Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[cloughie]

I'd put all guest spots, Celeb Presenters, Private Passions and the lot in Room 101 and use the precious time on R3 properly. Oh and whilst Room 101 door is open, RW can slide in there as well!

[Nick Armstrong]

I'd put all guest spots, Celeb Presenters, Private Passions and the lot in Room 101 and use the precious time on R3 properly. Oh and whilst Room 101 door is open, RW can slide in there as well!

I know what you mean, Cloughie, and generally agree... Just occasionally, the odd interesting one makes me waver.

But exceptional cases make bad laws.

Into Room 101 they go.... *crash*

[Suffolkcoastal]

I'd put all guest spots, Celeb Presenters, Private Passions and the lot in Room 101 and use the precious time on R3 properly. Oh and whilst Room 101 door is open, RW can slide in there as well!

Along with 3beebies, the rest of inessential witterings, in-tune, SR, PT and any gushy presenters.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Along with 3beebies, the rest of inessential witterings, in-tune, SR, PT and any gushy presenters.

I had the misfortune to catch the Irish Uriah Heep at his exercise yesterday evening cracking some lame joke about "Beezer" and a comic. I didn't get it and nor did the guests which made his attempts to explain it even more toe-curling than usual.

[Nick Armstrong]

Is Sarah Walker - or more likely a male producer on 'Essential Classics' - having a larff?? After a sequence of pieces involving women on Breakfast in honour of Women's Day, EC has begun with a sequence about birds...

Not very plitickly correct, shurely?!

[cloughie]

Is Sarah Walker - or more likely a male producer on 'Essential Classics' - having a larff?? After a sequence of pieces involving women on Breakfast in honour of Women's Day, EC has begun with a sequence about birds...

Not very plitickly correct, shurely?!

... an SMP master class in movement picking. TAILLEFERRE:Concertino for Harp & O Benet/WomensPO/Falletta should have been played - shear beauty! What's this with International Women's Day, anyway - they've got 366 this year as it is!

[teamsaint]

I had the misfortune to catch the Irish Uriah Heep at his exercise yesterday evening cracking some lame joke about "Beezer" and a comic. I didn't get it and nor did the guests which made his attempts to explain it even more toe-curling than usual.

I like to think That I am a tolerant man, but raffers is the limit.
His interview technique is surely unique..........

[french frank]

Anyway, getting back to Essential Classics: an interesting response from Radio 3 over on Facebook to the complaint of overplaying the familiar pieces:



"...what you or I may consider to be a hackneyed piece will always be new to someone else." So why not just repeat the same music every day? You can always rely on the fact that some new listeners won't have heard them before.

I rather liked the 'you don't have to leave Radio 3/the BBC and put on a CD; why not choose a programme on the iPlayer?' solution.

It doesn't really respond to the problem of the 'hackneyed pieces' when they could be playing something else which would equally please that someone else. And of course, it's up to us to respond to the problem created by Radio 3, not for Radio 3.

Poor show.

[Bax-of-Delights]

I'd wonder if anyone would pick up this response to a post of mine on R3's Facebook page. I too, thought it was an odd response and I left it overnight to mull it over before posting this reply:

"I may be missing something here but isn't the essence of a RADIO programme to grab a listener and KEEP them listening? Once you build in an allowance for listeners to drift off then surely you run the risk of them not coming back? At all. I cut my musical teeth on the Third programme and early Radio 3 which never compromised their stance as a purveyor of what was regarded as one of the senior Arts. Quality was never compromised for the sake of "marketing" to a perceived audience and in such fashion I encountered such diverse composers as Hindemith, Matyas Seiber and Schoenberg. I loved classical music in all its forms and what I particularly admired about the Third was its unwillingness to let me drift in the shallows picking over the same old stones. It pushed listeners into the deep end and in so doing expanded people's musical horizons. The perception now is that R3 has more or less abandoned this ethos in favour of "market share" by wheeling out the same pieces over and over again in the hope that those paddling around the shores of CFM will dip their toes into R3. In the end it all becomes just muzak - a familiar background sound - that will never frighten the horses. Or make them race. "

Sadly the R3 Facebook page is so constructed to make posts by "others" virtually invisible but I think it is important to keep needling in as constructive fashion as possible. I presume Graeme K is Rob Cowan's producer. RC is approx the same age is myself and infinitely more knowledgeable on music having worked in the business since a lad. I cannot believe, for a minute, that he doesn't stop and wonder why on earth he is playing Short Ride and La Valse for the umpteenth time and that choosing something other less well-known would do the same job: i.e. pulling in the toe-dippers and, incidentally, stopping those more well-versed from turning off.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd wonder if anyone would pick up this response to a post of mine on R3's Facebook page. I too, thought it was an odd response and I left it overnight to mull it over before posting this reply:

