Third has the posthumous reputation for being stiff, staid, starchy - choose your description - it seems to have had a better/finer sense of humour than today's R3. Some may not have perceived/appreciated the wit, of course.

It strikes me that the network the produced the Piotr Zak spoof and others referred to were a bit like a school teacher whom you admired, who could occasionally say something scandalous or scabrous: even something a bit donnish about it in its heyday.

[hmvman]

It's strange: for all the Third has the posthumous reputation for being stiff, staid, starchy - choose your description - it seems to have had a better/finer sense of humour than today's R3. Some may not have perceived/appreciated the wit, of course.

Maybe because it was perceived as being stiff, staid and starchy that the moments of humour were more pointed. Today's seems arch and forced, like they're trying too hard.

[LMcD]

Good news - double Martin Handley next weekend. Not-so-good(?) news - a noticeable increase of late in the number of pieces played as trails for upcoming programmes, not all of them on Radio 3.

[JasonPalmer]

Prompted to listen this morning by trail on evening concert, petroc has told me this morning whats on the lunchtime concert. He currently playing music from dr who....will he mention all episodes now available on bbc iplayer ? Its a trail world !