Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Wychwood]

..... cheap means of filling the available space. .

I take all the points you make, researcher, and sympathise, but "cheap" is a relative term, I suppose. I wonder how many people it takes to put this programme together -- and how many there are "on the other side of the glass" from the EC presenter each morning. (Can anyone on these boards help here?) As well as someone on the mixing desk, there's presumably an editor/producer in the studio to choose the 10.30 slot suggested by listeners and generally run the show, plus an assistant or two to monitor the emails and tweets solicited by the presenter. And maybe a researcher as well? Not to mention pre-recorded segments -- such as the week's interviewee and the "Classical Century" feature.

Overall, probably not as cheap as having a well-informed presenter on her/his own introduce and back-announce CDs for three hours.

[Edgy 2]

Lunchtime Concerts are quite often very good, and some of the recent 11.00 a.m. concerts from the Edinburgh Festival have been outstanding.

They will be sorely missed from tomorrow

[Anastasius]

Roughly once or twice each week my wife and I have to drive 40 or 50 km to Cheltenham or Bristol, and, naturally, R3 comes to mind. Though it frequently goes off again almost immediately owing to the amount of waffle and stupid 'competitions' going on. In the face of all that, the noise of the road is frequently preferable. The cripts used to introduce competitions and the like seems repetitive, banal, condescending, and fatuous - to say nothing of boring.

One can only surmise that this 'programme' and others ('mixtape' whatever that is, tape having gone out with the ark, 'playlists', etc..) are conceived as cheap means of filling the available space.

Usually only live concert broadcasts and 'Composer of the Week' are worth devoting attention to. It's a sad come-down after earlier years when listening to the Third Programme was what drew me into a life in music.

Couldn't agree with you more. Banal doesn't even begin to describe this programme.

[MrGongGong]

tape having gone out with the ark[/B], 'playlists', etc..)

I'm about to release a cassette album of new pieces... tape is very much alive and thriving
I think you might be shooting yourself in the foot a bit

[peterthekeys]

I'm about to release a cassette album of new pieces... tape is very much alive and thriving
I think you might be shooting yourself in the foot a bit

Strange coincidence. I'm currently digitising a large number of cassettes - mostly recorded from R3 in the '70s and early '80s. The main things which stand out are: (a) complete works (whether multi-movement or not), and (b) the exquisitely-modulated voices of the announcers, as they state the identity of the last item, and then announce the next one. No gush, no chat, no gimmicks - just announcements.

The nostalgia is almost unbearable. To quote Joni Mitchell: "Don't it always seem to go - that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

(BTW - I'm quite surprised at how well the cassettes have lasted: a few dropouts, but mostly still OK. Still amazes me how they managed to achieve such good sound-quality out of four-track stereo on 1/8" tape at 1.875 in/sec.)

[Frances_iom]

Banal doesn't even begin to describe this programme.

For the last couple of weeks there has been an excellent concert in the 11am slot - today we are back to the cheap + nasty - for me back to CDs but I really enjoyed those Edinburgh Festival concerts - why could they not delve into the archive and send SK (and a few 'friends' on gardening leave to enjoy tweets etc)

[Ein Heldenleben]

For the last couple of weeks there has been an excellent concert in the 11am slot - today we are back to the cheap + nasty - for me back to CDs but I really enjoyed those Edinburgh Festival concerts - why could they not delve into the archive and send SK (and a few 'friends' on gardening leave to enjoy tweets etc)

I don’t think the interview just on with Semyon Bychcov could remotely be described as “cheap and nasty.” On the contrary it was both moving and informative . His performance of the 3rd movt of Brahms 3 with the WDR was a model of how to conduct a slow movement and showed ( referring to the Proms Leipzig thread ) how to sustain pulse with rubato in a way that didn’t happen in Friday’s Bruckner 8.

[LMcD]

For the last couple of weeks there has been an excellent concert in the 11am slot - today we are back to the cheap + nasty - for me back to CDs but I really enjoyed those Edinburgh Festival concerts - why could they not delve into the archive and send SK (and a few 'friends' on gardening leave to enjoy tweets etc)

These 11.00 a.m. concerts have been discussed - and widely praised - on the 'Edinburgh International Festival, 2019' thread.

