The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Ein Heldenleben]

Having listened to a few minutes of Breakfast a few days this week, though I find the snippet/single-movement aspect singularly annoying, if I'm being charitable I suppose it might encourage listeners to search out the whole work if they liked what they heard. Which might be part of its aim.

On Classics Live where they still play complete works a few weeks ago they played just the slow movement form the Beethoven Op 135 quartet . One of the greatest things he ever wrote and a piece that loses meaning by being divorced from the cyclical evolving Quartet. It’s getting ridiculous.

[kernelbogey]

I think it is the same on radio 5 live where football commentaries are peppered with trails! I can't listen anymore. The one real plus of the BBC was it lack of advertising, now there is little else. Can't cope anymore.

I've found when calling up a programme on iPlayer it's automatically preceded by a thirty second trailer for some new programme. Fortunately one can slide the bar along to the end of the advert to end it. So - BBC-wide policy...?

[french frank]

if I'm being charitable I suppose it might encourage listeners to search out the whole work if they liked what they heard. Which might be part of its aim.

Years ago, Robin Ray claimed that people who started out by listening to Classic FM would end up listening to Radio 3: on the whole, it didn't happen. People were satisfied with what they heard on CFM and had no incentive to 'search out' anything else - certainly not on Radio 3. There will always be some listeners - to both stations - who do so, but I'd maintain that that was only a certain kind of listener. If you target a programme or station on a 'broad audience' you get the audience you're aiming to attract.

Many are those who learn a few phrases of conversational Italian simply because they're going to Italy on holiday this year. Some may go to evening classes to learn more when they're back home, but most won't. So it boils down to returns: how many will go on to search out more classical music compared with the number that Radio 3 no longer caters for sufficiently to make the station worth listening to at all? (Also, how many will listen to other Radio 3 programmes because they discovered them by listening to e.g. Friday Night Is Music Night, the original argument for programming shows like Late Junction?)

[Nick Armstrong]

I've found when calling up a programme on iPlayer it's automatically preceded by a thirty second trailer for some new programme. Fortunately one can slide the bar along to the end of the advert to end it. So - BBC-wide policy...?

Assuming you mean TV programmes, yes: annoying - there’s a ‘skip trailer’ button, but you have to be quick on the draw… and I’ve found, have the volume muted, as sometimes the trailer is instantly intrusively noisy

[smittims]

After playing Handel in the Strand at 1000 today Georgia Mann said 'I've no idea why they called it Handel in the Strand; it doesn't sound like Handel to me'.

And yet (unless they've edited the recording since then ) she did, previously, tell us exactly why Grainger changed the title . And it does sound like Handel; perhaps she failed to spot the obvious reference to The Harmonious Blacksmith in the opening bars.

I think this is an example of the decline of Radio 3. As a child I was told by BBC Schools broadcast why Garinger gave it that title . But now ignorance appears to be smart, clever .

[oddoneout]

Having listened to a few minutes of Breakfast a few days this week, though I find the snippet/single-movement aspect singularly annoying, if I'm being charitable I suppose it might encourage listeners to search out the whole work if they liked what they heard. Which might be part of its aim.

Assuming they realise it is part of a larger work?

[oddoneout]

On Classics Live where they still play complete works a few weeks ago they played just the slow movement form the Beethoven Op 135 quartet . One of the greatest things he ever wrote and a piece that loses meaning by being divorced from the cyclical evolving Quartet. It’s getting ridiculous.

The bitty and random format of the programme allows for such things to be snuck in, and will I suspect do so more and more. After all, deconstructing a recorded concert(or in the case of festivals, concerts) and scattering the bits among other unrelated items, some times over more than one day, is seen as permissible, and will bring it more in line with the 'house style'. Once the level of prattle has got up to target levels it will be deemed fully integrated into the 'R3 offering'.

[Pulcinella]

Assuming they realise it is part of a larger work?

It's usually announced as such (if a symphony or concerto).
At least this morning, when we had only the first movement of Ravel's G major PC, we were told we could hear the remaining two movements in Composer of the week and the whole work in a concert next week!

[hmvman]

After playing Handel in the Strand at 1000 today Georgia Mann said 'I've no idea why they called it Handel in the Strand; it doesn't sound like Handel to me'.

And yet (unless they've edited the recording since then ) she did, previously, tell us exactly why Grainger changed the title . And it does sound like Handel; perhaps she failed to spot the obvious reference to The Harmonious Blacksmith in the opening bars.

