Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[french frank]

but you are not, I would suggest, a typical audience...

This seems to me to beg quite a few questions. What is a typical audience? One which likes listening to EC? In which case, why do they enjoy it? Because it’s tailored to the kind of audience they are? But why are 15 hours of popular listening time tailored towards THAT audience and not towards the audience which can’t abide it?

You see the problem? In saying that people here are not ‘typical’ you’re just saying, “Sorry chums, the programme isn’t for you anyway.”

[antongould]

This seems to me to beg quite a few questions. What is a typical audience? One which likes listening to EC? In which case, why do they enjoy it? Because it’s tailored to the kind of audience they are? But why are 15 hours of popular listening time tailored towards THAT audience and not towards the audience which can’t abide it?

You see the problem? In saying that people here are not ‘typical’ you’re just saying, “Sorry chums, the programme isn’t for you anyway.”

In my view a typical audience is not one that only likes listening to EC, it is much wider and includes very knowledgeable people and IIRC highly thought of musicians ....... people hereabouts who cannot abide it do so, I would suspect, for many reasons not least because of the tweeting and the chummy presentational style. These specific parts of the programme are IMMVHO quite acceptable to a lot of people at all ends of the spectrum. But this as always is only a personal view ....

I would point out that I like you posted because I felt previous posts begged a fair few questions .....

[Richard Tarleton]

" but are you are not, I would suggest, a typical audience.

Indeed (ff) - Anton, I've been on a "journey" () with R3/Third Programme which began in the late 60s. I was a neophyte then, I'm reasonably knowledgeable now (with a lifetime of concerts, playing an instrument and reading and learning behind me) but still, in comparison to many here, very much an amateur, with little formal musical education. I'm as typical, or untypical, as any R3 listener. Pace Mr GG's reference to false memory syndrome, I can still remember particular programmes, talks, BALs, concerts etc. from the late 60s onwards which made an impression on me at the time and which contributed to my musical education. I mentioned one the other day - a Julian Bream lunchtime concert (I'm a guitarist of sorts) presented by P Hughes. Others - Peter Stadlen on Beethoven's metrophone markings (they wouldn't let Peter Stadlen, or Hans Keller, near a microphone on R3 today), Cormac Rigby on tour with the BBC SO in Nuremburg, BALs by Joan Chissell (Schumann piano concerto, Schumann Rhenish, I think), Michael Oliver on Verdi, Joseph Cooper on Moonlight Sonata - the winner was Artur Rubinstein () ...... Obviously individuals get old, retire, die, but I remember being educated, challenged and entertained (I stuck with it).

These moments have become rarer as the years have gone by, and are greatly outnumbered by the banal, or downright annoying, which is why whole tracts of R3 have become no-go areas for me today. My upwards trajectory with R3 stopped, going into a nose dive in the early 2000s when....well, we know what and who happened.

[Serial_Apologist]

In my view a typical audience is not one that only likes listening to EC, it is much wider and includes very knowledgeable people and IIRC highly thought of musicians ....... people hereabouts who cannot abide it do so, I would suspect, for many reasons not least because of the tweeting and the chummy presentational style. These specific parts of the programme are IMMVHO quite acceptable to a lot of people at all ends of the spectrum. But this as always is only a personal view ....

I would point out that I like you posted because I felt previous posts begged a fair few questions .....

The item on BBC2 right now on the current Great Exhibition of the North should be much more "up your street" [sic] than dumbed down stuff regurgitating out of Broadcasting House most mornings, presumably, I would have thought, Anton?

[oddoneout]

Well I, obviously talking from the feeble side of the spectrum, feel Skellers has the same ability, although to what extent, can be debated. He often goes in technical areas and IIRC has won praise from Tony on this thread. I also like that he seems quite happy to disagree with tweeters on the merits of a piece or performance and explain why ......

I'll join you in the dunce's corner.

[antongould]

I'll join you in the dunce's corner.

Most kind of you ..... it was a little lonely .....

[antongould]

The item on BBC2 right now on the current Great Exhibition of the North should be much more "up your street" [sic] than dumbed down stuff regurgitating out of Broadcasting House most mornings, presumably, I would have thought, Anton?

Why no man S_A ...... as a Geordie i.e. Scotsman with my brains knocked out, Skellers is smashing ......

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Indeed (ff) - Anton, I've been on a "journey" () with R3/Third Programme which began in the late 60s. I was a neophyte then, I'm reasonably knowledgeable now (with a lifetime of concerts, playing an instrument and reading and learning behind me) but still, in comparison to many here, very much an amateur, with little formal musical education. I'm as typical, or untypical, as any R3 listener. Pace Mr GG's reference to false memory syndrome, I can still remember particular programmes, talks, BALs, concerts etc. from the late 60s onwards which made an impression on me at the time and which contributed to my musical education. I mentioned one the other day - a Julian Bream lunchtime concert (I'm a guitarist of sorts) presented by P Hughes. Others - Peter Stadlen on Beethoven's metrophone markings (they wouldn't let Peter Stadlen, or Hans Keller, near a microphone on R3 today), Cormac Rigby on tour with the BBC SO in Nuremburg, BALs by Joan Chissell (Schumann piano concerto, Schumann Rhenish, I think), Michael Oliver on Verdi, Joseph Cooper on Moonlight Sonata - the winner was Artur Rubinstein () ...... Obviously individuals get old, retire, die, but I remember being educated, challenged and entertained (I stuck with it).

