Radio 3 Programming - Problems & Solutions

[DracoM]

I think there is a difference between an 'occasional' use of any single movement (in a film, at a special event) where it's not realistic to play the entire work, and the policy that, even when there is time to play the whole work, only a movement is played because 'people are too busy to listen to the whole thing'/ 'people don't sit for that long for anything these days'/'it's too much to ask of people more used to Classic FM'.

It's a bad move to get people used to hearing only the 'well-known' part, the shortest part, the most attractive part. 'Education' entails people understanding what the work is - not 'Turandot is my favourite opera' when they mean 'I love Nessun dorma'. Radio 3, at least, should generally have at least half an eye on extending people's knowledge as well as giving them a 'feel good' factor. Who has a better opportunity than Radio 3 to inform and educate about classical music, as well as entertain??

[Bryn]

. . . Education' entails people understanding what the work is - not 'Turandot is my favourite opera' when they mean 'I love Nessun dorma'. . .

Where does 'Nessun dorma' feature in this fine Busoni opera?

[french frank]

this fine Busoni opera?

Who?

[gurnemanz]

It's a bad move to get people used to hearing only the 'well-known' part, the shortest part, the most attractive part.

Fair point, but if you include the word "only" in your comment it's not applicable to Radio Three.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Who?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004l97

(a Radio 4 programme)

[Bryn]

Who?

As if you did not know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turandot_(Busoni)

The performance starts about 5'50" in.

[Serial_Apologist]

As if you did not know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turandot_(Busoni)

The performance starts about 5'50" in.

In keeping with the subject matter under discussion, I've only ever heard excerpts from the Busoni opera. I'm mostly not an opera fan, but very much one for Busoni's music, so thanks for that link, Bryn.

[french frank]

Fair point, but if you include the word "only" in your comment it's not applicable to Radio Three.

Yes, it is, if full-length works are excluded from the most popular time for radio listening - which is the mornings until about midday. 'You can listen to the works if you switch on when you don't find it convenient to listen.' Apparently.

What Radio 3 is doing is putting the 'most popular bits' on at the times when most of its audience wants to listen, as if people who want to hear something more substantial don't, by preference, want to be listening at the peak listening times. Effectively, they are now being forced out and told to come back later. The BBC will do everything to get a 'broader audience' (that's code for 'more people') listening when it seems clear that the best place to reach the 'broader audience' is the mainstream services. Let those who are inclined to pursue classical music more deeply self-select and come to Radio 3 when they're ready.

[french frank]

As if you did not know

Quite!

[LMcD]

I think there is a difference between an 'occasional' use of any single movement (in a film, at a special event) where it's not realistic to play the entire work, and the policy that, even when there is time to play the whole work, only a movement is played because 'people are too busy to listen to the whole thing'/ 'people don't sit for that long for anything these days'/'it's too much to ask of people more used to Classic FM'.

It's a bad move to get people used to hearing only the 'well-known' part, the shortest part, the most attractive part. 'Education' entails people understanding what the work is - not 'Turandot is my favourite opera' when they mean 'I love Nessun dorma'. Radio 3, at least, should generally have at least half an eye on extending people's knowledge as well as giving them a 'feel good' factor. Who has a better opportunity than Radio 3 to inform and educate about classical music, as well as entertain??

[kernelbogey]

Where I can't understand the logic: why would people prefer to hear one movement of a work because they haven't time to listen to the whole work? If they have to go out and do something else, why don't they just go out in the middle - the performers won't be annoyed? How is that worse than hearing an isolated movement? For Radio 3 to give in to this 'too busy, too busy, haven't got time' seems like letting the tail wag the dog.

Having just reviewed the latter part of this thread, I can't see any reference to the influence of the internet on concentration and listening stamina.

In an interesting piece about his experiment with living without Google, Tim Dowling in The Guardian quotes Nicholas Carr:

In his book The Shallows [2010], Nicholas Carr describes familiar symptoms while trying to absorb text of any length: “My concentration starts to drift after a page or two. I get fidgety, lose the thread and begin to look for something else to do.” The book’s main contention is that our highly plastic brains are being rewired by the demands of online existence: an increased knack for mental multitasking comes at the price of our ability to think deeply. Google, he says, is a huge part of this: “Google is, quite literally, in the business of distraction.”

