End in sight for Classical Collection?

[longinus]

Good grief! With a letter like that, what kind of reply were you hoping for!? Seriously!

Yeah, hilarious, but I didn't simply copy and paste my original post. This is what I sent:


"James Jolly seems to have an extraordinarily patronising view of his audience. A few weeks ago, I noted that he wouldn't dream of playing us any Elliott Carter since "at this time in the morning" (11:30, I think) it would be too scary, and this morning in his preface to Webern's Im Sommerwind we were treated to some rigmarole about how we shouldn't immediately rush out to do our shopping since this wasn't the scary Webern but the (presumably) family-friendly one who hadn't met Schoenberg yet. After the piece, he added some gnomic comment about the different path that would have been taken by 20th C music had they not met - "for better or worse" I think he said. The implication was obscure but possibly he thinks the world would have been a better place if Webern had carried on writing like Richard Strauss.

"Have we really got to the stage that Radio 3 cannot risk playing the music of some of the world's greatest composers before the afternoon?There are many people like me who really sit up and listen when something more challenging than the Marche Slave or the Offenbach Barcarolle comes on. The attitude that no-one need fear hearing something they won't like is frankly a disgrace - if a majority of listeners don't like some of the music written 100 years ago, then don't play it very often - rather than the current philosophy which appears to be 'don't play it at all'. "

Now, that appears to me to be brusque if you like, but I don't consider that I have been offensive.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Not offensive in the slightest loginus, a perfectly worthwhile and important point to make and one that one would have expected a response from.

[DracoM]

The last two weeks have seen the fastest ever acceleration of the CFM-isation of R3, even including a Choral Evensong [ religious broadcast ] prefaced by a CA describing the programme as 'part of Radio 3's Light Fantastic' season.

Now maybe, I'm getting po-faced, but when a hitherto respected radio station starts taking flight from the serious as pervasively as that, and virtually warning listeners against giants of 20th century classical music, then IMO we really are in trouble and well into John Suchet, RogerMcGough and calming terrified horses territory.

[cavatina]

Now, that appears to me to be brusque if you like, but I don't consider that I have been offensive.

Oh okay, it wasn't that bad. I'm still not sure what you want them to say about it, though.

The ironic thing is, personally, I have absolutely no patience for sloppy, smarmy, syrup-sodden presenters who patronise their audiences (as a few of my posts here amply bear out, no matter how I've tried to hide it). I suppose the difference between us is I SWITCH OFF AND PUT ON A CD OF MY OWN before I give myself the chance to get all worked up and righteously indignant about it.

To be perfectly blunt, there are a few shows on Radio 3 you couldn't pay me to listen to again. But really, what's the use of sitting around wringing my hands and complaining? "Dear oh dear, this simply isn't to my taste at all!" Well, no kidding-- it's not "for" people like me and never was. Which brings us back to the old "idealism vs. pragmatism and the future of public broadcasting" question again. Ugh, nobody want to hear it-- and the less I get bogged down by things I can't change, the better.

I suppose if you can't quite bring yourself to find the "off" switch, the only hope you have is to be as polite, positive and constructive as possible.

[french frank]

To be perfectly blunt, there are a few shows on Radio 3 you couldn't pay me to listen to again. But really, what's the use of sitting around wringing my hands and complaining?

It may not matter so much to you: the world's a big place and you're an American living over in America. It's a bit closer to us

Well, no kidding-- it's not "for" people like me and never was.

I'd say no more than ten years ago at the most it definitely was (still) for me.

The thing about the BBC, like so many big organisations, is that they buy in their thinking from elsewhere for short-cut 'solutions'. They don't actually do any themselves. But the BBC is unique: it ought to do its own thinking for its own circumstances. So, yes, it's a hard battle, but it isn't your battle which may be why you find it easier to walk away from it.

[Norfolk Born]

Yeah, hilarious, but I didn't simply copy and paste my original post. This is what I sent:


"James Jolly seems to have an extraordinarily patronising view of his audience. A few weeks ago, I noted that he wouldn't dream of playing us any Elliott Carter since "at this time in the morning" (11:30, I think) it would be too scary, and this morning in his preface to Webern's Im Sommerwind we were treated to some rigmarole about how we shouldn't immediately rush out to do our shopping since this wasn't the scary Webern but the (presumably) family-friendly one who hadn't met Schoenberg yet. After the piece, he added some gnomic comment about the different path that would have been taken by 20th C music had they not met - "for better or worse" I think he said. The implication was obscure but possibly he thinks the world would have been a better place if Webern had carried on writing like Richard Strauss.