These moments have become rarer as the years have gone by, and are greatly outnumbered by the banal, or downright annoying, which is why whole tracts of R3 have become no-go areas for me today. My upwards trajectory with R3 stopped, going into a nose dive in the early 2000s when....well, we know what and who happened.

Your journey sounds very similar to mine. My parents didn't have a VHF radio, when I first became interested in music, and medium wave reception for the Third Programme was appalling in our part of Cheshire. Nevertheless, I tuned in as well as I could, listening through the horrendous crackle. I also tried tuning into Hilversum, which has some classical concerts. Later, I made a crystal set radio and listened to the Third Programme in the boarding school dormitories, using the iron bed as an aerial and the pipework as an earth. I may not have been typical, but the struggle was worthwhile. And then my father bought a Perdio VHF radio, and the true glories of the Third Programme were revealed.

I did stray on to the Light Programme for Grand Hotel and Your 100 Best Tunes, but these Sunday evening programmes were the exception, and I did not miss them on the other six days. Now Radio 3 has programmes like these every morning for several hours, and again in late afternoon, but with a great deal more inane jabbering. Those who promote the channel have zero imagination.

[oddoneout]

Indeed (ff) - Anton, I've been on a "journey" () with R3/Third Programme which began in the late 60s.

The late 60s was when I realised that most people I came into contact with, especially at school, didn't listen to the Third Programme....
I am saddened at the changes that have been made, particularly over the past few years, but then that sadness also extends to TV output, the quality of writing in newspapers, the poor standard of many non-fiction books and, at times the general banality and superficiality of modern life.
The morning schedule is not of the quality one might want, but for me in my current situation(lacking equipment for alternatives) it isn't generally bad enough to make not having it on preferable. It still gives me a chance to hear things I don't know, to be reminded of why I like or don't like certain music or performers, to find out something I didn't know or disagree with something that's been said - and it doesn't prevent or preclude me from listening to the more typical/acceptable R3 output.
I'm sorry if I and fellow musketeers/dimwits/whatever are part of the problem of R3s deterioration, by providing an audience and therefore justification to those in charge to continue their misguided course, but so long as I manage to get something out of it I will continue to listen. Not listening won't change the direction of that particular tanker, but at least if I do listen I can email to challenge the output from a position of knowledge.

[antongould]

....
I'm sorry if I and fellow musketeers/dimwits/whatever are part of the problem of R3s deterioration ....

As of course am I ....... and I agree with everything else you say oddoneout .....

[french frank]

Getting back to the ‘typical ‘ listener. I couldn’t be further removed from Richard, ferney et al in my knowledge of music (any kind). So what is it that makes us all ‘atypical’ - other than in finding much of R3 dumbed down and unlistenable? To say we are ‘not typical’ is saying no more than that we are an undefined ‘minority’ . Weren’t R3 listeners always an atypical minority?

[antongould]

Getting back to the ‘typical ‘ listener. I couldn’t be further removed from Richard, ferney et al in my knowledge of music (any kind). So what is it that makes us all ‘atypical’ - other than in finding much of R3 dumbed down and unlistenable? To say we are ‘not typical’ is saying no more than that we are an undefined ‘minority’ . Weren’t R3 listeners always an atypical minority?

Compared to me, and I would suspect, a lot of R3 listeners you are very knowledgeable and what makes this congregation not typical is, I feel, the knowledge and the dislike of chummy tweeting ...... I thought, well I know, you are gastronomically touring as a Brexit ambassador ..... Try not to miss Skellers too much .......

[french frank]

Compared to me, and I would suspect, a lot of R3 listeners you are very knowledgeable and what makes this congregation not typical is, I feel, the knowledge and the dislike of chummy tweeting ...... I thought, well I know, you are gastronomically touring as a Brexit ambassador ..... Try not to miss Skellers too much .......

Wash your mouth out ...

You are right in a sense - I am very, very knowledgeable. But not about music. I can read music slightly and get lost trying to follow LvB’s late str quartets. But have no musical memory and wouldn’t recognise which one I was listening to, except the bit about thanking for his recovery. Other bits and pieces including Mozart, and there you have it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't know what Essential Classics is playing at. I switched on the radio a few minutes early in anticipation of Composer of the Week, just in time for a rendition of Bach's Brandenburg 3.

Being a modern R3 listener with a limited attention span, I was horrified that the end of the first movement wasn't followed by friendly chat and an opportunity to text/tweet/email. I had to sit through another 1.1 movements before the relief of the presenter's voice.

Please, Radio 3, don't do this to me and my fellow goldfish.

[DracoM]

Maybe you're the only one listening?