Inside Music

[french frank]

I feel for a child growing up in a house where there are no books and where classical music is met with a short dismissive remark. Maybe 'Inside Music' and Jess Gillam , if she's still around, are just the answer.

And what are they doing to get that target adult audience, still less a child, to listen to any programme on Radio 3?

[Quarky]

I haven't heard 'Inside Music' but the title does imply analysis rather than emotional reactions in the manner of Radio 4's 'Inheritance tracks' . I gave up on 'Private Passions' becasue it fell between two stools , being neither an in-depth interview of the subject nor , really, a programme of music.
.

Private Passions was very good today, with Wayne Sleep, a spritely 75 year old dancer. Michael Berkeley's voice I find rather pompous, but putting my prejudice aside, he does have intelligent remarks to make. Conclusion - the value of the programme depends on the choice of subject.

I would be happy to have more chat programmes with musicians and people involved in some way or another with music talking about music.

Of the current batch, I dislike TS's Listening Service and Classical Fix......

[jonfan]

We don't seem to have any in depth programmes on music at all nowadays: Hans Keller, Alec Robertson, Antiony Hopkins - distant memories for some and unknown to many. TS can be very good when he's not trying to be too chatty, a sort of lightweight Antony Hopkins. TS's columns in BBC Music Mag are generally very good, probably because he's not talking!! Inside Music doesn't intend to go far into any particular piece and the attracton is the enthusiam of the speaker and what moves them. It doesn't seem to be scripted which makes it seem a personal chat with the listener as a friend. Helen C was good yesterday and so was Michael Collins and Anna Lapwood [now so experienced that speaking to an unseen audience comes very naturally]. The whole is a pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

[french frank]

I would be happy to have more chat programmes

Meuh, fewer chat programmes, more speech/discussion programmes. Are there really so few people who want uninterrupted 'serious'/in depth programmes that Radio 3 devotes so few hours to it?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Private Passions was very good today, with Wayne Sleep, a spritely 75 year old dancer. Michael Berkeley's voice I find rather pompous, but putting my prejudice aside, he does have intelligent remarks to make. Conclusion - the value of the programme depends on the choice of subject.

I would be happy to have more chat programmes with musicians and people involved in some way or another with music talking about music.

Of the current batch, I dislike TS's Listening Service and Classical Fix......

Wayne’s mother had one helluva voice…

[gurnemanz]

Meuh, fewer chat programmes, more speech/discussion programmes. Are there really so few people who want uninterrupted 'serious'/in depth programmes that Radio 3 devotes so few hours to it?

I don't generally feel the need for too much uninterrupted deep, serious stuff on Radio 3. I have plenty of books and nowadays the internet.

I have good memories of Talking about Music, but I didn't actually listen that often. I did listen on a Sunday morning to Music Magazine with Julian Herbage and Anna Instone which had a wide variety of worthwhile contributions (preceded by a listeners' request show.)

I loved Hans Keller, even though a lot of the time I wasn't quite sure what he was on about. I became a Private Eye subscriber late 60s (still am umpteen years later) and remember their music correspondent, Hans Killer, whose articles in impenetrable prose always began ” Not since Pfitzner..."

[french frank]

I don't generally feel the need for too much uninterrupted deep, serious stuff on Radio 3. I have plenty of books and nowadays the internet.

Someone else might also say they had no need for uninterrupted music on Radio 3 because they have plenty of CDs, concert-going, online YouTube &c. The moan is that Radio 3 now has hardly any serious discussion, analysis, in-depth interviews with people engaged in the arts. One doesn't even need to criticise what's actually on Radio 3, be it Breakfast, Essential Classics, This Classical Life, Inside Music, Classical Fix, Night Tracks, Composed, Piano Flow, to say nothing of Tearjerker and Happy Harmonies, to bemoan what isn't available any more: Radio 3's staple diet of 'serious stuff', but okay, if that's not what anyone wants nowadays … Just a bit hard on the apparently infinitesimal minority who would like something more intellectually stimulating

[smittims]

It would be nice to think 'Sam' is going to cure all this, but as weeks turn into months and there's still no announcment of what he's planning, I fear it will all be a damp squib, and R3 will continue to slide downhill into yet more dumbing-down masquerading as exciting new initiatives.

[kernelbogey]

...what isn't available any more: Radio 3's staple diet of 'serious stuff', but okay, if that's not what anyone wants nowadays … Just a bit hard on the apparently infinitesimal minority who would like something more intellectually stimulating

Upthread someone said that what is now lost is reason to believe that whenever one switches on R3 there will be something of interest to hear.

[french frank]

Upthread someone said that what is now lost is reason to believe that whenever one switches on R3 there will be something of interest to hear.

That would seem a rather sweeping - and individual! - point of view. It can mean no more than that that individual finds more of interest now, though it leaves unstated exactly what has been (thankfully?) lost since, say, 1992 which renders R3 more 'listenable'**. An assertion rather than a statement of fact? The intellectual content of Radio 3 was its raison d'être. What is it now if no longer that?

** Quotes, I see, not really necessary as the usage was recorded, without quotes, in The Listener in 1964. The Oxford Mail still used quotes in 1958, but American usage is recorded in 1920.

[eighthobstruction]

Upthread someone said that what is now lost is reason to believe that whenever one switches on R3 there will be something of interest to hear.

....it may be that to increase listening radar numbers....we should all turn on R3 but turn the volume to mute....

[french frank]

....it may be that to increase listening radar numbers....we should all turn on R3 but turn the volume to mute....

Nah, that would look as if they were getting it right

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm up for having my mind changed on this programme. However, the sales pitch of "Inside Music" suggested knowledgeable musicians would discuss pieces analytically, technically (as in Discovering Music). I don't feel the starting point of 'music that means something to me' or 'music I love' is likely to be the kind of objective discussion I looked for. It has to be filtered through the lens of 'I've selected works I like' (with comments on what I like it, what it means to me?), doesn't it?

Yesterday’s programme was a cut above many, with Sakari Oramo being the ‘insider’ with an interesting and off-piste range of music. Very enjoyable.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001kvlj?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

[Nick Armstrong]

Yesterday’s programme was a cut above many, with Sakari Oramo being the ‘insider’ with an interesting and off-piste range of music. Very enjoyable.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0...n=share-mobile

Interestingly, Oramo chose a movement from the Janáček Kreutzer Sonata “brilliantly played” by the Alban Berg Quartet - which iirc didn’t feature at all in the BAL survey a few hours earlier…

[french frank]

Interestingly, Oramo chose a movement from the Janáček Kreutzer Sonata “brilliantly played” by the Alban Berg Quartet - which iirc didn’t feature at all in the BAL survey a few hours earlier…

No, I've just been listening again. Half a dozen had honourable name checks (eg Leipzigers, Mandelrings, Wihans) but the ABs weren't even among those - unless I dropped off in the middle.