Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[french frank]

What proportion of the long standing Radio 3 audience is it felt is complaining? Or to put it more simply the majority or the minority?

As most people say nothing, no one knows the exact answer.

I go by the people who do express their views. But, as I've said, the potential audience for a lighter style of programme is going to be larger. That's the gamble the R3 management is taking - that they'll desert whatever station they're currently listening to and switch to Radio 3 instead.

As a regular listener to Your Call the participants seem to be mostly long standing knowledgeable listeners this morning's even chose Bruckner. On the quiz as my fellow shill says they seem to get loads of answers to questions that are way beyond me.

I assume they wouldn't be chosen if they weren't. But if you're talking about majorities and minorities, I don't think even RW would claim that more than a minuscule percentage, with several noughts to the right of the decimal point, of the listeners respond at all.

I remain convinced in my imbecilic view that 06.30 to 12.00 since the changes is considerably better that what filled the space before.

I would suggest that what you mean is that you prefer it ... I don't think that's imbecilic, but since you say you were a Wogan fan, it might be thought that such listeners do ill to push their preferences on those who were here first and who are now told if they don't like it they should sling their hooks. And preferably shut up too. [Add: Not that you've ever been that rude! ]

That aside, my conviction is that there should be serious arts broadcasting, including classical music, on Radio 3. To remove that serious programming (which precludes quizzes, phone-ins, text messages about favourite smells, discussions about what your choice of sandwich filling reveals about you &c in between pieces of music) - or rather to leave only a few vestiges here and there - from the entire morning schedule, which is the most popular time for listening, does not fulfil my view of what Radio 3 should do. And I hope very much the enterprise is a failure in the one respect in which it hopes to succeed, namely, attracting more listeners.

[DracoM]

It would be good to know from a Wogan fan how he/she felt when Wogan eventually left and the current incumbent moved in? Might give him/her an insight into how many R3 fans feel about what happened to their station that now between 6.30-noon some of us find frankly unlistenable to.

For me, R3 has got itself into a real mess: it has no firm idea of its identity, it dithers and havers between Radio 2 - chat, tweets, phone-ins and trivial to make us scream and extended Friday Night is Music Night faves a la Radio 2.5 [ its nickname behind the scenes I gather] . It feels to me that there is now a pre-noon timings related series of playlists i.e. the computer linked to the library brings up a selection from eight minute items or under before 9, then moves onto the ten -15 minute items after 9 a.m. So long as Vivaildi, Mozart, Butterworth, Vaughan Williams lighter pieces are rotated in there somewhere, so that no one gets scared or challenged, or shocked into being educated.

[antongould]

I left before Wogan left and came to Radio 3 via, as I have said before, Private Passions and Breakfast. I do not regret it for one moment and would not return even if Sir Terence was still about.
I have no wish to force my views on anyone nor as I recall have I suggested that anyone slings their hook. My point on the new morning schedule being better than the previous one was made to see if any one agreed with me, which, let's be honest, would be an unusual occurrence!

[EdgeleyRob]

a la Radio 2.5 [ its nickname behind the scenes I gather]

I call it diet Radio 3

I remain convinced...........that 06.30 to 12.00 since the changes is considerably better that what filled the space before.

Crikey !

[Old Grumpy]

I left before Wogan left and came to Radio 3 via, as I have said before, Private Passions and Breakfast. I do not regret it for one moment and would not return even if Sir Terence was still about.
I have no wish to force my views on anyone nor as I recall have I suggested that anyone slings their hook. My point on the new morning schedule being better than the previous one was made to see if any one agreed with me, which, let's be honest, would be an unusual occurrence!

Anton, I would suggest that the musical content is much the same (no better/no worse). I could do without the tweets, txts and emails (most of them anyway) and the irrelevant (i.e. non-arts related) snippets from the papers. Also the Front pages and the news headlines at 0745 could go too. Not that much bothered about Your Call either. Otherwise I agree with you!

OG

Edit: I realise this is on the Essential Classics thread and I am talking about Breakfast, but I am at work when Essential Classics is on.

[rank_and_file]

Albion

Your post 114 absolutely excellent, and I am sure most users of this board agree with you.

Thank you for the succinct summary of the way the times have changed.

[DracoM]

Anton, I would suggest that the musical content is much the same (no better/no worse). I could do without the tweets, txts and emails (most of them anyway) and the irrelevant (i.e. non-arts related) snippets from the papers. Also the Front pages and the news headlines at 0745 could go too. Not that much bothered about Your Call either. Otherwise I agree with you!

OG

Edit: I realise this is on the Essential Classics thread and I am talking about Breakfast, but I am at work when Essential Classics is on.

Aha! So you're the wrong kind of listener!

[french frank]

Anton, I would suggest that the musical content is much the same (no better/no worse). I could do without the tweets, txts and emails (most of them anyway) and the irrelevant (i.e. non-arts related) snippets from the papers. Also the Front pages and the news headlines at 0745 could go too. Not that much bothered about Your Call either. Otherwise I agree with you!

But you are detailing all the things which the critics dislike, aren't you? So you agree with them too?

As for the music being 'much the same', it does depend what you're comparing it with. There are 50%-100% more pieces than there were earlier in the Mo3 days. Therefore 50%-100% more gaps between them which the presenter seeks to fill with snippets of features, news and weather, and all the other things. Essential Classics may have some longer pieces of music, but it has all the texts, guests, quizzes, parlour games, either music-related or not music-related.

I'm not sure why the R3 people don't work out that what we all have in common is an enthusiasm for listening to classical music, and just stick to playing it.

