Radio 3 Schedule changes

[oddoneout]

Although the Rückert Leider work as single songs DLVDE just doesn’t . Der Abscheid only makes really sense if you’ve heard the rest. By the way the tenor in this recording sounded a bit strangulated for my tastes.

Your points re Sounds are well made.The controller will be perfectly aware of this - I think it was Richard Morrison who won’t be aware of BBC policy who made the not particularly relevant Sounds point.

When the BBC did a survey of older people back in the 90’s they found that many never moved the dial from their favourite station on FM because they were frightened they wouldn’t find it again. They didn’t have the fine finger control needed to tune a small FM transistor. Many who did move the dial marked the stations with stickies as they couldn’t read the frequency numbers which , very unhelpfully , vary from transmitter to transmitter.

What hope do some 80 year olds have negotiating Sounds ? I’ve spent a lifetime in the business working as a vision and sound mixer (back in analogue days ) , I can do basic video editing on Final Cut Pro but even I struggle to negotiate the cumbersome Radio Schedule page.

Even decades before I became an older person the setting on the big radio never changed as I had no wish or need to listen to anything other than R3. Eventually the LCD display had lost so many bits that changing stations, had I wanted to do so, would have been very difficult as there wouldn't have been any meaningful FM figures showing!

[smittims]

Andrew Slater's message 160 has suggested to me that Sam's butchery is akin to what's happened to a lot of non-fiction TV programmes these days, which makes them unwatchable for me. We begin with five minutes of soudbites and 'coming up next', then two minutes of actual programme, then more 'coming up next', then a recap of what they've done so far, and so on: TV for channel-hoppers, in fact. So splitting up a classical work into pop-song-length segments serves the same purpose, and, of course, does the source material the same disservice .

[oddoneout]

Andrew Slater's message 160 has suggested to me that Sam's butchery is akin to what's happened to a lot of non-fiction TV programmes these days, which makes them unwatchable for me. We begin with five minutes of soudbites and 'coming up next', then two minutes of actual programme, then more 'coming up next', then a recap of what they've done so far, and so on: TV for channel-hoppers, in fact. So splitting up a classical work into pop-song-length segments serves the same purpose, and, of course, does the source material the same disservice .

Agree about the TV programmes, I've largely given up watching such things, especially the BBC ones... Even when the presenter is a known quantity that can be over-ridden and lost by the production requirements.

[Master Jacques]

Imagine the audience reaction if Radio 4 were to adopt a similar philosophy and chopped up all the afternoon plays in a week and broadcast a collection of segments from each one each day under the heading of Afternoon Play. There would be an outcry.

But they do precisely that in Radio 4's "Afternoon Drama" slot from 14:15 to 15:00. The majority of these things now are not self-contained plays, but serials, cut up into gobbets running one episode per week. The idea of broadcasting a whole play at once is as off-piste to R4, as the idea of a whole symphony is to Radio 3.

I think the answer has to be revolution, doesn't it? We need to take over the studios, and force adult programming on these timeserving suits.

[oddoneout]

But they do precisely that in Radio 4's "Afternoon Drama" slot from 14:15 to 15:00. The majority of these things now are not self-contained plays, but serials, cut up into gobbets running one episode per week. The idea of broadcasting a whole play at once is as off-piste to R4, as the idea of a whole symphony is to Radio 3.

I think the answer has to be revolution, doesn't it? We need to take over the studios, and force adult programming on these timeserving suits.

The issue I suppose is whether the work in question was intended to be experienced in one go or not. Serialised writing and drama have always had and continue to have their place(cliffhangers rule!), but chopping up a play,opera symphony etc to broadcast the same way, ie over a period of time, is not IMO acceptable, being conceived as a whole, not a part-work.
When will R4 get a spoken/written word equivalent of Essential Classics - an act of a play(or, more likely, a few chunks from an act) some verses from a poem, a random chapter from a novel, interspersed with chat and ads?

