The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[ahinton]

Unfortunately, the appearance of presenters is given artificial importance by the BBC. Pictures of presenters dominate the Radio 3 website.

OK, but that is surely no more my fault than it's anyone's that I happen not to have seen these apparently much vaunted assets of KD in which I've clearly indicated that I have no interest anyway, any more than I have in how she fares on SCD (which is not to say that I don't wish her well).

[ahinton]

What's an iPad?

Oh, FF, for goodness' sake! "iPad, therefore I am", as you should surely be aware was uttered a very long time ago by a most distinguished French person...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What's an iPad?

A big iPhone without the phone.

[french frank]

Oh, FF, for goodness' sake! "iPad, therefore I am"

Not iPad, therefore iPhone? I do know Lord Gould is the IT expert around these parts.

[Serial_Apologist]

Scarily, and if this doesn't get me excluded nothing will, in the morning I listen on an iPad and when it goes into screensaver mode the composer appears ...

And yes ff after years of, hopefully friendly, sparring we agree that slowly but surely things are moving in the right direction ....

At this rate of complacency we'll get there after women manage to get equal pay!

[french frank]

At this rate of complacency we'll get there after women manage to get equal pay!

Well, now I've done my computations it seems the fag-packet let me down. It looks like a standard amount of talk (this does include News): 30 minutes out of 150 minutes. And a whopping 9 single movements (about twice as many as the average programme). Longest piece just under 10 minutes (mvt from Beethoven's violin concerto), average length exactly 5 minutes. No change there, then.

[antongould]

Not iPad, therefore iPhone? I do know Lord Gould is the IT expert around these parts.

Hardly .......

[french frank]

Hardly .......

Well, anyway. I think one reason why the 'music' seemed to be somewhat longer than usual in yesterday's programme is that there were relatively long gaps after each work finished. As, in general, we criticise presenters who leap in a split second after the music finishes, I usually include the pauses with the music as being a broadly welcome feature - and certainly not 'speech' - but I did register that these seemed to be quite long. Take off 90 extra seconds and the actual music clocked in at just under 5 minutes a piece on average.

And not compensated for by 'useful' information (the information that Méhul was the first composer to be called a Romantic - "with a capital R" - was the second sentence in his Wikipedia article: it would be good to hear the occasional illuminating nugget that had been newly mined, but I suppose if you're purportedly addressing people who don't know much at all, rather than the "gatekeepers of some mystical classical high culture" …). Rather too much time spent bonding with listeners.

Just commenting. With some slight bitterness.

[cloughie]

Hardly .......

Yes anton, not knowing anything really about your IT credentials the evidence of the boards does not place you at the top of the techno geek, nerd or whatever the latest terminology is, list. Don't sulk - it could be a compliment. However when it comes to sorting out errant Monkeys....

[oddoneout]

And not compensated for by 'useful' information (the information that Méhul was the first composer to be called a Romantic - "with a capital R" - was the second sentence in his Wikipedia article: it would be good to hear the occasional illuminating nugget that had been newly mined, but I suppose if you're purportedly addressing people who don't know much at all,

It would appear that I shall have to put myself into that category then, although I say in my defence I'm not much interested in the Romantics, so perhaps that's why. Then again perhaps it hasn't been repeated quite often enough for me to remember it, unlike some of the music...

[french frank]

It would appear that I shall have to put myself into that category then, although I say in my defence I'm not much interested in the Romantics, so perhaps that's why. Then again perhaps it hasn't been repeated quite often enough for me to remember it, unlike some of the music...

That wasn't my point: I didn't know he was the first composer to be called a "Romantic" either. The point was that I am so suspicious of that presenter's knowledge of the classical repertoire in general (because of some fairly basic errors that have been made) that I whizzed straight over to Wikipedia to find that the factoid appeared in ll 2-3 of his Wikipedia entry. So the 'authoritative' voice of Radio 3 these days, the vaunted 'trusted guide' can be nothing more than the voice of Wikipedia, researched because a piece was coming up by Méhul, about whom something needed to be said.

One of the reasons why Breakfast is so shallow is that it has too many short pieces over two and a half hours with no very coherent connection between any of them. Any presenter would be taxed to find something to say about pieces ranging from Dufay to Gershwin off the top of their heads, but the quantity of 'information' that has to be found for each day means people go to the quickest source - on yer Wikipedia.

It's not to be disputed that many listeners will be perfectly happy with that, day in, day out: the point is, we've all got to be happy with it - because that's all we're going to get. That's what people mean by saying this portion of the day is no better than Classic FM. Radio 3 should be better - and that means objectively 'better' not just the preferred station of people who are escaping CFM's adverts.

There does seem to be an immutable law that the Breakfast programme must now have 22-24 pieces averaging 5 minutes per piece. Like Classic FM.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There does seem to be an immutable law that the Breakfast programme must now have 22-24 pieces averaging 5 minutes per piece. Like Classic FM.

Copying the in-crowd is rather pathetic, isn't it?

[cloughie]

That wasn't my point: I didn't know he was the first composer to be called a "Romantic" either. The point was that I am so suspicious of that presenter's knowledge of the classical repertoire in general (because of some fairly basic errors that have been made) that I whizzed straight over to Wikipedia to find that the factoid appeared in ll 2-3 of his Wikipedia entry. So the 'authoritative' voice of Radio 3 these days, the vaunted 'trusted guide' can be nothing more than the voice of Wikipedia, researched because a piece was coming up by Méhul, about whom something needed to be said.

One of the reasons why Breakfast is so shallow is that it has too many short pieces over two and a half hours with no very coherent connection between any of them. Any presenter would be taxed to find something to say about pieces ranging from Dufay to Gershwin off the top of their heads, but the quantity of 'information' that has to be found for each day means people go to the quickest source - on yer Wikipedia.

It's not to be disputed that many listeners will be perfectly happy with that, day in, day out: the point is, we've all got to be happy with it - because that's all we're going to get. That's what people mean by saying this portion of the day is no better than Classic FM. Radio 3 should be better - and that means objectively 'better' not just the preferred station of people who are escaping CFM's adverts.

There does seem to be an immutable law that the Breakfast programme must now have 22-24 pieces averaging 5 minutes per piece. Like Classic FM.

When what we should be getting is five pieces averaging 22-24 minutes!

[french frank]

When what we should be getting is five pieces averaging 22-24 minutes!

I'm sure you would like that, but realistically I'd probably just up the average to about 10 minutes; 10-12 pieces being a mix of longer pieces and shorter. So 5-6 could be more substantial and the rest 'fillers'. Presenters could spend twice the amount of time 'researching' each piece - and use Grove rather than Wikipedia (which should be used only to check quick facts like dates, titles, names). There might even be time to check pronunciations on forvo.com :-)

[antongould]

S

........ That's what people mean by saying this portion of the day is no better than Classic FM. Radio 3 should be better -

I would say it is far better - does anyone here listen to CFM Breakfast??
I thought, as one of ff's accredited stat' gatherers, I'd do a number on this morning's show but looking at the playlist I couldn't face it

29 Pieces in 3 hours including - and I jest not -

Sleeping Beauty Waltz
Danse Macabre
4 Seasons - Winter
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Downton Abbey Suite
Westminster Waltz
Barber of Seville Overture
Schindler's List Theme
Acceleration Waltz
Fanfare for the Common Man
633 Squadron
Ave Maria
Handel's Water Music


Alright Tree Lawn played a Beatles thing this morning but believe me his show was high culture compared to this .....

One for ferney should he stray this way - when I put classic into my Google its recommendations started with

Classic Pizza - Spennymoor .......