There is the actual experience of the listener, as imagined by Radio 3 mandarins, producers and presenters; and there is the influence of the attention spans of said producers on content.

Willy-nilly, it seems to me the omnipresent internet is influencing listening taste, one way of another, in the direction of frequently-changing short pieces.

Compare, too, the editing styles of films today with those of even thirty years ago: rapidly-changing, very short scenes are now the norm.

[french frank]

Willy-nilly, it seems to me the omnipresent internet is influencing listening taste, one way of another, in the direction of frequently-changing short pieces.

It brings us back to the old question: should Radio 3 simply follow popular taste/habits or should it lead people to something … different? I think it was John Drummond who said something like, 'If the BBC simply follows popular taste, it has no reason to exist.' I assume he meant as a publicly-funded, public service broadcaster. But if that applies to the BBC in general, it applies even more so to Radio 3.

If one is being critical about changing habits, one should surely ask: "Is it for the better? Is it of no importance? Is it for the worse?" I'm not sure it presages a hopeful future to have a population increasingly incapable of concentrating for longer than three or four minutes. Cui bono?

Add: Drummond said the BBC "has been an organisation which has seen itself as leading society, not following taste. If it no longer wishes to be that, I can't see any reason for its existence."

[kernelbogey]

If one is being critical about changing habits, one should surely ask: "Is it for the better? Is it of no importance? Is it for the worse?" I'm not sure it presages a hopeful future to have a population increasingly incapable of concentrating for longer than three or four minutes. Cui bono?

I don't disagree with any of this. My point is that the culture of Radio 3 is up against the almost irresistible pressure of the internet, and its promotion of short attention spans.

[MrGongGong]

Having just reviewed the latter part of this thread, I can't see any reference to the influence of the internet on concentration and listening stamina.

In an interesting piece about his experiment with living without Google, Tim Dowling in The Guardian quotes Nicholas Carr:

In his book The Shallows [2010], Nicholas Carr describes familiar symptoms while trying to absorb text of any length: “My concentration starts to drift after a page or two. I get fidgety, lose the thread and begin to look for something else to do.” The book’s main contention is that our highly plastic brains are being rewired by the demands of online existence: an increased knack for mental multitasking comes at the price of our ability to think deeply. Google, he says, is a huge part of this: “Google is, quite literally, in the business of distraction.”

There is the actual experience of the listener, as imagined by Radio 3 mandarins, producers and presenters; and there is the influence of the attention spans of said producers on content.

Willy-nilly, it seems to me the omnipresent internet is influencing listening taste, one way of another, in the direction of frequently-changing short pieces.

Compare, too, the editing styles of films today with those of even thirty years ago: rapidly-changing, very short scenes are now the norm.

Interesting

My experience is that there are often assumptions about attention spans that don't quite align with what really goes on.
I do think that radio is now (mostly) not the place where people listen to long-form work in uninterrupted ways.

Many years ago I made a website (sadly no longer online) with the Wigmore Hall archives. One of the most striking things about looking through 100 years of concerts was the way that many of the early concerts were full of short pieces in what many would now think of conflicting genres.
So there might be something like

Mr Bartok will play his new piano piece
followed by
A Beethoven string quartet
then
A poetry reading
then
A piano sonata
then
A comedy monologue
then
A trio sonata

etc

Often starting at 8 pm and judging by the length of the programme going on till 11 pm at the earliest

[doversoul1]

Interesting

My experience is that there are often assumptions about attention spans that don't quite align with what really goes on.
I do think that radio is now (mostly) not the place where people listen to long-form work in uninterrupted ways.

Many years ago I made a website (sadly no longer online) with the Wigmore Hall archives. One of the most striking things about looking through 100 years of concerts was the way that many of the early concerts were full of short pieces in what many would now think of conflicting genres.
So there might be something like

Mr Bartok will play his new piano piece
followed by
A Beethoven string quartet
then
A poetry reading
then
A piano sonata
then
A comedy monologue
then
A trio sonata

etc

Often starting at 8 pm and judging by the length of the programme going on till 11 pm at the earliest

It looks as if this was an evening entertainment and not a concert. In other words, the audience was not there to listen to the music, which, in tern, sounds just like the audience of Radio 3 these days is assumed to be doing.