Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Oliver]

If only he had instead of that awful recording of "Abide with Me", crooned by some US pop singer. I've just turned R3 back on.

And yes, I agree about the misuse of Rob Cowan.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If only he had instead of that awful recording of "Abide with Me", crooned by some US pop singer. I've just turned R3 back on.

I expect that's what they call a classic now.

[Richard Tarleton]

that might be someone's first hearing of Pachelbel's Canon - everybody should be allowed to hear it once

Thinking back I probably first heard this and many more like it on Your Hundred Best Tunes with Alan Keith on Radio 2/The Light Programme, my mother's favourite station - had tweeting been invented she would have tweeted him, as it is she wrote in regularly with requests

Come to think of it that would be a good name for Essential Classics these days - Your Hundred Best Tunes

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Come to think of it that would be a good name for Essential Classics these days - Your Hundred Best Tunes

Where are the other sixty?

[Flosshilde]

[Rob Cowan] has been part of some of the very best a.m. scheduling for decades eg CD Masters, yet here he is presiding over Noddy at the Turntables. How he does not scream and walk out in the middle of the programme I do not know. Has he no dignity? No sense of what R3 ought to be doing? Or does he just shrug - 'just a DJing job, mate! Get over it.'

'CD Masters' (sic) might have had fewer 'lollipops', but surely it was essentiall the same type of programme - the presenter (who was just as much a 'personality' as the current ones) played CDs & commented on them? (I can't remember, but I have a feeling that he might also have invited communication from listeners)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The programme was quite different. Alan Keith was warm, but never tried to be chummy or patronising. Furthermore, one hour a week was sufficient. We have Breakfast for 12 and half hours a week, plus the virtually identical Essential Classics for another 15 hours, plus the similar In Tune…

and so on.

[french frank]

'CD Masters' (sic) might have had fewer 'lollipops'

Yes, an important factor was that it played music - and interpretations - that were not run-of-the-mill, and in which Essential Classics differs by playing The Jimmy Brown Song and Randy Newman.

but surely it was essentiall the same type of programme - the presenter (who was just as much a 'personality' as the current ones) played CDs & commented on them?

It was a critical commentary by presenters who were talking about a narrow aspect of classical music about which both were admirably informed. And there were no guest celebrities. Or brainteasers. Or attempted interactivity.

(I can't remember, but I have a feeling that he might also have invited communication from listeners)

Ihave a feeling they didn't. It was enough of an intrusion when the trails began to appear in between pieces of music instead of at the natural junctions - an out-and-out marketing ploy.

I would also suppose that the presenters put their own programmes together. I wonder if Rob and Sarah have a think about which celebrities they'd like to invite?

Apart from anything else, we know what the Commissioning Brief was: to hang on to as much of the Breakfast programme (primary entry point for new listeners) as possible, and to persuade the post-Today listeners from Radio 4 to stay with BBC radio (instead of switching off or turning to Classic FM). That is absolutely NOT the audience that CD Masters was aimed at. CD Masters was not anything like Essential Classics - that's why it was axed.

[aeolium]

ff msg 877 - that's a fair summary. CD Masters was alternately presented by Rob Cowan and Jonathan Swain, who each had significantly different interests, and as the programme title suggested they were concerned with broadcasting classic - sometimes historic - performances and generally the complete work not an extract. The Monday CDM IIRC contained almost invariably the complete performance of the version selected in the previous Saturday's BaL, even if the work ran to more than an hour (though with operas I think a single act was more usually chosen). In EC by contrast the emphasis is on well-known works, often only in extracts, with plenty of interactivity and a celebrity guest - and the Monday BaL selection is often reduced to a mere 10 or 15 minute extract.

[Nick Armstrong]

Good guest this week. Choice today - Sibelius 7, so they didn't have much choice but to play all of it Perfect timing for me today. That Colin Davis / Boston performance is SO good

[cloughie]

'CD Masters' (sic) might have had fewer 'lollipops', but surely it was essentiall the same type of programme - the presenter (who was just as much a 'personality' as the current ones) played CDs & commented on them? (I can't remember, but I have a feeling that he might also have invited communication from listeners)

It was mostly full works not bleeding chunks - RC and JS occasionally communicated via the old R£ message board. When warhorses were played they were usually well-chosen versions.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Good guest this week. Choice today - Sibelius 7, so they didn't have much choice but to play all of it

I wouldn't count your chickens - not after what SM-P did to The Dream of Gerontius on The Choir.

[Nick Armstrong]

I wouldn't count your chickens - not after what SM-P did to The Dream of Gerontius on The Choir.

Oh cluck!

[Sir Velo]

I wouldn't count your chickens - not after what SM-P did to The Dream of Gerontius on The Choir.

You surely didn't expect them to play the whole of DoG on The Choir did you?

[Quarky]

Leaping into this thread, without looking at all at previous posts,it seems the programming problems of R3 are in the morning. As far as I am concerned the afternoon and evening programmes are passable/ good. The recent run of live concerts at 7.30 pm have been particularly good - witness the comments by Jayne et al.

But I'm not sure that the morning programmes are irredeemable. The mystery Gershwin piece this morning was very interesting - the Stride piano allusions giving the Composer away.

[MLF]

Agreed - simply dropping the constant refrains of "please tweet or text", temperatures and newspaper reviews would improve Breakfast enormously. EC would be rendered half listenable if the patronising "what am I" slot were dropped. (The recent series of interviews during the "Music on the Brink" feature was really rather good.) That and a new name - EC sounds like a Classic FM anthology.