River of Music: 12 hrs Non-stop Music: Sunday 30 October

[doversoul1]

Why does not knowing the name of the composer or work make it "wallpaper" ?
It doesn't do that for me

It does for others, so what’s the problem? You are not saying you are right and others are not?

A few days ago I made a 1 hour recording of the wind in a reed bed, a wonderful listening experience without title or opus number

Unless you are keeping the recording to yourself, you will have to give it a name/title/number, or maybe a barcode in order to present it to the world that is inhabited by people who are happen to be not you.

Sometimes listening to music can be like watching the sun going down, you don't have to have a record of it for it to be significant.

It is precisely because you have all the record/information you need to know what you are looking at: it’s the sun, it will come back again tomorrow, it isn’t dropping into the town over there etc., etc. If you didn’t know any of these things, looking at it going down would be a very unsettling experience rather than a significant one.

[MrGongGong]

It does for others, so what’s the problem? You are not saying you are right and others are not?

I don't think there is anything "right" or not about it

Unless you are keeping the recording to yourself, you will have to give it a name/title/number, or maybe a barcode in order to present it to the world that is inhabited by people who are happen to be not you.

I might use it
I might delete it
At the moment it's called something like 00_00002345

[visualnickmos]

The point of reference is the music 'you just heard’. The rest is down to the limits of your enthusiasm and tenacity. There’s a long track-record of people identifying bits of music from the flimsiest of leads.

If one can be arsed to spend hours on such a quest, then fine... That's all very well, but the question remains; HOW does one do that, in practical terms?

[Beef Oven!]

Quite enjoying not knowing who's playing...

Yes, indeed.

At first, I responded in the usual way - bent on decipherment! Then, when it was too much trouble to find out, I just enjoyed the music. Roehre never cited any of the performers when he posted lists of what he was listening to, which I thought odd. But I now think he’s right.

The next step for me is to not be interested in the name of the composer.

[Beef Oven!]

If one can be arsed to spend hours on such a quest, then fine... That's all very well, but the question remains; HOW does one do that, in practical terms?

That’s the bit about the extent of your enthusiasm. If you can’t be arsed, why worry about how anyway?

[ardcarp]

A few days ago I made a 1 hour recording of the wind in a reed bed

You'll have to lay off the pickled onions Gongers.

[EdgeleyRob]

It's not important who is playing,but I'm interested to know.
I enjoyed the bits I heard,a little gap between the pieces would have been nice,and full works not chunks.
The lack of talking was bliss although the ideal for me is the through the night format.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I heard only bits here and there but hats off to Radio 3 for a truly enterprising event.

Radio 3's gimmicks are never particularly enterprising - saturation weeks have been the most common. This one had the potential to be something better than that, but instead it was a stream of pieces, or bits of pieces relating loosely to each of the last 70 years. In practice, the links were very tenuous, and were more like 70 pieces CFM could get away with playing.

It could have been better, say 70 pieces composed in each of the last 70 years, which is what William Glock might have suggested.
AND a playlist to encourage people who don't like muzak, but prefer to be more selective.

[visualnickmos]

That’s the bit about the extent of your enthusiasm. If you can’t be arsed, why worry about how anyway?

Just mildly curious -

[Quarky]

I think the whole thing would be so much better (for THIS day) if there was no playlist at all
If people were then really inspired then they will have to use their ears and curiosity to find out what music was being played.

It would also be a bit of a change from the urge to categorise, list and possess.

I'm with MrGG on this. My ears reacted differently to being presented with unannounced and possibly unknown works. Of particular interest were works I knew vaguely, and had a struggle to place the Composer - or even the time period - Vivaldi, Reich. Vivaldi is full of surprises, which can be masked if one is expecting to hear a known work.

I did have on hand the thread "what baroque music are you listening to", and I was able to switch rapidly to items listed there when River of Music did not appeal.

Clear winner on points was Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, full of the joy of music making, nothing "serious", and no "point" to make.

[Paulie55]

River of Music - Sunday 30 October

Now that's the way I like it! A ceaseless flow of music without presenters telling you what to look out for, inane chatter, texts, tweets, emails, etc.
I wish it could be like this more often. It almost reminded me of Radio 3 in its heyday. More please!

[kernelbogey]

Now that's the way I like it! A ceaseless flow of music without presenters telling you what to look out for, inane chatter, texts, tweets, emails, etc.
I wish it could be like this more often. It almost reminded me of Radio 3 in its heyday. More please!

Welcome, Paulie: I have moved your post to merge with the existing thread on the River of Music - enjoy catching up on the 175 other posts!

[Bryn]

One thing that I found curious was the relative lack of recordings from the Third/Radio 3 archive. The majority of the items included were from commercial CDs not originating from the BBC.

[Stanfordian]

Now that's the way I like it! A ceaseless flow of music without presenters telling you what to look out for, inane chatter, texts, tweets, emails, etc.
I wish it could be like this more often. It almost reminded me of Radio 3 in its heyday. More please!

Hiya Paulie55,

I agree with you! But R3 won't be like this more often. The BBC are obsessed with the cult of personality and involving audiences.

[kernelbogey]

Radio 3's gimmicks are never particularly enterprising - saturation weeks have been the most common. This one had the potential to be something better than that, but instead it was a stream of pieces, or bits of pieces relating loosely to each of the last 70 years. In practice, the links were very tenuous, and were more like 70 pieces CFM could get away with playing.

It could have been better, say 70 pieces composed in each of the last 70 years, which is what William Glock might have suggested.
AND a playlist to encourage people who don't like muzak, but prefer to be more selective.

I think your sojourns on the upper slopes of the Zugspitze, Alpie, have chilled your generosity. I thought this feature quite an enterprising innovation, and although I wasn't 'spotting the connections' - and incidentally, the RC/SW blog did less that I expected to reveal them - I thought this a pretty fair snapshot of what R3/The Third has stood for and continues to represent. Your suggestion of 70 items composed in the last 70 years would have interested many - but I think would not have gathered in the more traditional listeners, nor promoted the station as well to newcomers, as was no doubt intended. It also seems to me that the 70 year span also represents a huge influence on the musical education of listeners (I include myself among them) and indeed an influence on musical taste and concert programming: the revival of interest in Bruckner and Mahler, to name only two of the most prominent examples. Whether it did that adequately is a judgement I'll leave to others to comment on.