[LezLee]

SK has just said - "the fith of September", closely followed by one of my pet hates - 'centred around'. Has anyone ever tried to draw something 'centred around' something else?

[peterthekeys]

SK has just said - "the fith of September", closely followed by one of my pet hates - 'centred around'. Has anyone ever tried to draw something 'centred around' something else?

Reminds me of Spike Milligan's story about once when he was staying in (think it was) Dublin: the taxi drew up outside the hotel, and a porter rushed down the steps, grabbed his suitcase, and said: "If you'd like to follow me, sir, I'll be right behind you."

[Ein Heldenleben]

I take all the points you make, researcher, and sympathise, but "cheap" is a relative term, I suppose. I wonder how many people it takes to put this programme together -- and how many there are "on the other side of the glass" from the EC presenter each morning. (Can anyone on these boards help here?) As well as someone on the mixing desk, there's presumably an editor/producer in the studio to choose the 10.30 slot suggested by listeners and generally run the show, plus an assistant or two to monitor the emails and tweets solicited by the presenter. And maybe a researcher as well? Not to mention pre-recorded segments -- such as the week's interviewee and the "Classical Century" feature.

Overall, probably not as cheap as having a well-informed presenter on her/his own introduce and back-announce CDs for three hours.

That would have been more approx the staffing forty years ago - probably four people behind the glass and two maybe three in the office preparing the next day’s programme . I don’t know how many there are now but I would be surprised if it’s much less . There is an awful lot of process involved in even the most apparently simple programmes much of which revolves around scripting , copyright logging , timings , getting the CDS out of the library and checking them etc . You’d be surprised how labour intensive it is. Disc progs are however vastly cheaper than live or recorded relays or indeed recorded studio sessions.

[gurnemanz]

It probably makes us old fossils but we still buy the The Radio Times as a convenient way of checking what's on R3. (Our children find it amusingly quaint when they come round). The blurb for EC today gives no indication whatsoever of what is to played. Unfortunately the BBC only supplies actual programme details from midday on. It tells us to expect "Suzy Klein with chat and music" - ie three hours' worth of random stuff. Music doesn't even get first mention. I don't like to sound so negative - it might be an OK listen - but this approach does not encourage me to tune in.

[antongould]

“Has no one else noticed that ....... as an oasis of great music, is being gradually destroyed? It is invaded increasingly by light-classical and light music (eg in the early morning ... programmes): and listeners are presented with more and more magazine programmes, and assortments of bits and pieces ....... I protested to the Director of Music in the hope that he would be glad to reassure me, but my letter was not answered. If it is not yet time to mourn the passing of an exceptional flower of our culture, let us recognise and condemn this deplorable tendency to propagate and tolerate the trivial. Who is it that imagines or pretends that there is any merit in broadcasting jaunty little tunes interspersed with a disc-jockey’s chatter?”

Well that’s me told - but when ........ ????

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm about to release a cassette album of new pieces... tape is very much alive and thriving
I think you might be shooting yourself in the foot a bit

I really must get up to the local flea market and purchase as many of the old cassettes they always have going for a quid apiece, bootlegs of LPs from the 1970s and 1980s mostly labelled in felt tip, so that I can get back to taping off the wireless once more.

[Serial_Apologist]

Strange coincidence. I'm currently digitising a large number of cassettes - mostly recorded from R3 in the '70s and early '80s. The main things which stand out are: (a) complete works (whether multi-movement or not), and (b) the exquisitely-modulated voices of the announcers, as they state the identity of the last item, and then announce the next one. No gush, no chat, no gimmicks - just announcements.

Yes, I can corroborate that.

The nostalgia is almost unbearable. To quote Joni Mitchell: "Don't it always seem to go - that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

Yes, yes, Yes!

(BTW - I'm quite surprised at how well the cassettes have lasted: a few dropouts, but mostly still OK. Still amazes me how they managed to achieve such good sound-quality out of four-track stereo on 1/8" tape at 1.875 in/sec.)

Mine too - just a few from the 1970s and early '80s which have been played many times have deteriorated somewhat. In a few instances I've managed after a fashion to re-splice tapes which got caught up in the playing mechanism, trying my impatience with being all thumbs and fingers to the ultimate, but thereby saving invaluable historic evidence while reminding that people talked a lot more sense than they do nowadays on Radio 3, and not just Radio 3.