The Classic FM-isation of R3 is almost complete

[french frank]

You're not on the level, are you, DavidP? I wondered why my arguments were being rubbished rather than addressed

If you want to know exactly how much I know, I'll PM you. In the meantime, I'd suggest you limit your posts to topics in which you have a positive interest.

[Nick Armstrong]

No public unmasking? Ah well...

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh, good! So you are reading the thread I started? Well, keep following it. Hopefully, it might give you some suggestions to take with you when you see Roger next time.

Where is this thread of which so much is being made? I can't find it.

[Nick Armstrong]

Where is this thread of which so much is being made? I can't find it.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?8891-Film-Music-Recommendations

[VodkaDilc]

Coming home this afternoon and finding my usual car station, R5, was threatening an interview with the Health Secretary, I tuned to R3 and heard some twaddle, which turned out to be the Dr Who Prom. An unbearable arrangement of La fille aux cheveux de lin sent me to Classic FM, where - bliss! - I heard some Beethoven. Role reversal?

(Before someone asks, R4 is hopeless on weekday afternoons, unless one one has a journey long enough to follow a complete drama.)

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh yes, Dr Who ...

I fail to see how this makes R3 anything remotely resembling Classic FM.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151755976024260&set=a.433117119259.201606.6569469259&type=1&theater

[french frank]

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.ph...type=1&theater

You could say a rare example of CFM getting its own back and poaching off R3, except this is the 50th anniversary year of DW, so a bit of an exception ... .

PS If CFM also pinched Essential Classic's 'Brainteaser' with its 'Enigma' - at least they hit on a smart name!

[Nick Armstrong]

You could say a rare example of CFM getting its own back and poaching off R3, except this is the 50th anniversary year of DW, so a bit of an exception ... .

And to be fair it seems to be an LPO thing upon which CFM are merely reporting...

In other words: they're all at it !

[french frank]

And to be fair it seems to be an LPO thing upon which CFM are merely reporting...

In other words: they're all at it !

Louise Fryer has risen to new heights in my estimation because (okay, get the rotten eggs and tomatoes ready) someone on Facebook wrote:

"Listening to Louise Fryer's commentary on the Doctor Who prom is just damn painful. Please, please get somebody that A knows about the show and B actually bloody appreciates it." Now, that's more like Radio 3 ... :-)

[DavidP]

You're not on the level, are you, DavidP? I wondered why my arguments were being rubbished rather than addressed

It is very difficult to address what you say because your mode of argument is so slippery and evasive.

If you want to know exactly how much I know, I'll PM you. In the meantime, I'd suggest you limit your posts to topics in which you have a positive interest.

I’m not interested in what you know or what you think you know.

I see there is at least one post missing from the thread from earlier today. Nevertheless, I will still respond because what you said cut to the heart of the matter.

You accused me of manufactured anger and hypocrisy. Firstly, I don’t feel any anger, manufactured or otherwise. On the contrary, I find this whole affair highly amusing. First, having lost earlier arguments, you talked of a fictitious legal threat against the BBC. That already made you look rather foolish. Then you and a couple of other members of the forum engage in personal abuse and attempt a rather desperate little ‘witch-hunt’ against me. If I wanted to conduct some kind of 'social experiment' to see how closed groups behave towards anyone who challenges them I couldn't have chosen better.

Secondly, there is no hypocrisy on my part. I have never said Radio 3 should refrain from playing themes from Hollywood blockbusters - I simply want them to broaden their horizons and explore all the other film music that has been written as well. I'm not against having concerts devoted to film music either - I simply wish concert promoters would be more adventurous and include the music in concerts alongside the established 'classics' as well.

And the main reason Radio 3 is unable to bring the music into the mainstream classical repertoire is because whenever they make an attempt to do so all they get is howls of protest from people like you. I remember the fuss that was made on this forum at the time John Williams was Composer of the Week. Now you tell me – in the withdrawn post – and with no hint of irony, that you thought it quite good.

So, the only hypocrisy around here comes from people like you. First, you create an atmosphere of hostility towards film music. (So any inclusion of it in the schedule, however modest, instantly promotes cries of 'dumbing down', 'betraying classical music' and so on.) This frightens the BBC away from anything more adventurous. Then you pose as a 'friend' of film music and, with the sweetest of smiles, say, "I think it is ok really. The only reason I'm against it is because R3 just puts on themes from Hollywood Blockbusters." As I say, slippery and evasive.

[Lancashire Lass]

Thanks for that uplifting post, and a precious little victory. Of course, the Beeb would probably have booked Katie Derham, but I guess she's too busy planning her frocks for the rest of the televised Proms.

I am a DW fan, and watched it as a child. I am in awe of what they've done with the relaunch, but I don't watch it now because it has got too intellectual and complex to follow, what with all the recurring characters and their back-stories and the tears in the time-space continuum and post-Einsteinian physics and so forth ...

But it is a Great British phenomenon which makes me feel very proud.

It also has -- and should have -- f*** all to do with the Proms.

[eighthobstruction]

It is very difficult to address what you say because your mode of argument is so slippery and evasive.


Nevertheless, I will still respond because what you said cut to the heart of the matter.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks for that uplifting post, and a precious little victory. Of course, the Beeb would probably have booked Katie Derham, but I guess she's too busy planning her frocks for the rest of the televised Proms.

I am a DW fan, and watched it as a child. I am in awe of what they've done with the relaunch, but I don't watch it now because it has got too intellectual and complex to follow, what with all the recurring characters and their back-stories and the tears in the time-space continuum and post-Einsteinian physics and so forth ...

But it is a Great British phenomenon which makes me feel very proud.

It also has -- and should have -- f*** all to do with the Proms.

Love tha' punch-line, Lass. Beautiful build-up!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Love tha' punch-line, Lass. Beautiful build-up!

However -

I am going to run nightly concerts and train the public by easy stages. Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music.
... Robert Newman before the very first season of Promenade Concerts. "Training" an audience with no experience of the repertoire is f***-quite-a-lot to do with the Proms, and there is great potential for using the popularity of Doctor Who to do this. Whether this potential is being fullly explored, however, is another matter - whether the "gradual raising the standard" (the chasm between the audience for the family Prom and that for Lachenmann) is even being addressed ...

[Zucchini]

...whether the "gradual raising the standard" (the chasm between the audience for the family Prom and that for Lachenmann) is even being addressed ...

This is not really what you mean but around turn of year Andris Nelsons turned to the audience during a live R3 relay of the CBSO from Symphony Hall. I attended the second performance. He asked for two things:

1) Next time you come to Symphony Hall please try to bring a friend
2) Please come to just one extra concert that you would not normally have attended

Of course he wanted to help raise extra revenue and to draw audiences and players closer together. But I thought he was direct and sincere in asking us to do more and try something new. And I was annoyed that some people here castigated him for talking - conductors, like children, should be seen and not heard blah blah...