The old days

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You're being stupid. You were younger then, knew much less and had much to learn and explore. Now you are older there are diminishing returns and there iis less to interest you. Not your fault, it's the same with me. You just have to give up your seat for people who are now as you were...

(I would not be in the least bit surprised if 50% of listeners had NOT heard in full say, 5 Beethoven Concertos, or all 9 symphonies, 3 pieces by Prokofiev or Britten and so on...and could not name 10 top quality living and active conductors, pianists, violinists or 6 each non-operatic sopranos, tenors and baritones)

Just because someone might not know something is not a excuse for being patronising - I refer to the current style of presentation. I wish presenters would encourage people to explore [which they do, just as long as you tweet or text them first and even then it's limited to Your 100 Best Tunes (but not so well presented)].

Or have I missed your irony?

[DublinJimbo]

Please stop this thread. It's doin' my 'ead in - all these references to presenters who treated us like intelligent people rather than brainless morons.

That's it precisely. I was already fairly knowledgeable back in the '70s, but programmes like Music Magazine regularly came up with surprises and helped broaden my knowledge further. I had so much respect for the BBC then. Record/CD Review, on the other hand, fascinated me for a reason quite separate from the actual reviews: it regularly put a voice to the familiar names from the pages of Gramophone and added an extra dimension which I was grateful for.

[Nick Armstrong]

Hilarious thread, this!

Oh - you wouldn't happen to have a Thomas Wilson Fibre Quilt, would you? The company only existed between March 1954 and August 1961 and only produced about seventy said items from their Crewe factory just before they went bust. (The Doncaster factory, of course, didn't produce the Fibre Quilt model, concentrating on the "SpeediZipp" nylon zip - but I've already got four of these - including the massively unpopular "Terracotta" colour, which made wearers look as if they were going to a fancy dress party as a carrot.) Interesting character, Thomas Wilson, born in Scuinthorpe in 1887, he ... (contd pg 3461783)

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(Nice avoidance of any automatic obscenity detector there, ferns, btw )

The da-da-da's don't quite add up

Ain't that the truth!

[Richard Tarleton]

You're being stupid. You were younger then, knew much less and had much to learn and explore. Now you are older there are diminishing returns and there iis less to interest you. Not your fault, it's the same with me. You just have to give up your seat for people who are now as you were...

Zuccers, I think you're wrong here. At the risk of getting a bit technical, it's all down to the modes in which we communicate with eachother - Transactional Analysis, in other words. This is where R3 has lost the plot. I spent a good chunk of a management training course looking at it once, stood me in very good stead ever since. Look at the diagram top right of the Wiki entry. Adult-to-adult works, parent-to-child works as long as the audience are "children" (not necessarily literally children, but accepting of their place in a paternalistic setup). If parent addresses his audience in parent to child mode, but the audience are in fact adults (which is what we complain about on this forum), it doesn't. Addressing children as if they were adults is just fine. In fact this used to be R3's default mode of communication - even if some of it went over your head, you didn't feel patronised or insulted (I'm thinking of me aged 18), rather flattered if anything, and determined to try harder.

Looking at the current lineup of R3 presenters, the likes of SMP and CBH are in child-to-child mode most of the time. RC is in relentless parent-child mode, unless he's talking to AMcG on CDR. We know who the adult-to-adult presenters are - Skelly, Handley, Jolly, I'd put Suzy Klein in this category most of the time. Funnily enough I think it's what SR strives for.

It links straight into another topic I've posted on before - audience segmentation, understanding who your audience are. We're not all children, but are being treated as such. Even those who fulfil the criteria you describe are not necessarily "children", they could be "adults".

Difficult to compress a large and complex topic into a short post, but it's something R3 should understand but evidently don't.

[french frank]

Added to RT's excellent post: Radio 3 must understand what it's about. The expectations of Classic FM listeners who have switched to Radio 3 to avoid ads about Making Wills and Stairlifts should reveal that this is not the audience Radio 3 should be catering for, just because it's an audience which exists.

