New Year New Music

[french frank]

"BBC Radio 3 offers an alternative New Year’s resolution for radio listeners to discover new things with New Year New Music, a week exploring the power of new music, from iconic masterpieces to avant-garde experiments, looking to the next generation of talent and exploring the best in contemporary music."

This will include the Stockhausen world premiere - Hymnen (and KS as Composer of the Week) and "Radio 3 will broadcast a special overnight edition of pioneering composer La Monte Young’s The Well-Tuned Piano, a five-hour piano work exploring overtone harmonies designed to be heard while the listener is immersed in the colour magenta."

Looks as if Essential Classics will be given some extra sinew too:

"Special editions of Essential Classics with an in-depth focus on some of today’s prominent composers will also broadcast during the week, focusing on Jonathan Dove, Errolyn Wallen, Max Richter, Roxanna Panufnik and Mark-Anthony Turnage. Irish composer Gerald Barry will reveal his Private Passions to Michael Berkeley for the first time, and the composer Tansy Davies will introduce her favourite new music in Saturday Classics."

All details here.

Pretty uncompromising!

[MrGongGong]

This will include the Stockhausen world premiere - Hymnen (and KS as Composer of the Week) and "Radio 3 will broadcast a special overnight edition of pioneering composer La Monte Young’s The Well-Tuned Piano, a five-hour piano work exploring overtone harmonies designed to be heard while the listener is immersed in the colour magenta."

Result

[french frank]

Result

But just wait for the howls of protest, the papers screaming 'perverse elitism' and 'abolish Radio 3'. But it's a response to the claims of dumbing down, so Way to Go!

[vinteuil]

... this is excellent news. It's not my kind of music at all - but it's exackerly what a serious Radio 3 shd be doing

[vinteuil]

a five-hour piano work exploring overtone harmonies designed to be heard while the listener is immersed in the colour magenta...

Magenta, interesting as being one of the very first synthetic (coal-tar derived) dyes. Named after the 1859 Battle of Magenta.

[ ... remembered this, 'cos my college colours were magenta and black. ]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Result

- I'll say!

(Of course, this could just be that dream again, and when I wake up, it'll be Andre Rieu Month!)

[Bryn]

Huh! New music? Hymnen and The Well Tuned Piano? Well worn classics, more like. Good to have them broadcast, nonetheless. [Takes off Hancock's Bah Homburg.]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Huh! New music? Hymnen and The Well Tuned Piano? Well worn classics, more like. Good to have them broadcast, nonetheless. [Takes off Hancock's Bah Homburg.]

[pastoralguy]

... this is excellent news. It's not my kind of music at all - but it's exackerly what a serious Radio 3 shd be doing

[french frank]

... this is excellent news. It's not my kind of music at all - but it's exackerly what a serious Radio 3 shd be doing

My feeling too - and logical progress might make it harder to continue with some of the other, er, programming which scars the landscape

Bryn - You might be able to explain why this particular version of Hymnen is billed as a 'world premiere'? This is what the Guardian reported:

"The new year brings a week celebrating contemporary classical music that will be launched on 1 January with the world premiere of the four-channel transmission of Stockhausen’s electroacoustic classic Hymnen. Radio 3 has acquired copies of the original four-channel tapes of Regions (ie Movements) 1, 2 and 4 from the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, and alongside these will be broadcast a recording of a live performance by the London Sinfonietta of Region 3, making the BBC the first to broadcast the complete work as it was conceived by Stockhausen in 1967."

Is it just the first broadcast?

[Roehre]

...

All details here.

Pretty uncompromising!

Nevertheless quite a bit lobsided too.
Apart from oldies Stockhausen and La Monte Young, where are the contemporary composers from outside these Isles?
superficially browsing I only see Lachenmann, Saariaho, Escaich and some Americans....

Whatever:

[Roehre]

... making the BBC the first to broadcast the complete work as it was conceived by Stockhausen in 1967."

Is it just the first broadcast?

No. Was broadcast live in its entirety (IIRC in 1971) as part of the Holland Festival (again IIRC, but could have been Gaudeamus. ) and: at the same festival Gruppen was also programmed and broadcast live, then on both Hilversum 1 and 2 simultaneously (creating quadrophony ) .

PS: The work has not been played at Gaudeamus.

[french frank]

No. Was broadcast live in its entirety (IIRC in 1971) as part of the Holland Festival (again IIRC, but could have been Gaudeamus. Perhaps Richard Barrett recalls) and: at the same festival Gruppen was also programmed and broadcast live, then on both Hilversum 1 and 2 simultaneously (creating quadrophony ) .

It looks as if there were later revisions in 1975 (Wiki).

[doversoul1]

The Early Music Show’s contribution

Sunday 3 January
Stevie Wishart presents a special New Year New Music programme. She takes a look at how early music still resonates through the contemporary music of our time. She will feature her own compositions as well as recordings of music performed by a young performers such as Voice Trio. Voice performs secular and non-secular music from the medieval music of Hildegard of Bingen, to 21st-century commissions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tk6y3

[DracoM]

... this is excellent news. It's not my kind of music at all - but it's exackerly what a serious Radio 3 shd be doing

Exactly. Well said.