Saturday Classic - does it get any worse ?

[teamsaint]

I'm with you Anna. Anyone who includes Jacques Brel (I saw him at his only London apppearance) is right up there in my estimation (and young Michel did come round to our table for a chat when we dined at his restaurant - so double golden stars).

In contrast the film music programme is a dreadful mish-mash presented by some overgrown kid. What happened to Ed Seckerson?

Must have been something, BoD.
,
Here he is, just for S_A ,sitting on his washing machine, singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ehZeWGXW0

Rare passion.

[french frank]

The film music programme that followed was such bilge I did check that i had not gone over to radio 2 .

This was a description of Howard Goodall's Film music prog, on Classic FM the following hour:

"Tonight, Howard Goodall presents a Gallic selection of movie soundtracks, as he champions the composers who he believes to be the finest France has produced.
Beginning with Ludovic Bource’s Oscar-winning score to The Artist, Howard goes on to profile his favourite French film composer, Alexandre Desplat.
We’ll also enjoy Maurice Jarre’s thrilling music for Is Paris Burning? and Georges Auric’s suite from the original Moulin Rouge .
And as an added non-Gallic bonus, Howard has the very first radio play of the soundtrack for the brand new Hobbit movie by Howard Shore."

[Serial_Apologist]

Must have been something, BoD.
,
Here he is, just for S_A ,sitting on his washing machine, singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ehZeWGXW0

Rare passion.

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Saint de L'Equipe - tout s'explique.

(But one would have thought someone could have wiped him down after coming in from all that rain!)

[antongould]

.....with all the talk of dumbing down and presenter focus did anyone hear the boy from the Norf on Saturday?

[JoeG]

Presumably you mean Stuart Maconie - one of the BBC's most intelligent and engaging presenters? A good author too. I came back here after a break as I expected some condescending comment about the programme which I thought was excellent. I suppose the references to ELP will have upset some people too

[antongould]

Presumably you mean Stuart Maconie - one of the BBC's most intelligent and engaging presenters? A good author too. I came back here after a break as I expected some condescending comment about the programme which I thought was excellent. I suppose the references to ELP will have upset some people too

I too enjoyed it .......I cannot comment on his pronunciation.

[JoeG]

Perfectly ok as far as I can tell - wrong side of the Pennines though of course ;-)

[teamsaint]

Maconie is a bright bloke , and can at times be a good and entertaining presenter, (and i expect writer too), but i have to say that on his R2 and 6 music shows with Radcliffe the endless repetitive banter drove me away in the end. A shame because they both know their music too.

A shame.

[JoeG]

I agree - I much prefer him on his own

[antongould]

I agree - I much prefer him on his own

And me we should start a fan club....

[JoeG]

Radcliffe is also fine on his own - he has breathed new life into the R2 Folk Programme - though I do prefer Maconie as a presenter - his taste in music is uncannily close to my own!

[Master Jacques]

Well I'm sorry, but his selection of Anthems was quite as silly and naff as anything in this good-forsaken slot.

Including Jupiter from The Planets on the grounds that they played it as an anthem in the Rugby World Cup, and saying that the Marseillaise was "the most anthemy anthem ever written" (I jest not) had me reaching for a gun to shoot the radio.

Why do we have to put up with this kind of guff? After all, if Rob Cowan's Sunday show can manage to square the circle so nicely, it just goes to show the total lack of talent and programming imagination prevalent elsewhere.

Grrrrr!!!

[french frank]

Why do we have to put up with this kind of guff? After all, if Rob Cowan's Sunday show can manage to square the circle so nicely, it just goes to show the total lack of talent and programming imagination prevalent elsewhere.

The fact is that - genuinely - you are not the intended audience. It's supposed to be for the perennially sought for new (classical) listener. The problem is that there is just way too much which has been wholly or substantially tailored for that audience so that those who have been listening to the station for considerably longer are bewildered to discover so little of the schedule is intended for them now. The mania for inviting guests who aren't very knowledgeable continues, apparently in the hope that the novice listener will at least find the presenter appealing.

[amateur51]

The fact is that - genuinely - you are not the intended audience. It's supposed to be for the perennially sought for new (classical) listener. The problem is that there is just way too much which has been wholly or substantially tailored for that audience so that those who have been listening to the station for considerably longer are bewildered to discover so little of the schedule is intended for them now. The mania for inviting guests who aren't very knowledgeable continues, apparently in the hope that the novice listener will at least find the presenter appealing.

Typically I'm out of step once again, it appears. I don't listen to the radio to find people who are as dim as I am ... or dimmer I want to be gently stretched intellectually and for decades Radio 3 performed this function beautifully.

But now

[Serial_Apologist]

Typically I'm out of step once again, it appears. I don't listen to the radio to find people who are as dim as I am ... or dimmer I want to be gently stretched intellectually and for decades Radio 3 performed this function beautifully.

But now

I'm in the same category. Without Radio 3 as she used to be, I've no idea from where I would have gained knowledge sufficient to be able to talk to such as Alister Hinton and Richard Barrett here on this forum; chancing it with books written or contributed to by authors far beyond by vocabulary would never have sufficed without the wherewithal to afford recordings, where once again knowledge I could only have obtained by listening and being guided by radio was always indispensable. The inescapable answer, of course, is that outside the colleges there will be nowhere where this kind of information will be gained in the future, because there will be no one qualified to deliver it at the BBC.