Similarly (as per the last newsletter), nor is this:

"I am just a housewife, but I really enjoy having something on in the background while I’m doing something important. And whoever runs things at Radio 3 seems finally to have got the message that people just don’t have time in the busy lives we all lead nowadays to sit down and give our undivided attention to something. Especially if it goes on and on which is all right for the eggheads but not for ordinary folk.” [On Facebook]

That comment epitomises the depths to which Radio 3 has sunk. The Great Debate is a) whether you think Radio 3 should address this audience for a large chunk of the time and b) how you think Radio 3 should be addressing an audience that wants more than background music 'while I'm doing something important'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You're being stupid...

Zuccers, I think you're wrong here…

Better to be "wrong" than "stupid".

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

excellent commentary richardterleton - i would suggest that RC is always in Over-Adapted Child Mode and that CBH is always pretending not to be an adult

in another way of looking at it R3 presnters are long overdue to appear on Dr Who as sinister, if childlike, villains; destroying and killing with gushes of enthusiasm and hyperbole and streams of superficial venom .... go down a treat behind our sofa ....

and ref Milhaud many thanks! posting here as an aide memoire

[Tevot]

My bad - the superb Michael Oliver presented Music Weekly ('70s & '80s) - the intro Music of which was Schubert's Magic Roundabout Impromptu played by Brendel; Julian Herbage (and Anna ???) presented Music Magazine ('50s & '60s) with Gerald Moore's solo arrangement of An die Musik as "theme tune".

The Record Review opener of the late '70s was a perky, jazzy little number (sounding a bit "British Music 1930s-style" - more Arnold Cooke than Finzi). (da-da-da Dah_dadadadadida dah-di-dah; da-da-da dadadida dohdiDah - oboe solo, pizzicato string orchestra accompaniment. Doesn't sound in the least bit like Bellini! ) Replaced in the early '80s by the "Italian" variation from Britten's Bridge Variations.

Hello there,

Hang on - wasn't the da di da didi didi da from one of William Boyce's symphonies?

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[MickyD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ2c-Fi4JDM

Ah yes, that's the one, fhg!! Lovely little piece..it reminds me of Saturday mornings of long ago, rushing out to buy the latest releases after the programme!

[Roslynmuse]

Hello there,

Hang on - wasn't the da di da didi didi da from one of William Boyce's symphonies?

Best Wishes,

Tevot

I thought that was Richard Baker and 'These you Have Loved'!

[hmvman]

I thought that was Richard Baker and 'These you Have Loved'!

Yes, it was. The last movement of Boyce's Symphony No.4:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdLVT9h0gCs (from 4:00).

I think These You Have Loved was a R2 programme on Saturday evenings wasn't it?

[Roslynmuse]

Yes, it was. The last movement of Boyce's Symphony No.4:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdLVT9h0gCs (from 4:00).

I think These You Have Loved was a R2 programme on Saturday evenings wasn't it?

R4. Repeated Thursday mornings 9am

[hmvman]

R4. Repeated Thursday mornings 9am

Ah, thanks.

[DublinJimbo]

It's been fun watching this thread spin off into all sorts of fascinating tangents. Getting back to my original query, it's been good to learn that the piano arrangement of An die Musik was by Gerald Moore.

Another thing: Have signature tunes become unfashionable? They do seem to be used much less frequently these days (which is a pity: the familiar strains of a signature tune act as a pleasant and reassuring taster for what's to come).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Another thing: Have signature tunes become unfashionable? They do seem to be used much less frequently these days (which is a pity: the familiar strains of a signature tune act as a pleasant and reassuring taster for what's to come).

On R3, yes - they ceased to be used by the end of the '80s. I have a tape of Michael Oliver's very last Music Weekly, where he played the Schubert Impromptu as a reminder of things long past and said "Yes; I go back that far!"

R4 still uses them for "light" programmes - News and "serious discussion" programmes don't.