Radio 3 Schedule changes

[french frank]

By playing I mean frequent playing to the detriment of other much more significant composers e.g. Palestrina or Schoenberg (except for Verklarte Nacht ) or Duke Ellington who rarely get a look in. Very few classical published pieces are not worth playing - I am talking about composers whose works get played moderately frequently.

Fair enough. I can't comment on that as I only see what happens on the playlists. It does seem as if some names crop up rather more regularly than would be expected! Perhaps it's a ploy to emphasise that boxes have duly been ticked by making the few new names more noticeable. One outing of (eg) Marianna Martines might not make much of a point. Oh. Coincidence - I see she had two outings this month. Must be an up-and-coming talent

[Serial_Apologist]

Can a hard line be drawn below the works that are 'of good quality' and deserve to be played, and above the lesser works, lesser-known works which fall below the line and are not worth playing? It seems to me to be a definite duty of R3 to give a hearing to such works and put people in a position to decide for themselves whether they are 'not very good' (i.e. I didn't like that. Don't play it again.) It's where entertainment passes into education, in my view.

It's a good point - as one who changes who my favourites are almost from year to year, I have recently being re-going over some of the recordings I have built up as being "representative", rather than favourites in composers' work as wholes, in order to check how much or how far my earlier assessments of their worth (for me) have changed. That said, I have long been struck how spot on so many comparatively open-minded critics and writers were in my early days' self-education on the then-moderns. Some of those books on my shelves have been falling to bits for some time now, but I keep them as standard-bearers for enlightened criticism and quality writing.

[smittims]

It can't be a 'hard line', I think, because of subjective preference. Was Giovanni Gabrieli 'better' than Havergal Brian (or more worthy of broadcast) and if so how? Only the individual listener can decide .

Nevertheless, there are composers who are hardly ever played on Radio 3 nowadays and surely don't deserve such neglect . Yes, I know I 've mentioned them often : Rawsthorne, Cooke, Brian. And there are others who , whatever their 'quality' have surely had more than their fair share of air-time in recent years, and yes, I have to say it again , Judith Weir, Astor Piazzola , Florence Price.

[LMcD]

Unless my ears deceived me, it's just been announced that the 'live' performance of La Mer on 'Classical Live' was part of a 2007 Prom.
(I've just checked - BBCSSO 31st July 2007)

[AuntDaisy]

Unless my ears deceived me, it's just been announced that the 'live' performance of La Mer on 'Classical Live' was part of a 2007 Prom.
(I've just checked - BBCSSO 31st July 2007)

Mere sematics, quibble thee not. The live musicians, live orchestra, live presenter and live continuity announcer were alive - at some point, probably.

Catching up on the Alexandre Tharaud Couperin... and making the most of the Wigmore Hall Concert (while it's still on R3).

Hope you're looking forward to another bleeding chunk of Mahler - can they stretch Das Lied von Die Errrrrrde out to next week?
What next, a month of Goldberg Variation?

[Ein Heldenleben]

It can't be a 'hard line', I think, because of subjective preference. Was Giovanni Gabrieli 'better' than Havergal Brian (or more worthy of broadcast) and if so how? Only the individual listener can decide .

Nevertheless, there are composers who are hardly ever played on Radio 3 nowadays and surely don't deserve such neglect . Yes, I know I 've mentioned them often : Rawsthorne, Cooke, Brian. And there are others who , whatever their 'quality' have surely had more than their fair share of air-time in recent years, and yes, I have to say it again , Judith Weir, Astor Piazzola , Florence Price.

Both Gabrieli ( to be fair the subject of a recent COTW ) and Brian are better than the last three you list and infrequently played, I was amazed at the high quality of the former. I don’t have as much as problem with Weir as you do but Piazzola and Price were names I was thinking of. The former really is a one trick pony. The latter is ok , fine but overplayed relative to other better composers. You can’t right historic wrongs with a Radio 3 playlist. A good start would be the universal provision of high quality preschool education.

[Serial_Apologist]

It can't be a 'hard line', I think, because of subjective preference. Was Giovanni Gabrieli 'better' than Havergal Brian (or more worthy of broadcast) and if so how? Only the individual listener can decide .

Nevertheless, there are composers who are hardly ever played on Radio 3 nowadays and surely don't deserve such neglect . Yes, I know I 've mentioned them often : Rawsthorne, Cooke, Brian. And there are others who , whatever their 'quality' have surely had more than their fair share of air-time in recent years, and yes, I have to say it again , Judith Weir, Astor Piazzola , Florence Price.