I think this is an example of the decline of Radio 3. As a child I was told by BBC Schools broadcast why Garinger gave it that title . But now ignorance appears to be smart, clever .

Yes, I think knowledge of classical music is seen as 'elitist' these days. I recall that in the early days of Classic FM it seemed like almost a badge of honour for presenters to mis-pronounce the names of composers and artists.

[smittims]

Continuing oddeoneout's ideea about gradual encouragement, it was an intention when the Third Programme began , to link broadacsts across the BBC, so that,say , a waltz from Der Rosenkavalier would be heard on the Light Programme, a suite from the same opera on the Home,and a complete performance on the Third, with listeners being told at each stage where to go next. I don't know how much this was followed up, and of course it would be unthinkable today when the various BBC channels seem to run in isolation from one another.

There have, of course, been Radio 4 programmes aimed at introducing specific works by chat and excerpts.

[french frank]

Continuing oddeoneout's ideea about gradual encouragement, it was an intention when the Third Programme began , to link broadacsts across the BBC, so that,say , a waltz from Der Rosenkavalier would be heard on the Light Programme, a suite from the same opera on the Home,and a complete performance on the Third, with listeners being told at each stage where to go next.

About 10(?) years ago, the BBC Trust agreed in a published document that other services besides Radio 3 had a part to play in introducing listeners to classical music. Unfortunately, BBC managers didn't follow this up in any systematic way. But it seems obvious that what may be considered "dumbing down", if broadcast on Radio 3 to a Radio 3 audience, is a widening of horizons if broadcast on mass audience services - both radio and television.

In the end it's the listener who decides whether, as far as they're concerned, programmes are "dumbing down", not the managers: the recipient not the provider.

I don't know how much this was followed up, and of course it would be unthinkable today when the various BBC channels seem to run in isolation from one another.

Radio 3 cooperates with other radio stations in taking on programmes that other stations decide to drop - e.g. Kershaw from R1 and FNiMN from R2. And I'm quite sure they would have just ditched The Verb and Free Thinking to make R3 a 'music station' regardless of whether R4 had decided that they would add a bit of prestige to what they were offering. Unfortunately it appears there were no takers for long-form drama.

[Master Jacques]

Yes, I think knowledge of classical music is seen as 'elitist' these days. I recall that in the early days of Classic FM it seemed like almost a badge of honour for presenters to mis-pronounce the names of composers and artists.

Quite so: the way that many R3 presenters are mangling German these days in particular makes me very ashamed. You'd think that basic competence in pronouncing German, Italian and French would be a given for people whose core job involves interacting with those three languages on a daily basis.

The bigoted notion that art music is "elitist" ties in with this Anglo-American monoglot ignorance - which also explains the obsession with the Great American Pong Book, Florence Price and all that jazz so lustily promoted by R3 these days.

[LMcD]

Quite so: the way that many R3 presenters are mangling German these days in particular makes me very ashamed. You'd think that basic competence in pronouncing German, Italian and French would be a given for people whose core job involves interacting with those three languages on a daily basis.

I've mentioned this more than once in the past - I'm not even going to try to transcribe one particular presenter's (mis)pronunciation of 'Rheinlegendchen'.
Regrettably, more and more schools seem unable or unwilling to teach modern languages, and I believe that at least one Welsh university has recently announced that it will be closing its modern languages department. It hardly seems credible, now, that I was encouraged to concentrate on modern languages and found myself studying French for 4 periods a week and German for 8!

[kernelbogey]

Quite so: the way that many R3 presenters are mangling German these days in particular makes me very ashamed. You'd think that basic competence in pronouncing German, Italian and French would be a given for people whose core job involves interacting with those three languages on a daily basis.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Quite so: the way that many R3 presenters are mangling German these days in particular makes me very ashamed. You'd think that basic competence in pronouncing German, Italian and French would be a given for people whose core job involves interacting with those three languages on a daily basis.

The bigoted notion that art music is "elitist" ties in with this Anglo-American monoglot ignorance - which also explains the obsession with the Great American Pong Book, Florence Price and all that jazz so lustily promoted by R3 these days.

Yes it’s been another bad couple of weeks for MessyAnn the well known French organist/composer.
What’s so annoying is that there’s even a “how to pronounce French Composers’ names “ YouTube site .
It’s en as in enfant not an…

Mind you if you pronounced Ravel the French way with the accent very much on the Ra and maybe even a rolling raspy R as in renard no doubt people would think you were taking the mickey. Not even our Katie does that….