[Suffolkcoastal]

As we're coming to the end of my 3rd year of surveying R3's music ouput, you can definitely see a pattern now emerging of whcih composers are 'in' and which 'out'. Which ones are being slowly promoted and which ones slowly pushed to one side. There is also evidence of occasional almost knee jerk reactions, often in reaction to a statement on the current Boards or old R3 Boards, which proves the R3 team do monitor us. I mentioned at the start of the year the serious decline in the amount of Nielsen played in 2010 for example, this year that has been largely rectified, however if the R3 team have decided that a composer is now 'out' then no amount of persuasion will make them change their minds. The other worrying trend is the proportion of 'warhorses' that make up a composers total. Almost all of the Khachturian played for example is either from Gayaneh, Spartacus or Masquerade and a little over 25% of Prokofiev consists of bits of Romeo & Juliet, already up on last year. It is the overplaying of the same pieces that is really hurting R3 at the moment and is for me the largest single musical problem with R3.

[Albion]

Albion

Your post 114 absolutely excellent, and I am sure most users of this board agree with you.

Thank you for the succinct summary of the way the times have changed.

Thanks for the response - I'm not sure just how many people here would remember Radio 3 from 30 (or even 20) years ago...



Another factor is the effective loss of the regional orchestras (which used to be the 'work-horses' for the BBC in terms of playing repertoire outside the mainstream, often by living composers) and their enterprising conductors. Do you remember the days of Norman Del Mar, Maurice Miles, Bryden Thomson, Charles Groves, Christopher Seaman, Meredith Davies, John Pritchard, Maurice Handford ...



Now everything is generalised in terms of repertoire, it's self-evidently easier and cheaper to put a CD into a machine rather than schedule an orchestra for a series of invitation concerts of unusual and otherwise-unrecorded works: memories of more enterprising times have been collectively lost and nobody in the Radio 3 broom-cupboard at Broadcasting House seems even remotely interested in thinking outside the box. Perhaps they are simply incapable of doing so.



Note to self - must remember to lie down, turn up toes and quietly fossilize.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not sure just how many people here would remember Radio 3 from 30 (or even 20) years ago...

Well I for one do, and with over 1000 audio cassettes to prove the case against Mr Wright and his cronies I feel extraordinarily privileged to have lived through those years and learned so much that I almost feel myself to be a mine of information on 20th century music, in particular. Some years ago I was one of a number of interviewees on a R3 series on Britiish jazz. Several listeners told me I should have applied for a job as presenter... on Resonance FM!!!

[Nick Armstrong]

Well I for one do, and with over 1000 audio cassettes to prove the case against Mr Wright and his cronies I feel extraordinarily privileged to have lived through those years and learned so much that I almost feel myself to be a mine of information on 20th century music, in particular. Some years ago I was one of a number of interviewees on a R3 series on Britiish jazz. Several listeners told me I should have applied for a job as presenter... on Resonance FM!!!

[antongould]

As for the music being 'much the same', it does depend what you're comparing it with. There are 50%-100% more pieces than there were earlier in the Mo3 days. Therefore 50%-100% more gaps between them which the presenter seeks to fill with snippets of features, news and weather, and all the other things. Essential Classics may have some longer pieces of music, but it has all the texts, guests, quizzes, parlour games, either music-related or not music-related.

As I have commented before I feel there is a tendency to confuse discussion on the changes that happened recently i.e. Rob Cowan to Essential Classics with changes that happened in 2006/7(?) or gradually even earlier. There was an element again IMHO of rubbishing Essential Classics before a note had been broadcast which I and others commented on.
Old Grumpy's response to my post on an improvement in the Morning Schedule said to 09.00 the music was much the same - I agree and I would say that the music both in variety and length of piece from 09.00 to 12.00 is better thanit was before the recent changes.

[amcluesent]

I remember the Third Programme had 'One is Telephoning' and you pushed Button A when connected to the BBC Studio.

[aeolium]

As we're coming to the end of my 3rd year of surveying R3's music ouput, you can definitely see a pattern now emerging of whcih composers are 'in' and which 'out'. Which ones are being slowly promoted and which ones slowly pushed to one side. There is also evidence of occasional almost knee jerk reactions, often in reaction to a statement on the current Boards or old R3 Boards, which proves the R3 team do monitor us. I mentioned at the start of the year the serious decline in the amount of Nielsen played in 2010 for example, this year that has been largely rectified, however if the R3 team have decided that a composer is now 'out' then no amount of persuasion will make them change their minds. The other worrying trend is the proportion of 'warhorses' that make up a composers total. Almost all of the Khachturian played for example is either from Gayaneh, Spartacus or Masquerade and a little over 25% of Prokofiev consists of bits of Romeo & Juliet, already up on last year. It is the overplaying of the same pieces that is really hurting R3 at the moment and is for me the largest single musical problem with R3.

Yes, Suffolkcoastal, I'd be interested in your statistics for some composers I feel have been dropping out of favour lately - Tippett especially and also Carter, and of the baroque composers Rameau, Gluck and to some extent Corelli (apart from well-known works like La Folia). There is also the over-emphasis on well-known works of composers who are frequently broadcast - how often has that Haydn Gypsy Trio (on again the other night) been played, as if none of his other piano trios were any good?

The other aspect is the way programmes are tied in to other BBC projects, for instance the current Symphony one, which has resulted in the playing of well-known symphonies in Ao3 (as well as on Essential Classics and Po3) including an ongoing Beethoven cycle. Also I've had the feeling that BaL's of late have increasingly featured very well-known pieces, such as the Symphonie Fantastique and the Pastoral symphony, rather than off-the-beaten-track pieces as used to be the case more often in the past.