[french frank]

I think the answer has to be revolution, doesn't it? We need to take over the studios, and force adult programming on these timeserving suits.

They point out sententiously that attention spans are now much shorter - and then ensure that attention spans gradually get shorter.

I take it as axiomatic that having a longer attention span is better than having a short one. There will always be people capable of sustained concentration, but the masses won't be and society will develop according to the inclinations of those who can.

[oddoneout]

They point out sententiously that attention spans are now much shorter - and then ensure that attention spans gradually get shorter.

I take it as axiomatic that having a longer attention span is better than having a short one. There will always be people capable of sustained concentration, but the masses won't be and society will develop according to the inclinations of those who can.

Which also removes choice. There is always the option with a long(er) item to leave it, but if it is already filleted for consumption then that is taken away. It's the Grotneys argument as always - if that's the only option then there will always be enough who just roll over and accept it - better something than nothing.

[Master Jacques]

They point out sententiously that attention spans are now much shorter - and then ensure that attention spans gradually get shorter.

I take it as axiomatic that having a longer attention span is better than having a short one. There will always be people capable of sustained concentration, but the masses won't be and society will develop according to the inclinations of those who can.

Don't you think the bird has already flown?

As an anecdotal sampler, about 20 years ago Desert Island Discs used to contain roughly 30% 3-minute pop songs to 70% quality music of all kinds, with symphonic music and opera well to the fore, curated under a questing presenter. Now the quotients are about 90% to 10%, with a brain-free presenter who appears manifestly uncomfortable when guests choose anything "intellectual".

And this show features supposedly alpha, leading members of society. It shows that the great majority of people - nudged continually by commercial pressure - choose to divide their music into "songs", rather than listen to longer stretches.

If you are suggesting that all this tends to aid the cause of authoritarian control of the many by the (very) few, I can't disagree with you.

[AuntDaisy]

They point out sententiously that attention spans are now much shorter - and then ensure that attention spans gradually get shorter.
I take it as axiomatic that having a longer attention span is better than having a short one. There will always be people capable of sustained concentration, but the masses won't be and society will develop according to the inclinations of those who can.

Just a mo, checking my phone. What was that? Oh, hedgehog photos... Where?

[french frank]

Don't you think the bird has already flown?

If that definitely implies irredeemability, I honestly don't know if a solution is possible. But when even the BBC encourages/panders to it, you're probably right.

If you are suggesting that all this tends to aid the cause of authoritarian control of the many by the (very) few, I can't disagree with you.

Although those DID figures suggest the zombie mentality might just ignore social class. And if that is correct it could be a hopeful sign.

[mopsus]

As an anecdotal sampler, about 20 years ago Desert Island Discs used to contain roughly 30% 3-minute pop songs to 70% quality music of all kinds, with symphonic music and opera well to the fore, curated under a questing presenter. Now the quotients are about 90% to 10%, with a brain-free presenter who appears manifestly uncomfortable when guests choose anything "intellectual".

I grew up with Roy Plomley presenting DID but later came to find his interviews rather superficial. Kirsty Young interviewing Sir James MacMillan only a few years ago dug deeper, for example drawing him out about the experience of composing a piece for the funeral of a young relative. (There were lighter moments in the interview too.) Maybe the programme is now reverting to the style of interview it had under Plomley, only with different musical genres represented in the choice of discs.

[gurnemanz]

As an anecdotal sampler, about 20 years ago Desert Island Discs used to contain roughly 30% 3-minute pop songs to 70% quality music of all kinds, with symphonic music and opera well to the fore, curated under a questing presenter. Now the quotients are about 90% to 10%, with a brain-free presenter who appears manifestly uncomfortable when guests choose anything "intellectual".

I thought we did not use personal abuse on here.

