Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Mal]

I just looked at today's schedule, how unappealing! Asking people how they would continue Schubert's Unfinished Symphony just looks like an invitation for cranks to be very cranky, certainly not something I want to listen to. Also, a novelist talking about politics and protest in Glasgow, and motorway service stations, might be interesting on R4, but what does it have to do with classical music?

[french frank]

A strange Guardian article in a way as I'm not sure the author S. Moss actually likes classical music from his tone. I find it hard to believe that so many R4 listeners should switch to R3 which is an entirely different type of programme.

I suspect he does like classical music. He just doesn't understand much about RAJAR figures. It's absolutely true that Radio 3 is doing its best to capture new listeners. Since 90% of the RAJAR population already listens to radio - and a majority listen pre-midday - it's obvious that they would have to wrench them over from their regular programmes. But just as some Today listeners get fed up with it and may decide to try Radio 3 (but they're rather more likely to try CFM), so Radio 3 listeners decide they're fed up with Breakfast and Essential Classics and move over to Radio 4 (or even CFM ). The idea that Radio 3 is winning that breakfast time battle is nonsense.

Mr Moss has obviously grown tired of Composer of the Week, but he positively despises Essential Classics. Doesn't sound as if Our Ian has managed to work his magic on this tired bit of rag.

PS I've no idea whether they played the whole of Rhapsody in Blue - I saw they were playing it, I didn't hear it.

[cloughie]

I just looked at today's schedule, how unappealing! Asking people how they would continue Schubert's Unfinished Symphony just looks like an invitation for cranks to be very cranky, certainly not something I want to listen to. Also, a novelist talking about politics and protest in Glasgow, and motorway service stations, might be interesting on R4, but what does it have to do with classical music?

Did they play both movements or leave the ‘Unfinished’ unfinished? Follow it with Bruckner 9, not quite so unfinished but would leave the presenter 55 minutes to read the papers, instead of annoying the listeners!

[LMcD]

You won't be told, will you?

"Essential Classics, between 9am and noon, is dire: terrible, cliched little featurettes; mindless broadcasting of listeners’ emails and tweets; a predictable roster of music."

S. Moss, The Guardian.

I see they're playing Rhapsody in Blue just now (apparently the third time on R3 this month - all impeccably classical performances …).

Spot on!

[Cockney Sparrow]

PS I've no idea whether they played the whole of Rhapsody in Blue - I saw they were playing it, I didn't hear it.

Its Bank Holiday Monday morning, things to be done, so while I worked I switched over to R3 from R4 at 10:00 (the contents of Womans Hour seemed as annoying(only to me, of course) as ever). And after the Schubert, I switched off when the Rhapsody in Blue came on - silence was preferable.......(and remained so....). My shirt pocket radio is FM only so its R3 or R4 when I'm working around the outside of the house or on the move.

I'll have to switch over to the iPlayer playing selected programmes of worth - involving taking a mobile or tablet + Bluetooth speaker around with me me (if convenient) or - as above - silence.

[gurnemanz]

If my bedside radio comes on with Today Prog I usually don't stay there long. Put off either by interviewer interrupting guest interlocutor or the arrival of Thought for the Day. I may well then go to R3 (ever optimistic) where I usually don't stay long. I will then go to Five Live or World Service or another classical music source.

[Nick Armstrong]

Did they play both movements or leave the ‘Unfinished’ unfinished?

(more unfinished than usual, as only the first movement was broadcast)

What a travesty.

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Needless to say, I wasn't listening. Even with Mr Skelly, R3 remains a no-go area between 6.30am and midday. On here have been a couple of "Early Music Late" programmes (merci infiniment, iPlayer...)


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[french frank]

I switched off when the Rhapsody in Blue came on - silence was preferable.......(and remained so....).

I really don't understand why Gershwin is considered to be part of the classical canon whose works (classical or not) are included with considerably greater regularity than dozens of composers whom we never hear. Admittedly, all three performances of RiB played on Radio 3 during May were by good symphony orchestras (RLPO, Pittsburgh, Gewandhaus) but 'classical music' is what is played, not who performs it. And Gershwin, whose musical talent is not disputed, is nevertheless not one of the undisputed greats of classical music. Take out 'I Got Rhythm, Rhapsody in Blue, Walking the Dog, and a single movement from a piano concerto and how does that compare with a composer who devoted his/her life to the genre, with nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, 3 pianos concertos &c &c &c and who is never heard on R3?

[ahinton]

a composer who devoted his/her life to the genre, with nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, 3 pianos concertos &c &c &c and who is never heard on R3?

I'm trying to figure out who this might be and displaying either my ignorance, my forgetfulness or both in admitting to such...

[ahinton]

"Playing Rhapsody in Blue". What all of it?

This reinds me of the story (which was perhaps behind what you write here in any case) of Rossini late in life being recognised and then accosted while walking in Paris and being told that his William Tell was about to be revived there and replying "what? all of it?"...

[vinteuil]

This reinds me of the story (which was perhaps behind what you write here in any case) of Rossini late in life being recognised and then accosted while walking in Paris and being told that his William Tell was about to be revived there and replying "what? all of it?"...

... perhaps even better in the version -

'Despite the excisions, the length of the piece has been problematic, as later was Verdi's Don Carlo, another opera written for Paris and based on Schiller. Over time it became more common to perform only extracts of William Tell.
When Rossini was once told that they were performing act two at L'Opéra in Paris, he apparently replied, mock incredulously, "What? All of it?" '

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jul/15/antonio-pappano-william-tell-proms

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[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This reinds me of the story (which was perhaps behind what you write here in any case) of Rossini late in life being recognised and then accosted while walking in Paris and being told that his William Tell was about to be revived there and replying "what? all of it?"...

And this, in turn, reminds me of the audience member coming out at the end of another Rossini opera and saying "Well, if that's a Semiramide, I'm glad we didn't get a whole one."

[french frank]

I'm trying to figure out who this might be and displaying either my ignorance, my forgetfulness or both in admitting to such...

Well, it could have been eight symphonies, 23 string quartets, the single movement of a piano concerto, four viola sonatas and a 10' by 8' painting of the Egyptians Crossing the Red Sea … Plus a seven volume novel entitled Where Have The Years Gone? That sort of thing

[vinteuil]

... a 10' by 8' painting of the Egyptians Crossing the Red Sea …

... a nice counterfactual. The world might have ended up very differently had they succeeded!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Red_Sea#/media/File:The_Crossing_fo_The_Red_Sea.jpg

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[french frank]

... a nice counterfactual. The world might have ended up very differently had they succeeded!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Red_Sea#/media/File:The_Crossing_fo_The_Red_Sea.jpg

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