The way forward for Radio 3 and Sunday Mornings?

[Anna]

...don't forget Alvar Lidell, John Snagge and Leslie Mitchell!

Why not get Harry Enfield as Mr. Cholmondley? That would be quite hilarious to go back to stuffed shirt days. Wasn't Alvar Lidell a war correspondent? Oh, frenchie asked us to keep on topic ........

[Serial_Apologist]

Why not get Harry Enfield as Mr. Cholmondley? That would be quite hilarious to go back to stuffed shirt days. Wasn't Alvar Lidell a war correspondent? Oh, frenchie asked us to keep on topic ........

Alvar Lidell was indeed a war correspondent in WW2; he always introduced R3 programmes with a superbly appropriate sense of gravitas to subject matter, Anna - something which has now completely gone. It is he who also read out the dictionary definition of whales in the introduction to John Tavener's "The Whale" in the recording made in 1968 or 1969 on the Beatles' Apple label.

[Anna]

Well, Alvar Lidell, John Snagge et al, before my day I'm afraid. Classical music doesn't have to be introduced with gravitas, merely with knowledge surely? Like TTN, one of my favourite programmes, announce it, give some info, listen. All that's needed.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, Alvar Lidell, John Snagge et al, before my day I'm afraid. Classical music doesn't have to be introduced with gravitas, merely with knowledge surely? Like TTN, one of my favourite programmes, announce it, give some info, listen. All that's needed.

I still think gravitas has its place. As GG will remind us it's all a matter of context. Presenters started getting into trouble when expected to introduce items in the following way, "And next, ladies and gentlemen, a recordng by Missippi Fat Cruddup singing, "Hey Lord gimme some of that jelly roll", ahem", so they went to the opposite extreme by taking on DJs from pirate radio stations, whose manner in some strange inversion of what is appropriate now extends to introducing classical pieces in ways that sometimes seem either designed to send them up or reveal no sense of irony in the presenter.

[Anna]

S_A, the R3 you have known in the past, I have never known. I do have Humphrey Carpenters's book about R3, but I think if it were stuffy presenters I wouldn't have listened in the first place. However, I do deplore this tweeting, emailing, interaction as being terribly, now what's the word, of yes, awful and also, condescending to the listener, because it makes the listener dependent upon the presenter to verify their taste in music. If that makes sense, plus the classical chart is pure nonsense, I don't buy anything on that hyped up list and I am not going to feel pressured to buy anything on it to keep up with others and be one of the masses.

[Chris Newman]

I would love to have a programme like Music Magazine brought back. It was very instructive morning with half hours spent on particular composers, performers and works. If my memory is correct it included Antony Hopkins's Talking about Music, John Steane on the Singing Voice, deadly serious stuff from Hans Keller, hilarious stuff from Fritz Spiegel as well as complete works. Everything a magazine should be. The pattern for the morning was familiar so you could be selective if you so wished.

On the subject of "Gravitas": R3 had variety. There were the traditional announcers like Liddell and Snagge and there were lighter ones like John Holmstrom who was nicely naughty (not unlike John Sopel on the BBC TV News channel these days). But Holmstrom and Cormac Rigby always gave us a Schubert Song before the 7.30am News: ah, bliss!!!. As it ended it was my cue to run to the railway station to go to work in London.

[PatrickMargison]

Since this thread has, it seems, gone seriously off course, may I join in and fly the flag for the incomparable Michael Oliver, a broadcaster of genius? His 'Music Weekly' was the gem of R3's week, and a real joy on a Sunday morning, and must have contributed immensely to many people's love of music. Dragging the topic back, the Sunday morning of the 1970s was magnificent: if I recall rightly, 10.30 Music Weekly, 11.30 a stunning bought-in orchestral concert recording (Chicago SO/Solti, say), 1pm a repeat of the previous Monday's St John's Lunchtime Concert (and then the 'cast list' was glittering)...

[MarkG]

For what's it worth, I'd echo what's been said before. Keep the same selection of music but dump the guests, quizzes etc.

[french frank]

Oh, frenchie asked us to keep on topic ........

To ask is not to get ...

I think if it were stuffy presenters I wouldn't have listened in the first place.

Our views change. All BBC announcers seem 'stuffy' now when we hear recordings of the 50s, say. But back then they were just normal.

I don't think Radio 3 presenters have been 'stuffy' for decades, but that's just my view. People used to listening to other music stations may find them too 'formal' because they deal with serious subjects seriously, but, then, some people value style over content. Radio 3 is going that way. So, on topic: for Sunday Morning - content is still the most important thing (and James Jolly will continue to do 12 programmes a year and Rob will do the rest because that's what they've been contracted to do, apparently).

[EdgeleyRob]

I don't think Radio 3 presenters have been 'stuffy' for decades, but that's just my view.

I've been listening to Radio 3 since the early 70s (aged 13/14) and don't recall thinking the presenters were stuffy, a bit formal maybe but that seemed to suit the programmes.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've been listening to Radio 3 since the early 70s (aged 13/14) and don't recall thinking the presenters were stuffy, a bit formal maybe but that seemed to suit the programmes.

: my experience, too, Rob. And there was always a warmth to their presentation, too.

[aeolium]

I think the change towards the present focus on the presenter as personality, with all kinds of extra-musical interactivity, really began back in the 1980s with John Drummond. I don't mean that he would have welcomed what we have now, or that he intended such a development, but that it was with him that there was a conscious change in the style of the presenters - he required a less 'stuffy' approach and presenters writing their own scripts. At that time there was still an overwhelming concentration on the content of programmes rather than style - in music programmes in playing the music with minimum introductory comment, in discussion or talk programmes - with people like Keller, Robert Simpson, Basil Dean, Michael Oliver etc - in the content of the discussion rather than the personalities of the participants (strong though the personalities sometimes were!). And in those talk or discussion programmes, it was the expertise of the participants that was valued and not their personality. Yet the increasing emphasis on presenter and guest personality, and on style relative to the content of the programme, was a feature of both Nicholas Kenyon's controllership and - to a much greater extent - the current one of Roger Wright. Now the content (the object) was not seen as sufficiently important in itself, it was more and more about the subject, the presenter who experiences the music and, priest-like, becomes an intermediary between music and listener. Everything is now much more personalised, so that it is the experience of the listener - both the presenter and the listener at home - that is as important as what is listened to, and therefore has to become part of the content. In this R3 is only reflecting trends elsewhere in broadcasting: on TV the presenter has become omni-present, always in frame, whether in news programme, documentary, visual arts programmes, science programme etc.

I hate this trend and would like to get back to concentrating on the original object, the content and make the presenter the peripheral figure s/he always should have been. I'd like that to happen with Sunday morning on R3, and indeed all the time on R3.

[amateur51]

So, on topic: for Sunday Morning - content is still the most important thing (and James Jolly will continue to do 12 programmes a year and Rob will do the rest because that's what they've been contracted to do, apparently).

Ah James Jolly - the Robert Peston of Radio 3, strange delivery without the subject expertise

[Panjandrum]

For what's it worth, I'd echo what's been said before. Keep the same selection of music but dump the guests, quizzes etc.

I think we were saying that the selection of music should be broadened considerably: the current format is far too reliant on the 100 classical favourites CD.

[MarkG]

A wider selection of music would be good. Although last week we had Szymanowski, Martinu, Duparc and Rosenmuller(?). Not necessarily 100 Best Tunes material.