"Have we really got to the stage that Radio 3 cannot risk playing the music of some of the world's greatest composers before the afternoon?There are many people like me who really sit up and listen when something more challenging than the Marche Slave or the Offenbach Barcarolle comes on. The attitude that no-one need fear hearing something they won't like is frankly a disgrace - if a majority of listeners don't like some of the music written 100 years ago, then don't play it very often - rather than the current philosophy which appears to be 'don't play it at all'. "

Now, that appears to me to be brusque if you like, but I don't consider that I have been offensive.

I would say that it is neither brusque, nor offensive - but nor is it written in such a way as to elicit a response. The only question in your message could fairly be described as rhetorical. Therefore, while the recipient should have the decency to read it and even consider the points that you so eloquently make - and with which I wholeheartedly agree - he, she or they will not feel that a reply is needed. You have posted a number of comments, but not suggested that you expect a response.

[longinus]

If it cannot be changed, you may well be right. But one of the surprising things about Britain is precisely the disproportionate influence on official decision-making wielded by middle-class people with degrees and sharp elbows. And as one of the latter, I'm determined to do what I can to revive the spirit of the original Reithian mission <br>
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I can certainly find the off switch, and indeed in a curious way I've been grateful for the dumbing of R3 because when SM-P plays us the Marche Slave I almost always put on one of JEG's Bach Cantata CDs since I haven't yet listened to my complete set. But isn't this a compelling argument for abolishing the licence fee? Which surely the BBC ought to be desperate to protect. The closer R3 gets to CFM, the less justification there is for the huge per-listener precept. The recent report which I'm sure most of us participated in, produced recommendations to widen R3's audience by offering more entry points to [crudely simplifying here] young people/ethnic minorities/Northerners. If you eventually achieve a R3 7am-1pm audience which has the same demographic as CFM, you will quite certainly have pissed off a significant number of traditional listeners - and demonstrated that CFM does it better. I think that there are Gaels and Celts, blacks and browns, Yorkists and Lancastrians, who display the same willingness to be engaged by Lassus/Purcell/Bach/Rameau/....Webern/Stravinsky/Copland/Britten/Ades as we ageing white southern poofs.
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And so we need to keep elbowing James Jolly and his team, and, if they don't reply, point out that the BBC has been criticised for making complaining difficult. (With the implication that if one complains, one ought to get some kind of response, apart from the automatic e-mail acknowledgment.)

[cavatina]

C:To be perfectly blunt, there are a few shows on Radio 3 you couldn't pay me to listen to again. But really, what's the use of sitting around wringing my hands and complaining?
FF: It may not matter so much to you: the world's a big place and you're an American living over in America. It's a bit closer to us

I don't think anyone of any nationality can afford to sit around wringing her hands and complaining, especially not on matters she considers vitally important.

C: Well, no kidding-- it's not "for" people like me and never was.
FF: I'd say no more than ten years ago at the most it definitely was (still) for me.

I was referring to particular shows as they exist now. From everything I've ever seen, read or heard, they're definitely not "for you".

So, yes, it's a hard battle, but it isn't your battle which may be why you find it easier to walk away from it.

True--but there's fighting hard, and there's fighting effectively.

Do you really feel you're getting enough mileage out of your reports to the trust to warrant all the effort? (And yes, although I might not be familiar with the "politics", I have read every last snip of the material you've provided on your website--and done a web search so comprehensive it would make your head spin.) If you really wanted to turn up the pressure, why haven't you looked into consulting with a public relations firm to get an honest-to-God media campaign going? Or perhaps sponsor independent research that will give you the kind of data RAJAR won't? That kind of thing takes money, but if FoR3 had a halfway decent development and fundraising campaign in place, I'm sure you wouldn't have any trouble at all marshaling enough resources to significantly up the ante. Agh.

I suppose my real question is: if you're not getting the kind of results you'd like now, what are you planning to do differently to change the situation? Is your organisation resigned to eternal stalemate, or are you actively planning toward mate in five?

Oh well, I don't suppose that's the kind of thing to answer here, is it. Worth considering, in my opinion.

[vinteuil]

... sometimes the website is closer to the truth than Radio Times.

in the Radio Times for Wed 29 June,

12 noon: Composer of the Week: Schubert
Gesang der Geister über den Wassern Arnold Schoenberg Choir Members of the Vienna Concert-Verein, conductor Erwin Ortner Teldec.

