3beebies aka Breakfast

[VodkaDilc]

would anyone be able to put a name to their ideal presenter (preferably living and available)?
I think I've got the message as to whom we don't like.

Natalie Wheen, Edward Seckerson - both knowledgeable, quirky, conversational without being patronising, thought-provoking - and both sacked by R3!

[mercia]

and as to knowledge, what sort of knowledge do we want them to have?
recording history? who recorded what, where and when and on what label? the latest releases?
or music theory? like what is sonata form and how many sharps there are in C sharp major?
or music history? when did such-and-such get written?
or what's happening in music, news of upcoming concerts etc.?
I guess there's knowledge and there's knowledge

EDIT - presumably we'd like them to be fluent in a few languages as well, to avoid any offensive mispronunciations

[teamsaint]

Rob Cowan.

[arancie33]

Rob Cowan.

Well, he probably meets mercia's first criterion at msg #242 but otherwise .....

[antongould]

does Rob Cowan come under the category of knowledgeable presenter?

To me yes

[french frank]

Clive Jenkins? Not sure I ever saw the Union leader presenting the Proms - but, I ask myself, why not? I remember him as being pretty articulate.

Whereas Clive Anderson is not. Despite his legal training...

Oops! mon mistake - yes, the rather wooden, autocue fixated Clive Anderson was he whom I meant.

Rob Cowan has specialist knowledge, namely, in interpretations on record. He was excellent in CD Masters, the first programme for which he became regular presenter. The suggestion made earlier (in this thread?) that on Essential Classics he might take a piece of music and deconstruct à la Discovering Music - probably not. They don't call for the same kind of knowledge. And it may be that for Radio 3's middle-of-the-target audience a presenter who could cope with a CD Masters-type programme and a Discovering Music-type programme could possibly be found, in that the most profound knowledge is not required for either. N'exagérons pas, as you might say.

Surely, first you decide what the programme is for and then you fit the presenter to it. A sow's ear of a programme doesn't need a silk purse of a presenter. The central problem about the R3 programmes now is the sow's ears.

[antongould]

Surely, first you decide what the programme is for and then you fit the presenter to it. A sow's ear of a programme doesn't need a silk purse of a presenter. The central problem about the R3 programmes now is the sow's ears.

For everyone's favourite sow's ears Breakfast and Essential Classics - Sara and Rob Cowan. No cash spent on house portraits Rob's looks like a not too clever holiday snap and Sara's is in the staff canteen!

[Norfolk Born]

Clemency Burton-Hill - daughter of Humphrey Burton.

Not come across her before this weekend.

She recently introduced two Berlin Phil concerts on BBC4. I found her interviews with Sir Simon quite interesting.

[mercia]

It should be specialist and provided by experts, its aim to deepen listeners' knowledge of music, not simply to entertain.

I'm still not quite sure what your ideal programme is. Would you like to have experts and specialists just talking about music - with little music actually being played?

[french frank]

I'm still not quite sure what your ideal programme is. Would you like to have experts and specialists just talking about music - with little music actually being played?

No such thing as an ideal programme. Discovering Music was one kind, Composer of the Week is another, the evening concert another, the lunchtime concert another, the music feature another. The amount of time spent talking about the music would depend.

I was looking at a 1988 schedule and there were more separate programmes, shorter programmes, longer pieces of music, so you didn't have all the gaps that have to be filled up with chat about Scrabble words, weather &c. In the earlier part of the day/morning there would be 5, 6, 7 pieces in the course of 90 minutes; say 14 in 3 hours compared with the 3-hour Breakfast's 23-27 pieces (haven't looked to see how many there are in the shorter programme).

'Specialist' is probably too 'specialised' for the average purely music programme, but I think the presenter contribution should be focused on the music itself - and should be accurate! The more knowledgeable the presenter, the better able they are to contribute new insights or less commonly related snippets of information.

Any good?

[mercia]

Any good?

Very, thanks.

I'd love to see some old schedules, I just can't remember how things were.

[french frank]

I'd love to see some old schedules, I just can't remember how things were.

Some of them presented the old warhorses, just like now. But here's one I found interesting (all information in the Radio Times):

Thursday 1 December 1988

6.55 Weather, followed by news headlines
7am Morning Concert
Purcell Chacony for strings
707 Daquin Suite for harpsichord No 3 in E minor
7.09 Chausson Poème
7.30 News
7.35 Walton Overture Scapino
7.43 J Strauss II Tales from the Vienna Woods
7.54 Gluck Dance of the Furies; Dance of the Blessed Spirits
8.05 Respighi Suite: The Birds
8.30 News
8.35 Composers of the Week
Balakirev & Cui
9.35 For Leon Goossens
Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake
Delius Two Interludes (Fennimore and gerda)
Josephs Prelude 'for Leon Goossens's 90th birthday'
Ridout Romance for oboe and piano
Templeton Scherzo caprice
Delius Morning Star
Richardson French Suite
!0.15 Czech Warriors
Dvorak Hussite overture
Janacek Ballad of Blanik
10.40 Late Mozart and Early Strauss (piano recital)
Strauss Stimmungsbilder
Mozart Sonata in F K 533/494
11.25 North Wales Music festival 1988
Mozart Symphony No 39
Schubert Symphony No 8
Beethoven Symphony No 5
1pm News
1.05 Bristol Lunchtime Concert - live from St George's
The First New Musicke: Italian and English Airs, 1600-1650
Emma Kirkby and Anthony Rooley
anon, Robert Jones, Alfonso Ferrabosco elder, Angelo Notari, Claudio Monteverdi, Nicholas Lanier, Alessandro Piccinini.Antonio Cifra, Henry Lawes
2pm Langham Chamber Orchestra
Carl Stamitz Symphony in D, Op 9/1
Rossini String Sonata No 6
Mozart Symphony No 27
2.45 The Oresteia, musical trilogy after Aeschylus
text AA Venkstern, music S Taneyev
5.30 Mainly for Pleasure
Lyndon Jenkins plays (!?) some rarely heard works for piano and orchestra
7pm News
7.05 Third Ear
Seiji Ozawa Musical Director of the Boston SO talks to Michael Hall
7.30 Boston SO - live from the RFH
Webern Five Pieces Op 10
Mahler Symphony No 9
9.05 The Idylls of Theocritus
Readings with music
9.35 Music in Our Time
A Stockhausen Celebration
Oberlippentanz; Ave; Traum-Formel; Xi
(All first UK broadcasts)
Tierkreis
Peformed by Stockhausen/family/associates
11pm Composer of the Week Berlioz
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
La Fuite en Egypte
12.00-12.05am News

[Roehre]

Well balanced, I have to say

[mercia]

two and three-quarter hours of Taneyev and no listen again facility
I wonder how many people got to hear that
oops, mustn't mention numbers
bit of a bummer if one doesn't like Chausson or Respighi, one might argue
also these days, one would expect to hear even a little choral music everyday but that day is bereft
are these archives online?

[french frank]

are these archives online?

I don't think so. I have a photocopy of that week's programmes, plus some notes taken of other schedules during the 70s-90s.

Don't forget there were reel-to-reel tape recorders and time switches. It would only need half-a-dozen enthusiasts to get together and decide who was going to record which bit!

But you are certainly right: imagine how many people would have listened to the whole piece 'live' - even in those cultivated times . But it was still thought worth broadcasting.