Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"Suzy Klein is mostly dreadful, every bit as much part of the presenter led, dumbed down, "treat the audience like half wits and you will surely get a massive audience of half wits" problems as the others."

Couldn't have put it better myself. Nothing personal of course. She's only doing the job she's paid to do.

Potentially, she's excellent, but ruins her hard-earned expertise by talking down to her audience - a bit like Anne Robinson, but less abrasive.

[Stanfordian]

Potentially, she's excellent, but ruins her hard-earned expertise by talking down to her audience - a bit like Anne Robinson, but less abrasive.

Hiya Eine Alpensinfonie,

Careful what you wish for. It really could be sooooo much worse... Oh, by the way I see Lucy Worsley is fronting a new BBC tv documentary series about the history of opera, in collaboration with the Royal Opera House. Another excuse to dress the doctor up in period clothes.

[french frank]

Potentially, she's excellent, but ruins her hard-earned expertise by talking down to her audience - a bit like Anne Robinson, but less abrasive.

I thought (in the little bit I listened to on iPlayer) she had an excellent broadcasting voice in terms of timbre, but there is a very obvious attempt to speak to the target audience of largely uninformed (or informed but not bothered about getting short and mostly familiar pieces) listeners. Radio 3's self-appointed 'trusted guide' role influences the tone adopted. The role becomes questionable when the entire peak listening period (most listeners listen during the mornings) excludes those who find this menu stale and irritating, and want something more demanding, more varied - and more didactic at times. But the brief says: "Detailed musicological and biographical detail should be kept to a minimum. This is more suited to Composer of the Week which follows at midday" (NB biographical, not musicological), so we know not to expect too much.

Common sense would tell anyone that someone with a simple first degree in music can't, on that basis, be considered any sort of expert in the entire range of 'classical music', or even in the more restricted range that they're required to introduce. One sometimes gets the impression that the 'trusted guides' do feel they know everything. Or at least enough to fool those who know very little. 'Trusted guide' is an act too.

* A personal view: I do enjoy K331 (and played Peter Katin's joyous version three times last night), but to have it immediately followed by Jeremy Irons acting a song from My Fair Lady was the kind of juxtaposition that makes me feel sad and ill. And it's the juxtaposition that does it, not the second piece in itself.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Potentially, she's excellent, but ruins her hard-earned expertise by talking down to her audience - a bit like Anne Robinson, but less abrasive.

What "expertise" would that be, Alpie?

Sorry to go on and on about this, (but, as she did get her retaliation in first, I feel less guilty than I would otherwise) - too many GCSE-level errors for me to describe her work as showing genuine "expertise" in any area of presentation.



But, basta, basta! - for all I know there's an internal BBC chatblog-thingy where they're saying "You thought the R3 Forum was bad before - wait'll you see what the numpty they've brought in recently has to say for himself!"

[Richard Tarleton]

Sorry to go on and on about this, (but, as she did get her retaliation in first, I feel less guilty than I would otherwise)

Yes, one doesn't want to go on about it , but the "young deer" is fascinating in the levels of ignorance it displays - of Greek mythology, of the story of Nijinsky and the Ballet Russe (that Bakst costume), basic zoology



And it took me five years to get RC to pronounce T***** properly, only for him to be taken off the job - now I've got to start again....

[french frank]

And it took me five years to get RC to pronounce T***** properly, only for him to be taken off the job - now I've got to start again....

I think he can only be on holiday as the commissioning brief definitely said he would be continuing but the BBC would welcome suggestions for the second presenter to form a 'diverse' team. So a woman then, and preferably younger than Rob to be really diverse. But R3 had the final say. Any indications of a younger woman to partner Sean on In Tune?

[Suffolkcoastal]

So far continuing in the same way: first hour 7 pieces. Looking much too quickly at the headline at the beginning I saw 'Jupiter'. Good, that's … oh, no, my mistake … Still, we are going to explore some suitable companions pieces, so may I suggest The Full Mozart? It would also be a good companion piece for yesterday's K. 331 to illustrate Mozza's variations.

I rooted out some emails from 2004 when Ludwig fan Beethoven was compiling his Repertoire Repetition lists each month for the FoR3 website. Nice to see Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse turning up this morning. Not played so often now, probably, as it had 8 outings in May 2004.

It's ironic that as Breakfast is credited with playing somewhat longer works, Essential Classics ('the best in classical music') is playing shorter works so that the two programmes have now virtually coalesced.

We've had 'L'Isle Joyeuse' 20 times this year now Frenchie, so looks like it's going to be fairly similar number by the end of the year to last year's total of 25 playings.

[french frank]

We've had 'L'Isle Joyeuse' 20 times this year now Frenchie, so looks like it's going to be fairly similar number by the end of the year to last year's total of 25 playings.

Thanks Suffy - I thought of you as I was looking through the lists .

[Richard Tarleton]

Any indications of a younger woman to partner Sean on In Tune?

I thought Suzy Klein was a good fit for In Tune, and an excellent alternate for Sean - talking (rather than thoughtful presenting) is clearly her thing, and exchanging bants with the succession of musicians who pass through the studio was something she did rather well (that seems to be the brief for that programme).

[Richard Tarleton]

One movement of the Waldstein? Surely in a 3 hour programme they can manage a complete Beethoven piano sonata. Record Review is there to sample new recordings.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I thought I caught Ansermet pronounced with a hard t the other day . Amazingly there's ' how to pronounce Swiss German correctly website ' which has a very polished En - Sir - May on it. Sir doesn't quite do justice to the vowel sound but you get the drift . Still however you pronounce it good to hear him conducting .

[vinteuil]

.

... but surely Ernest Alexandre Ansermet, born in Vevey, teaching in Lausanne, was a francophone ("Suisse Romande") and not Swiss German?

I know that the final -t can be pronounced in French proper names (notoriously Moët, which is mo-ett and not mo-way) - but I wd never think to pronounce a final -t in Ansermet.

I hadn't realised, until looking up on wiki, a darker unattractive side to the man -

" In Ansermet's book, Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine (1961), he sought to prove, using Husserlian phenomenology and partly his own mathematical studies, that Schoenberg's idiom was false and irrational. He labeled it a "Jewish idea" and went on to say that "the Jew is a me who speaks as though he were an I," that the Jew "suffers from thoughts doubly misformed", thus making him "suitable for the handling of money", and sums up with the statement that "historic creation of Western music" would have developed just as well "without the Jew". Ansermet's reputation suffered after the war because of his collaboration with the Nazis and he was boycotted in the new state of Israel."

That he could have written such stuff ... in 1961! - beggars belief.

.

[french frank]

Oh, dear, to that, M. Vinteuil Even if he was very old.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes I thought he was Francophone - just came up as Swiss German on this how to pronounce website. On a slightly irrelevant note there is some quite variable French in this absolutely stupendous 'we -will -never -hear -the -like -again ' Met Sutherland / Pavarotti Fille Du Regiment on at the moment. Sutherland is incredible...

[Bax-of-Delights]

It has been difficult to put my finger on precisely what it is about R3 in its present form that makes me rarely turn it on these days but just a smidgeon of one of its regular - and overused - adverts for its own programmes this morning finally nailed it for me.

Hyperbole.

Majestic
Incendiary (a Tom Service special)
Magnificent
Towering
etc etc etc
No piece of music or musician can be described without an overblown epithet attached to it. It fair drives one nuts and when RC was corralled in to add his tuppence worth on some "wondrous" piece I called it a day.