Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Bryn]

I suspect it's only listened to by people who "dip in" or use it as pleasant background music - ditto Breakfast, In Tune, Saturday Classics, etc.
The BBC might do well to experiment - publishing the full playlist in advance. It may even encourage some of the many doubters to tune in occasionally.

One can, of course, pick and mix one's way through such programmes using a combination of the post-broadcast detailed listing, and the iPlayer's on demand facility. That's what I do, anyway.

[Roehre]

I agree.

... if there were playlists - even better, if details were provided in the Radio Times - then I wd listen far more.

As it is, I find Breakfast, Essential Classics, In Tune etc unlistenable-to, so probably miss stuff I wd otherwise really like to hear.

Radio 3 has lost me as a listener for much of the day...

for me it's very simple: no playlist in advance = no chance I will listen.
My time is too precious to listen to music I know inside out or to inane talking

[Don Petter]

for once, sounded like an interesting guest on EC today, the founder of the Big Issue.

Anybody catch all of it? I only heard 15 mins or so.

Did he perhaps explain what 'The big issue' is? I've often wondered.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Did he perhaps explain what 'The big issue' is? I've often wondered.

Homelessness, perhaps?

[Serial_Apologist]

Homelessness, perhaps?

John Bird can come across as being too up his own rectitude, but I do greatly respect him for initiating The Big Issue and keeping it going. The mag usually has one or two articles or interviews worth reading.

[Richard Tarleton]

Driving back from counting ducks on a windswept estuary I turned the car radio on, caught the end of some Purcell. SW: "Several tweets came in during that. Tim says thanks for that, Christmas has come early for us lovers of great music"

Apart from the obvious, that if they're tweeting during the music they're not listening, what does this add to the experience of anyone, apart from Tim? I drove the rest of the way listening to the rumble of my Michelin tyres (see other thread).

[Lancashire Lass]

I know, I heard that, and not the only vacuous tweet either!

I'm listening to Radio 3 less and less now, even though I thought I'd reached rock bottom some time ago.

What makes things worse is when you switch off at a point like the above, switch back on a while later and find you've missed the tail end of something you wanted to listen to (I don't read the playlist beforehand, I like to be surprised). Looks like they've got us both ways :-(

[cloughie]

Driving back from counting ducks on a windswept estuary I turned the car radio on, caught the end of some Purcell. SW: "Several tweets came in during that. Tim says thanks for that, Christmas has come early for us lovers of great music"

Apart from the obvious, that if they're tweeting during the music they're not listening, what does this add to the experience of anyone, apart from Tim? I drove the rest of the way listening to the rumble of my Michelin tyres (see other thread).

or maybe hear other tread!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... (I don't read the playlist beforehand, I like to be surprised).

Do you possess a tardis?

[cloughie]

I know, I heard that, and not the only vacuous tweet either!

I'm listening to Radio 3 less and less now, even though I thought I'd reached rock bottom some time ago.

What makes things worse is when you switch off at a point like the above, switch back on a while later and find you've missed the tail end of something you wanted to listen to (I don't read the playlist beforehand, I like to be surprised). Looks like they've got us both ways :-(

Or don't have us at all because we've switched off. When will the Beeb powers that be twig tHat we don't want CFM2?

[french frank]

Or don't have us at all because we've switched off. When will the Beeb powers that be twig tHat we don't want CFM2?

They twig very well that SOME people want exactly that - no ads for Will-making and Stair-lifts.

But one of the points I made to the Trust is that "We" have been made to feel that - in 'British-Rail' speak: we're the wrong kind of audience. So what "We don't want" doesn't matter.

Radio 3 has got away with claiming they're a cut above Classic FM, assuming that is necessarily good enough. Let's hope others at the BBC disagree.

[JFLL]

Driving back from counting ducks on a windswept estuary I turned the car radio on, caught the end of some Purcell. SW: "Several tweets came in during that. Tim says thanks for that, Christmas has come early for us lovers of great music"

Apart from the obvious, that if they're tweeting during the music they're not listening, what does this add to the experience of anyone, apart from Tim? I drove the rest of the way listening to the rumble of my Michelin tyres (see other thread).

The tweets are obviously just read out to make Tom (or Tim), Dick and Harry feel wanted (just as RC always gives us a 'very warm welcome', as though he was inviting us in for a mince pie and a glass of punch), to mitigate the alleged 'dauntingness' of classical music. But the danger is that it prompts the question, if you don't happen to be that particular Tom, Dick or Harry, 'Who cares what they think?' So 'inclusivity' may be counter-productive.

[Richard Tarleton]

The tweets are obviously just read out to make Tom (or Tim), Dick and Harry feel wanted (just as RC always gives us a 'very warm welcome', as though he was inviting us in for a mince pie and a glass of punch), to mitigate the alleged 'dauntingness' of classical music. But the danger is that it prompts the question, if you don't happen to be that particular Tom, Dick or Harry, 'Who cares what they think?' So 'inclusivity' may be counter-productive.

Both sides are complicit in this - the writer, for his /her/their vacuous, nugatory tweet which conveys nothing, written in haste, while the music is playing, for the sole purpose of hearing it read out at the end of the piece - not information, not understanding, not sharing of experience, nothing - and the presenters/producers for reading this drivel out.

[Don Petter]

Both sides are complicit in this - the writer, for his /her/their vacuous, nugatory tweet which conveys nothing, written in haste, while the music is playing, for the sole purpose of hearing it read out at the end of the piece - not information, not understanding, not sharing of experience, nothing - and the presenters/producers for reading this drivel out.

Is this perhaps the aural equivalent of the now ubiquitous 'selfie', in which the empty-headed just want to hear their name and the 'celebrity presenter's' voice in the same sentence?

[french frank]

The tweets are obviously just read out to make Tom (or Tim), Dick and Harry feel wanted (just as RC always gives us a 'very warm welcome', as though he was inviting us in for a mince pie and a glass of punch), to mitigate the alleged 'dauntingness' of classical music. But the danger is that it prompts the question, if you don't happen to be that particular Tom, Dick or Harry, 'Who cares what they think?' So 'inclusivity' may be counter-productive.

And Radio 3 is most to blame. What harm is done if some individual wants to tweet, text or email their thanks, appreciation or whatever to a programme? It's Radio 3's assumption(?) that this is worthwhile material, of sufficient quality and interest to broadcast it to thousands of other people. It shows a lack of confidence in what they're doing: 'Look, we're doing jolly well because someone has tweeted in to say so.' And it's patronising on their part to imagine that listeners won't see through it and think all the less of them for doing so.