Welcome to my 7th annual review of ‘Classical Music’ on Radio 3. For details of how this is done/calculated please see the earlier reviews.
The change of Controller has made 2015 a year of interest to see if there are any changes in the air. All in all this has been a rather unusual year, a few composers who fared poorly under RW, recovered, Bartok in particular, others continued to remain in the doldrums, i.e. Hindemith & Honegger. The number of non-classical works in predominantly classical programmes/slots actually increased slightly further on the huge 2014 increase (1.11% on 2014, 21.04% on 2013). There was also a considerable increase in traditional/folk music, up by around 20% and the overall number of pieces/chunks played also increased by a further 2%.
Anniversary Composers
A rather mixed bag. Sibelius fared less well than expected, his symphonies featured strongly but his other works less than expected. Only in the last few weeks of the year, closer to his actual birthday’ was there any real noticeable pickup from normal in the amount of his music broadcast. Nielsen did well, with a good range of his repertoire being broadcast. Scriabin also did well, but oddly neither the 1st or 2nd Symphony was broadcast in its entirety. The overrated (IMHO) Part had a good 80th birthday year, but as a CFM favourite this was rather expected. Glazunov did relatively poorly, it wasn’t even his best year since my survey started. Not a single one of his symphonies was broadcast in its entirety, which is totally unbelievable. Dukas similarly has had better years, more exposure for the Symphony and Piano Sonata wasn’t really forthcoming. Taneyev had a very poor year compared to last, I wonder in the R3 researchers got his death year wrong, it wouldn’t surprise me. Magnard was virtually insultingly snubbed, as were Diamond and Persichetti (3 pieces/chunks each is insulting). Cowell did somewhat better though rather patchy in repertoire.
Winners and losers
Some surprises with some of the major composers, J S Bach having by far his best year since I began my survey and F J Haydn his best year since his anniversary year in 2009, but Robert Schuman and Rossini having their worst year so far and Chopin also having a relatively poor year, along with several early composers, notably Monteverdi.
Women Composers
The focus on women composers this year also produced a very mixed bag; Clara Schumann, Chaminade, Tailleferre, Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn and Judith Weir did particularly well; Maconchy, Lutyens, Tower & Zwilich did particularly poorly.
Composers by Region
Some Scandinavian composers benefitted from the ‘Northern Lights’ season, others less so. Holmboe, Rosenberg, Kokkonen, Englund, Koppel, remained virtually or totally ignored. With Russian composers it was business as usual, Weinberg sadly declining after a promising 2014. Eastern European composers did reasonably, helped by the welcome increase in the amount of Bartok broadcast. However the earlier classical composers such as Krommer, the Bendas, Kalliwoda and the Stamitzs remained in the doldrums, but Vanhal was a very welcome COTW. Generally little major change in Austro-German composers except the odd decline in Robert Schumann and the sudden increase in Schutz. Italian composers except for Rossini’s and Monteverdi’s decline were roughly on a par with previous years as were French composers with most of RW’s favourites remaining so under the new regime and most of RW’s dislikes also remaining in the same situation. Spanish music markedly declined. British music also declined overall somewhat with a few exceptions, notably Walton. Five Malcolm Arnold symphonies in the year was a very welcome plus point. American music remained generally as under RW, with the same small group of composers/works doing ok and the rest generally being largely ignored.
Symphonies
Continuing my focus on this genre, 2015 saw a decline in complete performances of symphonies from 2014. Beethoven did best as usual and both Sibelius and Mahler had their best years since 2011. The number of CPE Bach symphonies remained well up following on from his 2014 anniversary year. Further details will be provided in the symphony statistics posting.
Statistics for 2015
Please find the figures by composer below for those composers who had more than 50 pieces/chunks broadcast on Radio 3 in 2015, as usual the totals are by 5s as there is the chance that I may miss the very occasional work by a composer. Please let me know if you would like to know the figures for any particular composers you are interested in who didn’t reach the 50 threshold.
As usual, sadly this site will not allow me to attach any file in any format so I can't show the figures in a nice table. Basically the figures for each composer are in the following order: Position in 2015; Composer Name; Number of Pieces/Chunks; Position in 2014; % difference from 2014; % difference from 2013.
