Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[oddoneout]

I sympathise with that view - and you have suggested that you would welcome something a little 'better' than what we are currently getting.

Thank you, and yes I've always said that things could and should be better done regarding the morning schedule. What I don't support is ditching the whole thing completely - baby and bathwater spring to mind(the bathwater does need changing though!) as potentially replacing one alienated audience with another doesn't strike me as the best solution.

[jean]

Lunchtime O'Boulez has a piece on the Radio 3 listening figures in the new Private Eye - '...feeble, ill-informed presenters and a misjudged policy of undemanding programmes that that alienate established audiences and fail to win new ones...'

[Gasteiner]

It would be nice, wouldn't it, if some BBC R3 executive responsible for programming could make an appearance here and explain what they think they're playing at with the changes made to Essential Classics. This, after all, is the relevant music forum that's dedicated to discussions of Radio 3 programmes. I don't think they would get much applause, but at least we could get to hear what their game-plan is, whether it is proving "successful" from their point of view, and whether or not the typically negative comments that are frequently made here have cut any ice with them.

[ahinton]

Obviously decomposing!

That's such an old joke as applied to Carter continuing to compose at an age when other composers are decomposing!...

[french frank]

What I don't support is ditching the whole thing completely

Not sure what is implied by that. Programmes/schedules do change completely. Apart from a few decades-long programmes like CotW, Jazz Record Requests and Choral Evensong, Roger Wright changed everything he inherited from Nicholas Kenyon with the exception of In Tune. And presenters come and go - at least most of them do.

[Bax-of-Delights]

I am now a very infrequent listener to R3 and the reason is partly the recurring adverts for concerts up to a week before the event which continue after the concert as “catch-up” on Iplayer. And partly because the repetition of the same pieces over and over. A good example is the Urlicht movement from Mahler’s 2nd played yesterday on the Mixtape at 7 p.m. and hey presto it lurched into view again today in EC. This happens so often that I feel that R3 has absolutely nothing new to show me or indeed hold my interest.

[Andrew Slater]

Something to make you weep - I've posted in another thread a recording of R3 on a weekday at 10am in 1983 - proper full-length pieces and proper announcements. Oh, and a Bax symphony!

[Bax-of-Delights]

Sad isn’t it? There is a whole generation of listeners who’s only knowledge of Bax, Malcom Arnold and to a lesser extent, Vaughan Williams is “Tintagel”, “Padstow Lifeboat” and “Lark Ascending”.

[Serial_Apologist]

They're 'avin a lark.

[Andrew Slater]

To be fair, there's a prospect of Malcolm Arnold's 4th Symphony in or after October - I've just heard that the BBCCO will be playing it at the next MA Festival. I doubt whether it will be thought an 'Essential Classic', though ......

[LMcD]

As the programme started today, Suzy Klein said that she would later be playing part of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and invited listeners to say what they would follow it with. At that point I turned off in disgust. I've just sent in a very sarcastic email saying that if it wasn't the last movement, I'd follow it with the next movement, so I look forward to getting flamed by the producer. (I've just checked the schedule, and apparently it's the finale that they're broadcasting.)

A bleeding chunk of Mozart?

Saturn follows Jupiter (unless you're heading towards the sun, of course).

[peterthekeys]

Saturn follows Jupiter (unless you're heading towards the sun, of course).

Damn, missed that. (Don't tell me that someone actually suggested it? )

[peterthekeys]

It would be nice, wouldn't it, if some BBC R3 executive responsible for programming could make an appearance here and explain what they think they're playing at with the changes made to Essential Classics. This, after all, is the relevant music forum that's dedicated to discussions of Radio 3 programmes. I don't think they would get much applause, but at least we could get to hear what their game-plan is, whether it is proving "successful" from their point of view, and whether or not the typically negative comments that are frequently made here have cut any ice with them.

If only. I guess one can dream ...

One possibility struck me the other day (whilst I was listening to York Bowen's violin concerto on the internet station Audiophile Classical.) Maybe we should start our own internet radio station, and call it something like "NotRadio3". No chat, complete works, and lots of the music that R3 never seems to broadcast. If nothing else, it would be an interesting experiment to see what the reaction would be.

[peterthekeys]

I've just turned EC off again - this new format is just unbearable! Bit o' Bizet's L'Arlesienne; bit o' Brahms Symphony no.3; bit o' Bill Evans; now a bit o' Handel's Messiah. It's just somehow insulting to be treated as though one is incapable of digesting one's music without having to have it cut up into bite-sized chunks (at least, that's the way I feel about it. I'm sure others feel differently.)

(My internet radio arrives today. Can't wait ... )

[LMcD]

I used to listen to most, if not all, of EC. Now I tune in only occasionally in the hope that things may have improved - regrettably, IMHO they haven't. But...as you say, others may well feel differently.