'Why Music?' weekend

[mercia]

we were told that 'Sleep' broke two Guinness-verified records - something like ... longest single piece ever broadcast and longest single piece ever broadcast live [though I'm not suggesting that was the point of the exercise]

[antongould]

C

These issues came into my mind when watching Question Time this week. Anyone else see it? After months of petty tedium, it was the best for ages, I thought - enlivened chiefly by Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economic Theory (who was also Finance Minister of Greece for the first seven months of 2015 ).

Putting aside various characteristics by which one can either be repelled or dazzled (e.g. that he is clearly a charismatic media performer, that he describes himself as an 'erratic Marxist', that his political CV isn't the strongest , that he appeared to tower intellectually above other panellists ("like having Einstein on Blankety Blank" was one description I read in a review ), and that he did so using his second language), much of what he said gave me pause for thought.

In particular, this final answer at the end of the programme, in relation to the health service: but if one substitutes "BBC" for "NHS" and "Universities", it's just as valid, it seems to me:

"Allow me to look at this issue from the outside, being an outsider. This country has produced precious institutions - the NHS is one, the great Universities another. Somewhere along the line, you folks lost your nerve, and you started questioning your own achievements. And this market fetishism entered realms it was never meant to be good at, like for instance the NHS or the Universities, and you started trying to introduce market solutions where they would never work - they resemble more like Soviet planning, with these ‘market indicators’ and trying to quantify the unquantifiable - the result of which, of course, is the loss of quality, both in the Universities and in the hospitals. I think you should go back to the great tradition of public service and public services provided by means of hierarchical institutions in which good people dedicated to the task do good stuff without having constantly to tot up and quantify everything they are doing, with the managers in the end taking a large part of the cut away from the doctors and the nurses.”

(I transcribed that from my recording of the programme. I corrected one solitary grammar error - he said 'tot down' rather than 'tot up')

The programme is here for anyone with a spare hour. There's some good knockabout stuff with Ken Clarke, some woman from UKIP, etc, for those with a taste for Punch and Judy shows too!


.

Thanks for that Rumpole I shall watch but to me at least there is a very scary amount of sense in that quote ....

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks for that Rumpole I shall watch but to me at least there is a very scary amount of sense in that quote ....

Exactly.

[teamsaint]

have hierarchical public institutions been swept away without me noticing then?
anybody got a link?

[PJPJ]

my own impression is that the little I listened to would if more tautly edited make excellent concert interval talks

I never listen to concert interval talks, if I tune in to the concert. I do occasionally listen to a talk if I don't listen to the concert. This isn't due to some matter of principle or other, it hinges on what I am able or unable to do.

Listening to a whole weekend of programmes is, for me, impossible. (In fact, listening to anything last weekend was not possible at all.) Did anyone manage the marathon? Perhaps this is supposed to be an iPlayer affair.

Caliban, thanks for your suggestion of The Psychiatrist at the Keyboard. I'll start there.

[Nick Armstrong]

hierarchical

Yes that was the word I didn't follow/buy. I put it down as some sort of 'erratic Marxist' term of art that I didn't understand, and moved on!

Caliban, thanks for your suggestion of The Psychiatrist at the Keyboard. I'll start there.

[MrGongGong]

we were told that 'Sleep' broke two Guinness-verified records - something like ... longest single piece ever broadcast and longest single piece ever broadcast live [though I'm not suggesting that was the point of the exercise]

I guess it all depends on what you mean by 'broadcast'

http://www.læyf.com

and i'm sure La Monte Young might have something to say (which could be how wonderful it was)

[teamsaint]

[QUOTE=Caliban;510934]Yes that was the word I didn't follow/buy. I put it down as some sort of 'erratic Marxist' term of art that I didn't understand, and moved on!




Well following your excellent example I "moved on" too, to the Prof at the keyboard fellow, and very good it was too.

[Nick Armstrong]

Well following your excellent example I "moved on" too, to the Prof at the keyboard fellow, and very good it was too.

I'm glad!

[ahinton]

we were told that 'Sleep' broke two Guinness-verified records - something like ... longest single piece ever broadcast and longest single piece ever broadcast live [though I'm not suggesting that was the point of the exercise]

Well, perhaps that will be superseded when BBC finally gets to broadcast Sorabji's Organ Symphony No. 2 (which has been performed) or Symphonic Variations for piano (which hasn't yet).

I don't think that anyone has yet questioned how much Mr Richter will get from PRS for this exercise but the answer might be quite interesting...

[french frank]

have hierarchical public institutions been swept away without me noticing then?
anybody got a link?

Did he mean institutions where each level gets on with what it's employed to do, without the interference of top-down corporate directives on how they should be doing it (I'm thinking about the BBC in particular, but there have been well-publicised examples of 'marketing departments' laying down the law to academic staff in universities).

[Nick Armstrong]

Did he mean institutions where each level gets on with what it's employed to do, without the interference of top-down corporate directives on how they should be doing it

I suspect so - he clearly intended a positive connotation to the word (which has become rather negative in English use, hasn't it - implying rigidity and inflexibility). I just looked it up (it's a Greek word of course - from ἱεράρχης hierarkhes, "leader of sacred rites") and one key thing appears to be direct links to immediate 'superiors' or 'subordinates', rather as you say, some overall 'top down' authority of marketing charlatans or financial bean-counters.

[vinteuil]

bean-counters.

... o Kaliban - Κυάμων ἀπέχεσθαι - abstine a fabis - abstain from beans! - as Pythagoras has it...

[mercia]

just coming to the end of Dr Kogan's talk - is he playing Rach 2 live against a recorded orchestral accompaniment ? - how do you do that and remain in-synch ?

[PJPJ]

just coming to the end of Dr Kogan's talk - is he playing Rach 2 live against a recorded orchestral accompaniment ? - how do you do that and remain in-synch ?

I must say I'm envious of Richard Kogan's piano playing - several items linked here:

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/conversation-dr-richard-kogan