I like and listen to mainly classical music, mainly by male Europeans like me, but unlike me, mostly dead. I do not feel superior to those who prefer the music of our time which is mainly songs, often chosen on DID because they evoke a memory rather than for their intrinsic musical quality. I grew up in the 60s with the 3-minute pop song, (some maybe even have been as long as 4 or 5 minutes) - Beatles, Sones Kinks etc. If I was on DID I would probably chose Buddy Holly's It Doesn't Matter Any More, the first record I ever bought, which turns out to be a great song (2 minutes five seconds duration) and which I love and enjoy as much now as I did sixty years ago and as much as any "quality" song by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Brahms, Mahler, Fauré, Weill, Eisler, Hahn, Shostakovich, Finzi, Gurney .. plus so many more.

I regret that I have not taken the trouble to get know very much of the modern output (including so-called world music) which my children (in their 40s) play. I love songs generally and cast my net wide as wide as I can but alas not as wide as I might like to: show and cabaret tunes, folk, the great jazz and blues vocalists, some country and western, eg Johnny Cash - especially the late American Recordings and Emmylou Harris, the great singer-songwriters: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Richard Thompson, Lucinda Williams.

[LMcD]

But they do precisely that in Radio 4's "Afternoon Drama" slot from 14:15 to 15:00. The majority of these things now are not self-contained plays, but serials, cut up into gobbets running one episode per week. The idea of broadcasting a whole play at once is as off-piste to R4, as the idea of a whole symphony is to Radio 3.

I think the answer has to be revolution, doesn't it? We need to take over the studios, and force adult programming on these timeserving suits.

Will the revolution be televised?

[Master Jacques]

I thought we did not use personal abuse on here.

I like and listen to mainly classical music, mainly by male Europeans like me, but unlike me, mostly dead. I do not feel superior to those who prefer the music of our time which is mainly songs, often chosen on DID because they evoke a memory rather than for their intrinsic musical quality. I grew up in the 60s with the 3-minute pop song, (some maybe even have been as long as 4 or 5 minutes) - Beatles, Sones Kinks etc. If I was on DID I would probably chose Buddy Holly's It Doesn't Matter Any More, the first record I ever bought, which turns out to be a great song (2 minutes five seconds duration) and which I love and enjoy as much now as I did sixty years ago and as much as any "quality" song by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Brahms, Mahler, Fauré, Weill, Eisler, Hahn, Shostakovich, Finzi, Gurney .. plus so many more.

I regret that I have not taken the trouble to get know very much of the modern output (including so-called world music) which my children (in their 40s) play. I love songs generally and cast my net wide as wide as I can but alas not as wide as I might like to: show and cabaret tunes, folk, the great jazz and blues vocalists, some country and western, eg Johnny Cash - especially the late American Recordings and Emmylou Harris, the great singer-songwriters: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Richard Thompson, Lucinda Williams.

You amplify my significant point quite beautifully. The fact that Bob Dylan has been thought worthy of a Nobel Prize tells us all we need to know about the change in official taste from complexity and length to simplicity and brevity, preferable as part of "The Great American Songbook". It's such a straightjacket.

You can only do so much in a three-minute song, even if you're Finzi or Britten, whereas the sky's the limit in a half-hour symphony or two-hour opera. But - just as such diverse figures as Warhol and the poet/artist David Jones prophesied - "high art", with its complexities and ambiguities, is dead. Anglo/American society has accepted authoritarianism, while welcoming the equally conformist minstrel-protesters as an opiate to replace Christianity. Thus the slide of Radio 3 towards the "single song" culture, and a world in which anything longer than 3 minutes is thought "pretentious" or "intellectual".

As for insulting the current presenter of Desert Island Discs, I didn't name her; and as "brain-free" is obviously a metaphor, rather than a claim of fact, I'm not sure how to rephrase it without giving her credit for a professionalism which she doesn't possess. She simply reads out the lines her researchers have put together for her, and scarcely engages with the "guests" at all, on any meaningful level, unless she happens to like the ditties they've chosen. That's something of which you could never accuse even the oleaginous Plumley. Or am I being too "personal" again?

[vinteuil]

It's such a straightjacket.

... a pedant might prefer straitjacket

.