!! Latest schedule changes !!

[Mr Pee]

Shame

For a brief shining moment I thought I was living in an adult world at last

CE, Songs of Praise, Thought for the Day....

Nope, still living in the land of fairy tales- or at least the BBC seem to think so....

[amateur51]

CE, Songs of Praise, Thought for the Day....

Nope, still living in the land of fairy tales- or at least the BBC seem to think so....

Yay Mr Pee!

Oddly enough I don't mind Thought For The Day as much as the others a) cos it's over quickly b) it's sometimes a non-Christian speaker and c) I swear that I can hear Evan Davies' eyes rolling upwards as he announces it

[Pianorak]

I'm all in favour of live and let live, but do we really have to have CE on Sundays and Wednesdays? Surely, Sundays would be quite sufficient and possibly even appropriate.

[JoeG]

I preferred COTW at 10 as I would be much more likely to reember to listen to it then but I'm please Late Junction has an earlier start so I can hear a bit more before going to bed around midnight. Hopefully the jazz on Monday and World on 3 on Friday will also be on earlier.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm all in favour of live and let live, but do we really have to have CE on Sundays and Wednesdays? Surely, Sundays would be quite sufficient and possibly even appropriate.

But why should it matter that there will be 2 broadcasts? We have Breakfast every day, and also Morning on 3. There are many who like to hear CE (including myself), and I don't always catch the weekday programme.

[french frank]

Surely, Sundays would be quite sufficient and possibly even appropriate.

They tried that, and it was unpopular with most associated groups: listeners, participants, foundation authorities. Those employed by the BBC might have been pleased to be paid double time (or better) but in view of the fact that it wasn't popular that didn't seem to be a good way to inflate the costs.

I don't listen personally but I'd defend Choral Evensong on R3 to the death (), just as I would defend jazz and world music - other programmes which don't interest me and which people whinge about.

Edit: To jazz and world music, I would also add Late Junction, which I see is to be extended to 2 hours (and I presume Won3 and Jon3?), as a programme I can't abide. But in the great scheme of things, so what if I don't like it? Tough, I'll just put up with it

[Pianorak]

But why should it matter that there will be 2 broadcasts? . . .

Indeed it doesn't matter - I was just being rather selfish as I never listen to CE and feel the Wednesday afternoon slot could be filled with stuff more to my liking.

[Andrew Slater]

Good news about the repeat of CotW - I usually fill the 'dead half hour' between the 6pm news on R4 and Po3 on R3 with a CD and then often get so engrossed that I don't switch R3 on at all. CotW at 10pm is too late for me, and I can't listen at noon, so the news is doubly good for me.

Running The Essay simultaneously with A Book at Bedtime might upset some.

There will usually be about 20 to 30 minutes to spare at the end of Po3, which I presume will be filled as at present.

[pilamenon]

A thumbs up from me. It's a significant improvement on the very tired schedule of the last few years in which I gave up listening in the evening outside of the Proms season, and the switch back to 7.30 makes so much sense. Pity they didn't use the opportunity to give Night Waves the chop as well.

I do hope they don't persist with their irritating practice of introducing the concerts from the stage which has the effect of killing the atmosphere, before and after.

Also hope the diet is as varied as possible. Victoria from Sherborne Abbey is an encouraging start.

[DracoM]

The living, working tradition of the cathedrals and particularly their choirs in UK is a marvel in progress, and I 'd like to put a cautionary tale to those who resent CE twice a week.

[a] until very recently, CE was very nearly the only regular, year round TRULY LIVE piece of music making on R3.
[b] The choirs are anab initio training ground for musicians of all manner of stripes from rock to jazz to classical.
[c] the music can provide a lab for young composers to learn the tricky trade of setting pieces for voices in protected and expert sujrroundings
BUT, and here's the cautionary tale:
Over the last few years I have travelled a lot in Europe, notably to France and Spain, and a distressing number of the fabulous cathedrals of those two nations are sadly empty mausolea.

They have wondrous choir spaces, majestic organ facilities, some have awesome libraries of MS, and have been homes to some of the finest musicians / composers in the European tradition. Not any more. The working choirs that led worship, adorned services, raised the spirit in more senses than one, have largely gone, many incredibly by archepiscopal diktat in pursuit of a laicising democratisation of music making - which in effect usually means a microphone, an electronic keybpard, a quavering nun or hubristic and self-deceiving wannabe singer priest, crucifyingly banal music sometimes on Sundays but rarely at other times, to pitifully small congregations.

Walking round, on weekdays, you can certainly hear discreet 'holy music' piped via a PA system. And you know what? The choirs you hear haloing the beautiful spaces on these systems are almost exclusively ENGLISH catheral choirs on CD. How ironic is that? Many guides do not know that Victoria or Guerrero or Morales, or whoever learnt his stuff in these very choir stalls. An act of supreme musical vandalism has happened over the last 50 years. Once the resource of a dcecently trained choir goes, the beating heart of a great church and the culture that always accumulates round our great churhes goes with it.

So before we get too high on the usual crowings about the demise of CE, just think through a few of the ramifications of that hollow battle cry. You may be atheist, and hate religion on radio etc, and I would not for a minute deny you a chance to shout / celebrate that, BUT think what that church, that cathedral and its hard working muscial community are doing for their town, city etc.
AND
if the oxygen of publicity afforded by BBC R3's CE is cut off, the place/ the music / the centre of excellence will slowly die, at first imperceptible, but accelerating, and with it the entire coral reef of musical and cultural excellence that any cathedral accretes. Make cathedral choirs less rewarded by offering us an occasional oportunity to eavesdrop on their excellence, and kids will stop singing there and that creative cycle will thin and deplete, and that will slowly rot the cultural fabric of major cities.

Saddened rant over.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

DracoM

[Pianorak]

. . . I 'd like to put a cautionary tale to those who resent CE twice a week. . .

DracoM - thanks for making me stop, read and think!

[pilamenon]

I would also defend to the hilt the live broadcasts of Choral Evensong on musical grounds, whatever one's religious/spiritual leanings or lack of, and was quite surprised to see such hostility to them earlier in the thread. Good to read DracoM's eloquent advocacy for their continuation.

[Curalach]

Draco M,
I am not religious, and I rarely listen to CE, but your cautionary tale is well made and has made me realise how much we stand to lose if there is no place on R3 for this form of musical expression.
Thank you.

[PJPJ]

DracoM

Agree completely - very nicely put indeed. Thank you.