"I may be missing something here but isn't the essence of a RADIO programme to grab a listener and KEEP them listening? Once you build in an allowance for listeners to drift off then surely you run the risk of them not coming back? At all. I cut my musical teeth on the Third programme and early Radio 3 which never compromised their stance as a purveyor of what was regarded as one of the senior Arts. Quality was never compromised for the sake of "marketing" to a perceived audience and in such fashion I encountered such diverse composers as Hindemith, Matyas Seiber and Schoenberg. I loved classical music in all its forms and what I particularly admired about the Third was its unwillingness to let me drift in the shallows picking over the same old stones. It pushed listeners into the deep end and in so doing expanded people's musical horizons. The perception now is that R3 has more or less abandoned this ethos in favour of "market share" by wheeling out the same pieces over and over again in the hope that those paddling around the shores of CFM will dip their toes into R3. In the end it all becomes just muzak - a familiar background sound - that will never frighten the horses. Or make them race. "

Sadly the R3 Facebook page is so constructed to make posts by "others" virtually invisible but I think it is important to keep needling in as constructive fashion as possible. I presume Graeme K is Rob Cowan's producer. RC is approx the same age is myself and infinitely more knowledgeable on music having worked in the business since a lad. I cannot believe, for a minute, that he doesn't stop and wonder why on earth he is playing Short Ride and La Valse for the umpteenth time and that choosing something other less well-known would do the same job: i.e. pulling in the toe-dippers and, incidentally, stopping those more well-versed from turning off.

An excellent message to the Facebook site, Baxy. I couldn't have put it better.

[french frank]

I like the image of the Third/R3 being a deep pool in which listeners must take the plunge and fend for themselves. That was a defining characteristic, and a nicer image than the original 'no crutches', of the Third.

What say, Radio 3?

Oh, and: "I don't think the answer to personal dislikes is to deny music to others." Now that does work both ways, doesn't it? (Or rather, no, it doesn't, as far as Radio 3 is concerned now)

And Graeme Kay (for 'tis he) has now responded at length.

[french frank]

I think we should be appreciative that Graeme expresses the case in a much more thoughtful way than the standard Radio 3 brush-off that most critics get. But ...

"And, yes, some of the output sets out to entertain listeners and also attract non-aficionados. I've never really understood why some people appear to be so bitterly opposed to such an ambition."

To start with, I think 'aim' would be a better word than ambition. But, there seems to be an implication that some music is 'entertaining' and other music isn't. Light music, popular music, familiar music, tuneful music, easy listening are 'entertaining', but a string quartet by Schoenberg - or indeed, other works by John Adams than A Short Ride... - are not. I disagree: it's simply a matter of taste and, in many cases, of having become an 'aficionado'.

As for the 'ambition' of attracting 'non-aficionados': this would seem a good ambition if it were the BBC's, or even BBC Radio's. But Radio 2 used to do that; Radio 2 where the non-aficionados are to be found; Radio 2 with the welcoming and accessible style. But Radio 2 is divesting itself of its regular lighter orchestral/classical programmes (like Your Hundred Best Tunes or Melodies for You). Hence the necessity of catering for those audiences on Radio 3.

And let's not forget that it isn't simply a question of familiar pieces, it's the way they're packaged that turns 'aficionados' away. All peak hour listening on Radio 3 is now directed at the 'non-aficionados' and those who complain are told to pick their way in and out of the tiresome bits or resort to the iPlayer. This doesn't seem fair.

[Panjandrum]

To start with, I think 'aim' would be a better word than ambition. But, there seems to be an implication that some music is 'entertaining' and other music isn't. Light music, popular music, familiar music, tuneful music, easy listening are 'entertaining', but a string quartet by Schoenberg - or indeed, other works by John Adams than A Short Ride... - are not. I disagree: it's simply a matter of taste and, in many cases, of having become an 'aficionado'.

As for the 'ambition' of attracting 'non-aficionados': this would seem a good ambition if it were the BBC's, or even BBC Radio's. But Radio 2 used to do that; Radio 2 where the non-aficionados are to be found; Radio 2 with the welcoming and accessible style. But Radio 2 is divesting itself of its regular lighter orchestral/classical programmes (like Your Hundred Best Tunes or Melodies for You). Hence the necessity of catering for those audiences on Radio 3.

And let's not forget that it isn't simply a question of familiar pieces, it's the way they're packaged that turns 'aficionados' away. All peak hour listening on Radio 3 is now directed at the 'non-aficionados' and those who complain are told to pick their way in and out of the tiresome bits or resort to the iPlayer. This doesn't seem fair.

Have you considered posting the above on Facebook and giving Ralph some much needed moral support? You put it so eloquently it seems wasted here, preaching to the converted as it were.

[french frank]

Have you considered posting the above on Facebook and giving Ralph some much needed moral support? You put it so eloquently it seems wasted here, preaching to the converted as it were.

I might have done already but I'm not on Facebook. Working on it, though

[Bax-of-Delights]

I think you will find FF's observations - suitably incorporated in a lengthy response by myself - have now made an appearance on that particular Facebook thread.