Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Lento]

Really? Made me cross! So easy as to be a patronising waste of time, was my grumpy thought as I switched off.

I suspect they only did it for the amusement value, but if people weren't amused then it would be as you say for many listeners. It was the downward glissando at the "end" that tickled me.

[Lento]

Yesterday's - about Liszt and Nicholas l - wasn't a "brain-teaser" - it was a historical fact, which you either knew or you didn't. What was the point of asking it? Why guess if you didn't know the answer?

I think it was meant to be a harmless bit of fun for those of us who did not know the correct answer (I didn't myself try to guess). If you didn't find it such, then 9.30am weekday mornings is probably likely to irritate you on many occasions!

[Zucchini]

a chance to hear Maazel and the Clevelanders in Prokofiev 5....

By chance, El Calabacin, I heard it played by the CBSO at Symphony Hall last night, coupled with War & Peace overture and (the reason for going) Piemontese playing Beethoven 4 with extreme elegance and simplicity on a gorgeous piano. Good

[Nick Armstrong]

I suspect they only did it for the amusement value, but if people weren't amused then it would be as you say for many listeners. It was the downward glissando at the "end" that tickled me.

What bugged me is that they don't seem to have realised that melodies including a 'trill' like motif, like the opening of RiB or - the other week - the start of Fur Elise, sound the same backwards as forwards! Same applied to 'La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin' - virtually the whole main theme sounds the same backwards as forwards!

I suppose it was interesting just how easy it was to spot RiB - partly the trill and the glissando, but also just the sound of the orchestration. Much harder to have a solo instrument piece with no tell-tale 'effects'...

[Nick Armstrong]

(the reason for going) Piemontese playing Beethoven 4 with extreme elegance and simplicity on a gorgeous piano. Good

That sounds like a treat. I need to hear that chap playing live.

[Stan Drews]

What really bugs me about the Prok 5 cock-up (and on many similar occasions) is that there was no apparent studio supervision. Maybe Rob and his producer were too busy reminiscing over Schnitzelhausen's 1952 performance of Liszt's something-or-other to notice what was actually going out. Surely someone, somewhere, has responsibility for monitoring live output, in which case this should have been stopped and restarted within the first few seconds.

On the other hand, maybe be next week's brain teaser could be "Guess the order of symphonic movements".

[antongould]

What really bugs me about the Prok 5 cock-up (and on many similar occasions) is that there was no apparent studio supervision. Maybe Rob and his producer were too busy reminiscing over Schnitzelhausen's 1952 performance of Liszt's something-or-other to notice what was actually going out. Surely someone, somewhere, has responsibility for monitoring live output, in which case this should have been stopped and restarted within the first few seconds.

On the other hand, maybe be next week's brain teaser could be "Guess the order of symphonic movements".

But is it not the big question that I may have missed the answer to - who chooses the music?

[french frank]

But is it not the big question that I may have missed the answer to - who chooses the music?

Presumably Rob in this case, since he said he was considering including Caliban's two favourites anyway before the system malfunctioned.

Now they use these automated playout systems I expect no one knows what to do if something goes wrong and they just have to wring their hands and wait for it to STOP. In this case they seem to have been notified by email from a listener ...

[antongould]

Presumably Rob in this case, since he said he was considering including Caliban's two favourites anyway before the system malfunctioned.

Now they use these automated playout systems I expect no one knows what to do if something goes wrong and they just have to wring their hands and wait for it to STOP. In this case they seem to have been notified by email from a listener ...

Hate to stress the point but are we sure it is Rob....

[Nick Armstrong]

Hate to stress the point but are we sure it is Rob....

Well ff is right that RC used a very definite first person singular when referring to the two substitute... ahem... items.

[french frank]

Hate to stress the point but are we sure it is Rob....

No photo with him in pullover with his arm round Francine Stock - the mystery deepens ...

[antongould]

Indeed ff

[Stan Drews]

None of which comments above answers my original question: who (what?) monitors the live output in these situations?

[johnb]

Hate to stress the point but are we sure it is Rob....

I suspect that, although RC will have an influence, many of the decisions as to what music to play will be decided by the production team, not necessarily always by RC himself. Same with Essential Classics.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

None of which comments above answers my original question: who (what?) monitors the live output in these situations?

I don't know - I would have thought that it was RC (or whoever) himself, but bearig in mind Richard Coles' comments last night on QI, the presenters of Live radio shows have a Twitter screen in the studio so that they can monitor and comment on listeners' Tweets as they appear. The very rude ones (and, he said, they are legion: some listeners actually creating Twitter accounts with highly abusive names referring to the presenter!) are ignored. Perhaps RC (or whoever) spends so much time trying to find broadcastable Tweet content that he doesn't listen to the Music on the programme?

Also, on Feedback a couple of weeks or so ago, listeners wrote in to complain that scheduled late night programmes on R4 had twice been "replaced" by other programmes which had already been broadcast earlier in the day, even though the Continuity Announcer's comments before and after the programme declared that the advertised programme was about to be/had just been broadcast. Unless I seriously misunderstood the "explanation", the R4 spokesrobot suggested that, at that time of night, there was only a single worker in the studio pressing the buttons for relevant programmes and that, on these occasions, the stress of getting all the right programmes in all the right order had proved a little too much for the person(s) concerned and that they didn't necessarily know if the correct programme was being aired, even if they actually listened to the content itself!