1 BACH J S 1550+ 2 7.01% 2.91%
2 MOZART W A 1410+ 1 -2.55% -1.87%
3 BEETHOVEN 1060+ 3 -2.40% 4.03%
4 SCHUBERT 1040+ 4 -1.88% -3.78%
5 BRAHMS 810+ 5 -6.03% 8.43%
6 HAYDN F J 695+ 8 7.92% 4.83%
7 HANDEL 665+ 7 0.00% -12.22%
8 CHOPIN 650+ 6 -8.94% -11.77%
9 MENDELSSOHN Fx 530+ 11 -3.97% 5.77%
10 SIBELIUS 520+ 20 54.30% 59.02%
11 DEBUSSY 510+ 14 1.38% 3.43%
12 TCHAIKOVSKY 500+ 15 -0.80% -12.30%
13 DVORAK 485+ 10 -12.68% -7.39%
14 VIVALDI 460+ 16 -4.35% 0.00%
15 SCHUMANN R 440+ 12 -19.08% -23.04%
16 RAVEL 420+ 13 -20.79% 3.46%
17 STRAUSS R 360+ 9 -36.89% 18.36%
18 GRIEG 355+ 21 7.53% 9.85%
19 RACHMANINOV 350+ 19 1.16% 7.38%
20 ELGAR 340+ 17 -22.68% -8.09%
21 LISZT 325+ 18 -9.67% -19.46%
22 PURCELL H 325+ 25 18.68% -8.99%
23 PROKOFIEV S 295+ 24 5.69% -0.67%
24 SHOSTAKOVICH 290+ 26 10.15% 4.64%
25 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 290+ 22 -11.25% -10.43%
26 BRITTEN 285+ 23 -3.40% -64.54%
27 NIELSEN C 265+ 48 111.90% 89.36%
28 FAURE 240+ 28 -1.65% -28.44%
29 POULENC 235+ 42 50.00% 21.88%
30 SAINT-SAENS 230+ 33 3.10% -11.41%
31 STRAVINSKY 230+ 27 -12.60% -20.76%
32 VERDI 225+ 30 -5.39% -49.33%
33 BARTOK 215+ 41 33.54% 37.82%
34 BERLIOZ 195+ 32 -16.31% -7.58%
35 WAGNER R 195+ 34 -12.61% -55.71%
36 SCRIABIN 190+ 77 162.50% 350.00%
37 RAMEAU 180+ 29 -24.07% 3.98%
38 TELEMANN 180+ 38 -0.55% -23.21%
39 WALTON 175+ 45 19.46% 14.84%
40 MAHLER G 165+ 36 -18.54% -7.73%
41 PART 165+ 58 72.16% 227.45%
42 GERSHWIN 165+ 39 -8.33% -23.26%
43 HOLST G 165+ 46 15.38% -1.20%
44 ROSSINI 165+ 35 -21.43% -23.26%
45 SCARLATTI D 155+ 44 2.67% 5.48%
46 BACH C P E 150+ 31 -35.71% 54.55%
47 MONTEVERDI 140+ 37 -24.73% -20.90%
48 BRUCKNER 135+ 53 24.77% 34.65%
49 STRAUSS J II 130+ 40 -23.98% -31.58%
50 WEBER C M VON 130+ 48 -8.45% -20.73%
51 BYRD 125+ 45 -15.44% -15.44%
52 RIMSKY KORSAKOV 125+ 51 7.83% 25.25%
53 PUCCINI 120+ 50 3.42% -12.95%
54 JANACEK 120+ 43 -22.08% 0.00%
55 SCHUTZ 120+ 95 140.00% 287.10%
56 COPLAND 110+ 57 15.31% -16.30%
57 BERNSTEIN L 110+ 82 65.67% 0.00%
58 TALLIS 110+ 70 37.04% 30.59%
59 GRAINGER 100+ 55 -4.76% -14.53%
60 KODALY 100+ 71 25.00% 31.58%
61 SULLIVAN 95+ 72 24.05% 55.56%
62 SCHOENBERG 95+ 82 43.28% 54.84%
63 SMETANA 95+ 52 -14.41% 35.71%
64 BIZET 90+ 56 -8.82% -8.82%
65 GLAZUNOV 90+ 66 4.71% 28.99%