[cavatina]

And so we need to keep elbowing James Jolly and his team, and, if they don't reply, point out that the BBC has been criticised for making complaining difficult.

Yeah, well-- if you do that, you'll still end up with a reply that's no more meaningful than my spoof letter was. (Just like that, really, minus the classical reference and more typos.) Being flipped the bird is being flipped the bird, no matter how polite, thoughtful and friendly someone is when they do it.

At the end of the day, there's no forcing people to care what you think...persuasion is everything.

[amateur51]

The thing about the BBC, like so many big organisations, is that they buy in their thinking from elsewhere for short-cut 'solutions'. They don't actually do any themselves. But the BBC is unique: it ought to do its own thinking for its own circumstances. So, yes, it's a hard battle, but it isn't your battle which may be why you find it easier to walk away from it.

This is typical of so many organisations in the recent past, where Trustees/CEOs don't trust the very staff that they pay well to come up with the solutions and bright ideas, but prefer to 'out-source' the creativity, often to people who have become consultants precisely because they felt their talent was being wasted in ther stifling atmosphere of 'an organisation' with its endless targets and team meetings (aaaaiiiieeeeeee ). There may also be subtler if baser motives involved of course, but I agree with you french frank .

[aeolium]

Yeah, well-- if you do that, you'll still end up with a reply that's no more meaningful than my spoof letter was. (Just like that, really, minus the classical reference and more typos.)

Yes, that's entirely possible and even probable. People at R3 can take no notice of the complaints or pretend that they don't exist. The problem is that at a time when they are under sustained attack from a fair proportion of the right-wing press including the Murdoch empire, and don't appear to have a lot of friends in Parliament, the BBC can hardly afford to alienate those who should be its natural supporters (and certainly used to be). By coming up with sloppy presentation littered with errors, and rotten programming which insults the intelligence, they risk doing just that. You always make it sound as though the onus is on us, the listeners, to beg favours of the royalty of the BBC to deign to revise their programming, but that isn't really the case. If listeners are fed up with what is being offered, and no notice is taken of their concerns, then they end up just losing interest, and more than that, losing faith in the institution as a whole. I already listen much less to radio 3 than I used to. I think the more imaginative initiatives in programming are already being done by opera houses and theatres and orchestras in broadcasting live to the internet or to cinema. If R3 wants to knock up a sub-CFM morning programme then I've got far better things to listen to than that. If that sort of programming increasingly dominates much of the schedule on R3 then it's goodbye R3, as far as I'm concerned. But it's ultimately the BBC that has much more to lose than I.

[longinus]

At the end of the day, there's no forcing people to care what you think...persuasion is everything.

Yes and no. Of course I can't force anyone to change policy. (Or perhaps I should have written "Of course I can't force....".) But that's what pressure groups are for. Groups of people trying to persuade those who employ RW to reassess the merits of trying to compete with a commercially self-financing station by imitating what it does. This strikes me as the most dangerous thing the BBC can do - we've seen very heavyweight pressure on the Beeb to stop using its economies of scope and scale to compete with profit-making enterprises. We (as in we happy few, we band of brothers) can only hope to chuck our scruples and drachms into the scales on the side of more ambitious and less cowardly programming. But I know people who are relevant to these longer-term decisions, and I guess quite a lot of contributors and lurkers do too. Part of persuading them to look critically at the current "commercial" drive to steal listeners from CFM would be to show that we have brought these issues to the attention of R3 - and got no reply (which is where I came in).

[old khayyam]

the BBC that has much more to lose than I.

Wishful thinking. The bigger picture is that the BBC are now merely pawns in the battle for the minds of the British public. There must be no corner in which believers of serious artistic endeavour may hide and spawn new ideas for the betterment of mankind through appreciation of the arts.

[vinteuil]

It might first be a good idea to close off the repetitive & ill-informed gibberish now displayed in the Eternal Breakast & Classical Collection threads (maybe others) - they're too visible & just won't die naturally. Like it or not FoR3 is tarnished or enhanced by this forum & any BBC observers or potential new members will likely think the forum & FoR3 to be populated by pedantic, aged amateurs who've lost the plot. Incessant moaning here is bound to put many people off & will never do any good..

Thus 'Osborn' on the Proms board (thread "attention newcomers", message # 5 )

I am sure we are all grateful for her / his generous views here...