Popular classics

[vinteuil]

Talking about Breakfast, looking at tomorrow's pre-playlist, it looks even more dire than usual.

- he don't tell no lie...

Albeniz - Asturias
Vivaldi - Winter
Brahms - Hungarian Dance
Bernstein - Candide
Fauré - Cantique de Jean Racine
Haydn - 'Drumroll' [last movement]
Rachmaninov - Vocalise
Boccherini - Guitar Quintet - Fandango
Debussy - Jeux
Mozart - Symphony nr 40 [first movement]
Chopin - Berceuse
Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue

I don't know whether to quote the immortal Kenneth Williams: "Naff!"

- or the similarly immortal Wm Shakespeare:


".... O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!"

[ahinton]

O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden

Recalling the recent apocryphal Bach/Buxtehude/Handel perambulatory confusions prompts me to conclude that you ought not to have omitted from your hit list the Walker to the Paradise-lost Garden.

I left me coat in the garden shed...

Mind you, in the interests of fairness, a couple of decades or so back you'd have had little hope of finding Jeux on such a list (you did actually mean Jeux, did you? - not Prélude à l'après-midi d'un jeu...?)...

[Suffolkcoastal]

It's not Jeux that's being played tomorrow, that would be unusual, being one of Debussy best and least played works. I'm afraid that it is Jeux de vagues from R3's old warhouse La Mer yet again. I see that another regular playlist cock up occured yesterday as Emin Khachaturian seems to have composed Spartacus. It is bad enough playing the same tiresome pieces over and over again, but when they can't even get the composer right on the website, well you really realise to what appalling depths R3 has now sunk.

[french frank]

I see that another regular playlist cock up occured yesterday

Crumbs! That's torn it! They've gone on strike - no playlists beyond tomorrow

[Suffolkcoastal]

They haven't been putting up Breakfast playlists in advance regularly for a couple of weeks now ff. Breakfast is now so naff they are probably too embarrassed to put the advance playlists up.

[ahinton]

It's not Jeux that's being played tomorrow, that would be unusual, being one of Debussy best and least played works. I'm afraid that it is Jeux de vagues from R3's old warhouse La Mer yet again.

Warhorse, surely? (after all, you didn't mean whorehouse, did you?!...). La Mer is a terrific work, however overplayed it gets, though in an Eternally Breafastine context, it might, one supposes, be somewhat difficult to promote Satie's claim that he especially liked the bit at around a quarter to eleven...

I see that another regular playlist cock up occured yesterday as Emin Khachaturian seems to have composed Spartacus. It is bad enough playing the same tiresome pieces over and over again, but when they can't even get the composer right on the website, well you really realise to what appalling depths R3 has now sunk.

I know; surely everyone knows that Spartacus was composed by Tracey Aram!

[Suffolkcoastal]

I meant warhorse of course (it was a very long day yesterday). I agree that La Mer is a very fine piece, but when you get either complete performances of it or chunks of it broadcast on average once every 12-13 days on R3 then it drastically reduces the works impact and appeal. I was following the score of another old warhorse, the Grieg Piano Concerto on Monday evening and enjoyed it largely because I hadn't listened to the piece for a couple of years so it came up fresh. If one largely relied on R3 then you'd soon get sick of hearing works like this every few weeks, and the impact and the pleasure that these pieces once gave would be significantly reduced to the detrement of the listener, composer and the work itself.

[barber olly]

I meant warhorse of course (it was a very long day yesterday). I agree that La Mer is a very fine piece, but when you get either complete performances of it or chunks of it broadcast on average once every 12-13 days on R3 then it drastically reduces the works impact and appeal. I was following the score of another old warhorse, the Grieg Piano Concerto on Monday evening and enjoyed it largely because I hadn't listened to the piece for a couple of years so it came up fresh. If one largely relied on R3 then you'd soon get sick of hearing works like this every few weeks, and the impact and the pleasure that these pieces once gave would be significantly reduced to the detrement of the listener, composer and the work itself.

You shouldn't have mentioned Grieg's Piano concerto and it appearing fresh. Now someone at R3 Mission Control will think yeah we've forgotten that one - let's play it to death for the rest of the decade!

[Mr Pee]

You shouldn't have mentioned Grieg's Piano concerto and it appearing fresh. Now someone at R3 Mission Control will think yeah we've forgotten that one - let's play it to death for the rest of the decade!

It was on Classical Collection only last week......

[Suffolkcoastal]

No I was hoping (very forlornly) that someone on R3 might notice of the fact, that when you haven't listened to a work for a year or two, especially a well known one, it actualy makes it sound fresh, but ramming the sames pieces down your listeners throat every couple of weeks or more can wreck a works impact, can give a very lopsided and possibly unfavourable view of a composer and his/her music and can therefore be highly detremental to both.

[old khayyam]

Nail on head, SC, nail on head.

Now, when is someone going to write a letter ?

[old khayyam]

Well it seems someone did write a letter and our plight was heard today on R4's Feedback, albeit briefly. I didnt hear all of it but, after a phone call from someone opining that light composers also should be taken seriously, the final word was given to the BBC controllers who's succinct statement read along the lines of 'We intend to continue light programming for the foreseeable future'. Anyone else catch this?

[french frank]

succinct statement read along the lines of 'We intend to continue light programming for the foreseeable future'. Anyone else catch this?

I didn't quite hear it like that. Yes, they said it would continue to form part of the station's musical mix and they would consider another focus on light music at some time in the future ... As it was read out, it sounded a bit non-committal - as the Feedback presenter implied ("And that's it.")

[Suffolkcoastal]

I've just seen an advert for Einaudi on Sky, how long before that total load of rubbish (I want to call it something far worse of course), rears its ugly head on R3 followed by him appearing as COTW. His 'music' should carry a scary warning too, 'can seriously damage the sanity of genuine music lovers'.

[MrGongGong]

I've just seen an advert for Einaudi on Sky, how long before that total load of rubbish (I want to call it something far worse of course), rears its ugly head on R3 followed by him appearing as COTW. His 'music' should carry a scary warning too, 'can seriously damage the sanity of genuine music lovers'.

Poor Luciano must be spinning in his grave !