Christmas Around Europe

[DracoM]

Well, Ian Skelly yet again..................blimey............

Q: have just been listening on Finnish YLE to their Christmas Around Europe Live presentation, and the material was far stronger than the tinsel and twinkle we had at 1 p.m. on R3. YLE had a chorally much richer sequence including from farther reaches north i.e. Scandinavia AND east in terms Christian communities.

What we seem to be getting on R3 is like the Xmas Ads on TV in titbits. Nothing like the liturgical seriousness the Finnish radio output has been doing - i.e. the real heart of the Christian tradition.

Don't understand the R4 editorial policy on this at all.

[Pulcinella]

Don't understand the R4 editorial policy on this at all.

Come now, Draco: no need to be bashful.
Assuming that you mean R3 not R4, of course you do.
We need the emphasis on the presenter, not on the content; and we need to be told every few minutes what it is we are listening to (Radio 3) and how lucky we are that the BBC is linking up with colleagues in Europe, but that we're listening to Radio 3, etc, etc.
Once again, I switched off and put a CD on instead.

[DracoM]

Yes, R3 - sorry.
Ditto for switch off - caught yesterday's St T's NYC Service of Carols etc. An excellent Matthew Martin carol sung with terrific brio.

But anything would be better than watching Liverpool lucky to escape with only a three goal thrashing.

Chester Cath's CE a relief and calm in misery.

[jean]

Q: have just been listening on Finnish YLE to their Christmas Around Europe Live presentation, and the material was far stronger than the tinsel and twinkle we had at 1 p.m. on R3...

But the Finnish concert was what we had at 1 p.m. on R3.

I am struggling to understand your objection.

[DracoM]

Not exactly. What we had at 1 p.m. was A concert from Finland, yes indeed. And yes it was described as 'live'.
BUT
At exactly the same time Finnish Radio was transmitting other sections of the same Europe-wide Christmas Music programmes. Always recalling that Finland is ahead of us in terms of time zone - they are 2 hrs ahead of us. Hence they had played the R3 lunch time tinselly stuff at 11 a.m or so their time.

By the time we started to take stuff, Finnish Radio were already deep into a wonderful long sequence of Ambrosian / Byzantine chants with the Christmas message central. Which as far as I can see, we will not be getting.

I presume that each station connected to this Europe wide output chose what to transmit on their own network.

[jean]

I see. Well, I agree that Ambrosian / Byzantine chants would have been very nice; but I didn't hear anything particularly tinselly in what we had instead (it isn't usually the first word that springs to mind when I'm listening to Sibelius)

And it did appear to contain the Christmas message althought sometimes in Finnish.

[BBMmk2]

Doversoul has begun a similar thread........?

[subcontrabass]

Not exactly. What we had at 1 p.m. was A concert from Finland, yes indeed. And yes it was described as 'live'.
BUT
At exactly the same time Finnish Radio was transmitting other sections of the same Europe-wide Christmas Music programmes. Always recalling that Finland is ahead of us in terms of time zone - they are 2 hrs ahead of us. Hence they had played the R3 lunch time tinselly stuff at 11 a.m or so their time.

By the time we started to take stuff, Finnish Radio were already deep into a wonderful long sequence of Ambrosian / Byzantine chants with the Christmas message central. Which as far as I can see, we will not be getting.

I presume that each station connected to this Europe wide output chose what to transmit on their own network.

Your clock seems to have gone astray. From 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. GMT YLE Classic was broadcasting LIVE exactly the same programme as Radio 3 (3 p.m. to 4 p.m. local time). They picked up three earlier one hour segments - one from 12 noon to 1 p.m. local time (recorded in Gdansk on 10th December) [that seems to be the chant that you are referring to]; one from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. local time (a concert by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded in Denmark on 28th November); and one from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. local time (Bach cantatas recorded in Nuremberg in October) [this segment is on Radio 3 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. GMT]. YLE Classic is not broadcasting the segments that are on Radio 3 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. GMT.

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, Ian Skelly yet again..................blimey............

Yes... he sounded to be struggling slightly with the scripts, the bit I heard early in the session made it seem as if he was improvising the translation live. Who knows what imperfect or inaccurate scripts he was having to work off, so seasonal forgiveness seems in order. I turned off quickly, there seemed to be a lot of music that didn't appeal. There seemed to have been some changes to the advertised programme, too - I made a point of hearing the concert from Dresden, not least for the Adès carol and four Poulenc Motets... to find that the Adès had disappeared and there were only two of the four Poulenc pieces

It didn't have the feel of the best organised event ever...

The singing of the Lauridsen and Sandström/Praetorius works was pretty good though, pieces I always enjoy hearing.

[DracoM]

Well, in that case I've been listening to the wrong YLE station.