66 RESPIGHI 85+ 51 -22.81% -11.11%
67 CHABRIER 85+ 67 1.19% 1.19%
68 BIBER 85+ 65 -2.33% 82.61%
69 MUSSORGSKY 80+ 60 -11.96% -1.22%
70 KREISLER 80+ 63 -10.23% 0.00%
71 FRANCK C 75+ 61 -13.33% 2.63%
72 ARNOLD 75+ 72 -2.53% -1.28%
72 COUPERIN F 75+ 74 0.00% -23.76%
72 WEIR J 75+ new 165.52% 1183.33%
73 GLUCK 75+ 64 -10.34% 8.57%
74 CORELLI 75+ 68 -9.64% -16.67%
74 DELIUS 75+ 59 -19.35% -9.64%
75 HOWELLS 70+ 81 7.35% 58.70%
76 GLINKA 70+ 89 28.57% 5.88%
76 PARRY H 70+ 90 30.91% -15.29%
76 SATIE 70+ 72 -8.86% 12.50%
77 LASSUS 70+ new 86.84% 44.90%
78 BRIDGE 70+ 62 -21.35% -18.60%
79 PAGANINI 70+ 92 30.19% 32.69%
79 STANFORD 70+ 78 -2.82% 15.00%
80 SCHUMANN C 65+ new 168.00% 157.69%
81 BARBER 65+ 91 20.37% -15.58%
81 MACMILLAN J 65+ new 51.16% 27.45%
82 FINZI 60+ 95 26.00% 10.53%
83 BRUCH 60+ 75 -16.22% 19.23%
84 MESSIAEN 60+ 93 17.31% 15.09%
84 SUK 60+ new 27.08% -8.96%
85 VILLA LOBOS 60+ 69 -26.83% -6.25%
86 DOWLAND 60+ 54 -44.86% -61.69%
86 KORNGOLD 60+ 85 -3.28% -32.18%
86 PALESTRINA 60+ 80 -14.49% -32.18%
87 BUXTEHUDE 55+ 60 -36.96% 31.82%
87 DONIZETTI 55+ 86 -3.33% 34.88%
88 ADAMS J 55+ 84 -9.52% 32.56%
88 MARTINU 55+ new 39.02% 9.62%
89 ALBENIZ 55+ 82 -16.42% -20.00%
89 BORODIN 55+ 82 -16.42% -12.50%
89 LIGETI 55+ 90 1.82% 12.00%
89 PIAZZOLLA 55+ 87 -5.08% 14.29%
90 FALLA 55+ 53 -101.85% -34.94%
91 FARRENC L 50+ new 5200.00% 140.91%
91 GABRIELI G 50+ 92 0.00% -8.62%
91 MASSENET 50+ 79 -24.29% 39.47%
92 BAX 50+ new 24.39% 18.60%
92 COWELL 50+ new 1175.00% 1175.00%
92 GLASS P 50+ 79 -27.14% 24.39%
93 HUMMEL 50+ new 21.95% -13.79%
93 LULLY 50+ 94 -1.96% -39.02%
93 WOLF H 50+ 76 -31.51% -54.00%
The change of Controller has made 2015 a year of interest to see if there are any changes in the air. All in all this has been a rather unusual year, a few composers who fared poorly under RW, recovered, Bartok in particular, others continued to remain in the doldrums, i.e. Hindemith & Honegger. The number of non-classical works in predominantly classical programmes/slots actually increased slightly further on the huge 2014 increase (1.11% on 2014, 21.04% on 2013). There was also a considerable increase in traditional/folk music, up by around 20% and the overall number of pieces/chunks played also increased by a further 2%.
