Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Frances_iom]

... The whole concept seems very flawed (imho) and I don't see what R3 actually gains.

your initial premise that R3 will switch back to a 'strictly classical mode' is flawed - it won't - the ratchet has now gone a couple of stops further towards a cross between R2(as was) and CFm

[Lancashire Lass]

But. If the object of the film music theme is to attract new listeners, what happens to those new listeners once Radio 3 switches back at the end of the month to a strictly classical mode?

Surely they won't stick around and those of us who have given up may not drift back ...

And will they want to put up with more than five minutes of this overkill anyway? Someone who enjoys the odd burst of John Williams between the more populist works of Mozart etc. may well get sick of the cloyingness of it all.

At the other end of the scale, it may even be too intellectual! By the time the presenter has explained the context to the piece, with reference to the European emigres, development of the film noir and the decline of the Hollywood studio system, followed by something that isn't the Superman theme, they may well have switched back to Cfm.

The crying shame is that there's some good stuff being played and some good commentary on it. In small doses I'd make a point of listening. But I've more or less turned off until it's over.

[Black Swan]

I suggest there is some merit in all the film broadcasts. The US Homeland Security can download the Podcasts, as I heard they are available, to play to the prisoners in Guantanamo instead of Water Boarding.

[Nick Armstrong]

What on earth has Dr Sarah Walker been taking? Today's "brainteaser" quiz was promised to be "challenging" and put together by "boffins". I was expecting, at the least, a multi-part question along the lines of those that used to be posed in the Gramophone, involving laborious checking in Grove and hunting out obscure long forgotten records. What we got was "Juliet as a Young Girl", and were then asked to text or tweet in who was dancing. Jeez.

There's a Noddy/Blue Peter aspect to the brainteaser thing that's utterly nauseating. Is it Susan Sharpe that's forced to read out the three clues .... in.... the.... slow.... word.... by... word... style that might be more appropriate to educationally-challenged 5-year-olds...? Awful... and as Norfy has just pointed out elsewhere, it's set in stone now (I had the feeling that in the past it was more occasional):

If you take the 'Radio Times', you will have noticed (and if you don't, you may well have suspected, or deduced) that Essential Classics is now officially segmented - or do I mean fragmented:
0900 Essential CD of the Week
0930 The daily brain teaser
1000 Artist of the Week
1030 Guest of the Week
1100 Host's Essential Choice
On Mondays, there is also the Building a Library recommendation
This week, the essential choices - which occupy the longest segment - could fairly be described as 'risk-averse': Brahms 2nd piano concerto, Britten Serenade, Mozart 'Prague' symphony, Schubert 'Unfinished'.

[french frank]

Announcing the different parts of the programme can act two ways: for those who hate the guest spot or brainteaser, you can easily avoid them but still listen - thus keeping the audience figures up. (Alternatively, if you really look forward to a daily mental work-out, you can tune in specially for the brainteaser...)

[Bryn]

Would CFM have a listing in its on-line schedule such as this?

Orchestra: RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra.
Performer: Кирилл Петрович Кондрашин.

[Zucchini]

Would CFM have a listing in its on-line schedule such as this?
"Orchestra: RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. Performer: Кирилл Петрович Кондрашин."

At this very moment about 50 forum members have covered the carpet in booklets out of their 6,000+ CDs of dead performers, attempting to be the first to post his/her/its identity before the footie starts...

[Sir Velo]

Obviously the Beeb expects us all to be au fait with the cyrillic alphabet, but for those who aren't I'm happy to attribute it to Kiril Kondrashin.

[Bryn]

Obviously the Beeb expects us all to be au fait with the cyrillic alphabet, but for those who aren't I'm happy to attribute it to Kiril Kondrashin.

Ahem. Kyril Petrovich Kondrashin, I think you intended, surely?

[Sir Velo]

Well if we're doing patronymics, bien sur.

[teamsaint]

but nobody got it before kickoff, so Zuchers must be disappointed.....

[french frank]

What it surely shows is that whoever prepared the online playlist hadn't a clue who it was and just pasted the Cyrillic version. I noticed this a couple of days ago where a couple of works had the conductor as Васи́лий Серафи́мович Сина́йский .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfpm4

[Bryn]

Just to say that while I only remember a few, mainly chemistry related, words of Russian from my "Science Russian" classes at school, I can transliterate Cyrilic easily enough. I just thought it amusing that the Beeb appeared to expect all Essential Classics listeners to be conversant with it.

[Bryn]

What it surely shows is that whoever prepared the online playlist hadn't a clue who it was and just pasted the Cyrillic version. I noticed this a couple of days ago where a couple of works had the conductor as Васи́лий Серафи́мович Сина́йский .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfpm4

And he's one of their own!

[french frank]

And he's one of their own!

Remind me, who was the previous PGC of the BBC Phil?

Ooh, let me see, wasn't is Васи́лий Серафи́мович Сина́йский ?

Yeah, I think you're right, Васи́лий Серафи́мович Сина́йский it was.