Those neglecteds tended to be relatively difficult listens, didn't they? But the rewards for perseverance were manifold and in some instances changed our thinking about many other things. One just needed some level of critical discernment to decide when one was not being hoodwinked. To the present-day Radio 3's predecessors' credits, most of the modern stuff I eagerly listened to off Radio 3 - much of it my father taped for me, thank you for that, Dad - was good, solid re-listenable modern music if we took Mahler or Debussy as our starting point. I assume my mostly autodidactive musical learning, taking it in when I was ready, served me to good ends... but more must surely go into taste formation than "subjective preference", even if it all comes down to that in the practical end? Otherwise why would we complain about how Radio 3 is being used to spoonfeed the listening public?

[Serial_Apologist]

You can’t right historic wrongs with a Radio 3 playlist. A good start would be the universal provision of high quality preschool education.

[Retune]

- Through The Night - whole works with minimal speech rather than dead air,

I made the mistake of listening to R3 when I was up late in the early hours of Sat morning, when the schedule is different and they have an hour of Essential Classics Mix before TTN kicks off at 2.30 AM. Not realising I was still in the Classic FM Zone, I was just enjoying the first movement of Beethoven Op. 101 (Pollini) and expecting the next one, only to be served Respighi's 'The Cuckoo'. I wonder if there's a single listener who appreciated this particular segue? Apparently they were celebrating Earth Day. Next time the same slot will be offering 'Brain boosting classical tracks to help you stay focused'. At 1.30 in the morning.

[AuntDaisy]

Unless my ears deceived me, it's just been announced that the 'live' performance of La Mer on 'Classical Live' was part of a 2007 Prom.
(I've just checked - BBCSSO 31st July 2007)

You were right - "... Debussy's La Mer, recorded LIVE at the BBC Proms, back in 2007..." ~2:01:22 in.

Using R3 newspeak, does, say, a studio recording become LIVE if a technician listened in?

[french frank]

It can't be a 'hard line', I think, because of subjective preference. Was Giovanni Gabrieli 'better' than Havergal Brian (or more worthy of broadcast) and if so how? Only the individual listener can decide .

The choice doesn't entail ranking composers . Just which side of the line does X go - above (worthy of broadcast) or below (not worthy of broadcast? I think where my perusal of playlists inclines me to agree with EH is perhaps in seeing tokenism in the choice of particular composers. A handful of such composers are then overplayed rather than extending the list of possibles.

I'm embarrassed to say I was looking for the name of a woman composer I hadn't heard of for my earlier comment, came up with Marianna Martines, discovered on Andrew's database that she's been broadcast twice this month and now, just a few moments ago I saw she was this week's CotW. I wonder now whether the earlier broadcasts were used as trails for the forthcoming CotW?

[Ein Heldenleben]

The choice doesn't entail ranking composers . Just which side of the line does X go - above (worthy of broadcast) or below (not worthy of broadcast? I think where my perusal of playlists inclines me to agree with EH is perhaps in seeing tokenism in the choice of particular composers. A handful of such composers are then overplayed rather than extending the list of possibles.

I'm embarrassed to say I was looking for the name of a woman composer I hadn't heard of for my earlier comment, came up with Marianna Martines, discovered on Andrew's database that she's been broadcast twice this month and now, just a few moments ago I saw she was this week's CotW. I wonder now whether the earlier broadcasts were used as trails for the forthcoming CotW?

Don’t know but I don’t think her music is in the same league as Brian or Gabrieli ( or Cooke and Rawsthorne for that matter). The sonata in e for harpsichord was so harmonically repetitive and uninspired I had to turn the radio down.

[french frank]

Don’t know but I don’t think her music is in the same league as Brian or Gabrieli ( or Cooke and Rawsthorne for that matter).

This is what I have some difficulty with. Are Brian and Gabrieli in the same league as each other? And are Cooke and Rawsthorne in that same league too? Or does this just mean 'above the putative dividing line? Still, I even have difficulty sorting out which are better and best of League One, the Premier and the Championship. They all sound pretty good to me.

[oddoneout]

I'm not that fussed about who is better than another(and I don't possess the knowledge to argue the point anyway), I just wish those responsible would start fishing in the lake instead of always in the village pond. There is so little variation either in terms of dates or of composers in the output these days, it's no wonder the same names, worthy or otherwise, keep coming round, especially once the tickbox filters kick in. Hundreds of years and hundreds of composers and lots of countries, but you wouldn't think it to look at the schedules. The TTN lists regularly illustrate that as do the EBU broadcast days.

[french frank]

I just wish those responsible would start fishing in the lake instead of always in the village pond.

Isn't it just the Classic FM practice of regularly playing what's popular with the listeners? People like to hear their favourite pieces. Once something is on the playlist what goes around comes around. Those at R3 who know of something better than this must be getting fewer and fewer as they retire.