Anniversary Composers
A rather mixed bag. Sibelius fared less well than expected, his symphonies featured strongly but his other works less than expected. Only in the last few weeks of the year, closer to his actual birthday’ was there any real noticeable pickup from normal in the amount of his music broadcast. Nielsen did well, with a good range of his repertoire being broadcast. Scriabin also did well, but oddly neither the 1st or 2nd Symphony was broadcast in its entirety. The overrated (IMHO) Part had a good 80th birthday year, but as a CFM favourite this was rather expected. Glazunov did relatively poorly, it wasn’t even his best year since my survey started. Not a single one of his symphonies was broadcast in its entirety, which is totally unbelievable. Dukas similarly has had better years, more exposure for the Symphony and Piano Sonata wasn’t really forthcoming. Taneyev had a very poor year compared to last, I wonder in the R3 researchers got his death year wrong, it wouldn’t surprise me. Magnard was virtually insultingly snubbed, as were Diamond and Persichetti (3 pieces/chunks each is insulting). Cowell did somewhat better though rather patchy in repertoire.
Winners and losers
Some surprises with some of the major composers, J S Bach having by far his best year since I began my survey and F J Haydn his best year since his anniversary year in 2009, but Robert Schuman and Rossini having their worst year so far and Chopin also having a relatively poor year, along with several early composers, notably Monteverdi.
Women Composers
The focus on women composers this year also produced a very mixed bag; Clara Schumann, Chaminade, Tailleferre, Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn and Judith Weir did particularly well; Maconchy, Lutyens, Tower & Zwilich did particularly poorly.
Composers by Region
Some Scandinavian composers benefitted from the ‘Northern Lights’ season, others less so. Holmboe, Rosenberg, Kokkonen, Englund, Koppel, remained virtually or totally ignored. With Russian composers it was business as usual, Weinberg sadly declining after a promising 2014. Eastern European composers did reasonably, helped by the welcome increase in the amount of Bartok broadcast. However the earlier classical composers such as Krommer, the Bendas, Kalliwoda and the Stamitzs remained in the doldrums, but Vanhal was a very welcome COTW. Generally little major change in Austro-German composers except the odd decline in Robert Schumann and the sudden increase in Schutz. Italian composers except for Rossini’s and Monteverdi’s decline were roughly on a par with previous years as were French composers with most of RW’s favourites remaining so under the new regime and most of RW’s dislikes also remaining in the same situation. Spanish music markedly declined. British music also declined overall somewhat with a few exceptions, notably Walton. Five Malcolm Arnold symphonies in the year was a very welcome plus point. American music remained generally as under RW, with the same small group of composers/works doing ok and the rest generally being largely ignored.
Symphonies
Continuing my focus on this genre, 2015 saw a decline in complete performances of symphonies from 2014. Beethoven did best as usual and both Sibelius and Mahler had their best years since 2011. The number of CPE Bach symphonies remained well up following on from his 2014 anniversary year. Further details will be provided in the symphony statistics posting.
Statistics for 2015
Please find the figures by composer below for those composers who had more than 50 pieces/chunks broadcast on Radio 3 in 2015, as usual the totals are by 5s as there is the chance that I may miss the very occasional work by a composer. Please let me know if you would like to know the figures for any particular composers you are interested in who didn’t reach the 50 threshold.
As usual, sadly this site will not allow me to attach any file in any format so I can't show the figures in a nice table. Basically the figures for each composer are in the following order: Position in 2015; Composer Name; Number of Pieces/Chunks; Position in 2014; % difference from 2014; % difference from 2013.
