A deafening silence

[MickyD]

Me too. What nevertheless does deject me is realising the extent to which decimating of the music's presentation by changes presumably designed to popularise, but which (as we have seen) merely serve to shrink Radio 3's serious listenership, actually discourage anyone searching for anything deeper in the music for which Radio 3 once acted as one trusted parent and guide.

That is exactly how I feel.

[french frank]

What nevertheless does deject me is realising the extent to which decimating of the music's presentation by changes presumably designed to popularise, but which (as we have seen) merely serve to shrink Radio 3's serious listenership, actually discourage anyone searching for anything deeper in the music for which Radio 3 once acted as one trusted parent and guide.

Follow that.

[Pulcinella]

That is exactly how I feel.

We've said it before, but it's worth repeating: often much more erudition and information in our own BaL threads than in many broadcasts.
Don't despair, Micky.

Does Tribune take a Summer break too?

Maybe we should take up teamsaint's Verklärte Nacht suggestion as a Recordings in Discussion topic sooner than later, using the Karajan version as the orchestral benchmark?

[Serial_Apologist]

We've said it before, but it's worth repeating: often much more erudition and information in our own BaL threads than in many broadcasts.
Don't despair, Micky.

Does Tribune take a Summer break too?

Maybe we should take up teamsaint's Verklärte Nacht suggestion as a Recordings in Discussion topic sooner than later, using the Karajan version as the orchestral benchmark?

A good starting point for Schoenberg, whose music I remember first hearing in a broadcast. In it were Verklärte Nacht and a later 12-tone work - I can't now remember which. I was just starting on my long road into a lifelong passion for 20th century classical music in general, and remember thinking, how can one single composer write two such utterly contrasted pieces of music? Not much later, having heard Stravinsky's early ballets The Firebird, Petruschka and The Rite, I remember having similar thoughts regarding Pulcinella. Such was the range of modern music constantly on offer from Radio 3 that my father (b.1908), brought up musically mainly on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, began to follow suit, feeling that "the moderns" were helpful in escaping what had become for him a stale world of predictability, while making what he considered the most of his early retirement years. I had naive ideas about writing a book on 20th century music with some title such as "Modern Music is Easier to Understand than You Think"; Dad started scrupulously marking up Radio Times for the modern music due to be played in the coming week, which he would record for me to hear on my home visits. The point I would make was that his RT pages would be literally plastered with red biro mark-ups, such was the quantity of new and not-so-new classical music in all genres on offer in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s - helped by the fact that publicised items had anticipated timings to the side, enabling Dad to calculate how much recording tape was needed; he even had charts showing how much space had been recorded on, and how much remained. My first act would be switching on the Garrard and the radiogram Dad had connected it to, impatient with excitement as to what lay in store. Careful indexing, helped by books on the subject I was getting, mainly at Foyles, allowed me (for the then piffling price of the BBC License) what now seems like the privilege we have lost as Radio 3 changed, to build up a dated archive of music by the leading lights of musical modernism, from Debussy and Mahler (if you like) to Boulez, Stockhausen, Henze, Cardew, Birtwistle and Maxwell Davies.

In effect, over 30 or 40 years I was educated in advanced music at the tax payer's expense. I now ask myself how I could have acquired my level of knowledge without the expensive formal music college education expected of gifted children today, even leaving aside the motivation they would now need to take up music as a career, let alone a hobby, as it was for me and my generation.

[MickyD]

We've said it before, but it's worth repeating: often much more erudition and information in our own BaL threads than in many broadcasts.
Don't despair, Micky.

Does Tribune take a Summer break too?

Maybe we should take up teamsaint's Verklärte Nacht suggestion as a Recordings in Discussion topic sooner than later, using the Karajan version as the orchestral benchmark?

You're darned right! I have always got far more enjoyment from these exchanges than most things on R3.

La Tribune is indeed on holiday, but repeats from 2023 are being broadcast throughout the summer - the site tells you which programmes have been previously broadcast when you click on each programme. I am sure it will be back in the rentrée, beginning of September - the same usually goes for "En Piste!", the daily weekday programme equivalent to Record Review.

[Pulcinella]

You're darned right! I have always got far more enjoyment from these exchanges than most things on R3.

La Tribune is indeed on holiday, but repeats from 2023 are being broadcast throughout the summer - the site tells you which programmes have been previously broadcast when you click on each programme. I am sure it will be back in the rentrée, beginning of September - the same usually goes for "En Piste!", the daily weekday programme equivalent to Record Review.

Daily?
Mon Dieu!

[MickyD]

Yes, two hours from 9 to 11 Monday to Friday with two excellent hosts. What a pity R3 has reduced their coverage of new releases to a paltry 2 hours a week.