1 BACH J S 1550+ 2 7.01% 2.91%
2 MOZART W A 1410+ 1 -2.55% -1.87%
3 BEETHOVEN 1060+ 3 -2.40% 4.03%
4 SCHUBERT 1040+ 4 -1.88% -3.78%
5 BRAHMS 810+ 5 -6.03% 8.43%
6 HAYDN F J 695+ 8 7.92% 4.83%
7 HANDEL 665+ 7 0.00% -12.22%
8 CHOPIN 650+ 6 -8.94% -11.77%
9 MENDELSSOHN Fx 530+ 11 -3.97% 5.77%
10 SIBELIUS 520+ 20 54.30% 59.02%
11 DEBUSSY 510+ 14 1.38% 3.43%
12 TCHAIKOVSKY 500+ 15 -0.80% -12.30%
13 DVORAK 485+ 10 -12.68% -7.39%
14 VIVALDI 460+ 16 -4.35% 0.00%
15 SCHUMANN R 440+ 12 -19.08% -23.04%
16 RAVEL 420+ 13 -20.79% 3.46%
17 STRAUSS R 360+ 9 -36.89% 18.36%
18 GRIEG 355+ 21 7.53% 9.85%
19 RACHMANINOV 350+ 19 1.16% 7.38%
20 ELGAR 340+ 17 -22.68% -8.09%
21 LISZT 325+ 18 -9.67% -19.46%
22 PURCELL H 325+ 25 18.68% -8.99%
23 PROKOFIEV S 295+ 24 5.69% -0.67%
24 SHOSTAKOVICH 290+ 26 10.15% 4.64%
25 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 290+ 22 -11.25% -10.43%
26 BRITTEN 285+ 23 -3.40% -64.54%
27 NIELSEN C 265+ 48 111.90% 89.36%
28 FAURE 240+ 28 -1.65% -28.44%
29 POULENC 235+ 42 50.00% 21.88%
30 SAINT-SAENS 230+ 33 3.10% -11.41%
31 STRAVINSKY 230+ 27 -12.60% -20.76%
32 VERDI 225+ 30 -5.39% -49.33%
33 BARTOK 215+ 41 33.54% 37.82%
34 BERLIOZ 195+ 32 -16.31% -7.58%
35 WAGNER R 195+ 34 -12.61% -55.71%
36 SCRIABIN 190+ 77 162.50% 350.00%
37 RAMEAU 180+ 29 -24.07% 3.98%
38 TELEMANN 180+ 38 -0.55% -23.21%
39 WALTON 175+ 45 19.46% 14.84%
40 MAHLER G 165+ 36 -18.54% -7.73%
41 PART 165+ 58 72.16% 227.45%
42 GERSHWIN 165+ 39 -8.33% -23.26%
43 HOLST G 165+ 46 15.38% -1.20%
44 ROSSINI 165+ 35 -21.43% -23.26%
45 SCARLATTI D 155+ 44 2.67% 5.48%
46 BACH C P E 150+ 31 -35.71% 54.55%
47 MONTEVERDI 140+ 37 -24.73% -20.90%
48 BRUCKNER 135+ 53 24.77% 34.65%
49 STRAUSS J II 130+ 40 -23.98% -31.58%
50 WEBER C M VON 130+ 48 -8.45% -20.73%
51 BYRD 125+ 45 -15.44% -15.44%
52 RIMSKY KORSAKOV 125+ 51 7.83% 25.25%
53 PUCCINI 120+ 50 3.42% -12.95%
54 JANACEK 120+ 43 -22.08% 0.00%
55 SCHUTZ 120+ 95 140.00% 287.10%
56 COPLAND 110+ 57 15.31% -16.30%
57 BERNSTEIN L 110+ 82 65.67% 0.00%
58 TALLIS 110+ 70 37.04% 30.59%
59 GRAINGER 100+ 55 -4.76% -14.53%
60 KODALY 100+ 71 25.00% 31.58%
61 SULLIVAN 95+ 72 24.05% 55.56%
62 SCHOENBERG 95+ 82 43.28% 54.84%
63 SMETANA 95+ 52 -14.41% 35.71%
64 BIZET 90+ 56 -8.82% -8.82%
65 GLAZUNOV 90+ 66 4.71% 28.99%
66 RESPIGHI 85+ 51 -22.81% -11.11%
67 CHABRIER 85+ 67 1.19% 1.19%
68 BIBER 85+ 65 -2.33% 82.61%
69 MUSSORGSKY 80+ 60 -11.96% -1.22%
70 KREISLER 80+ 63 -10.23% 0.00%
71 FRANCK C 75+ 61 -13.33% 2.63%
72 ARNOLD 75+ 72 -2.53% -1.28%
72 COUPERIN F 75+ 74 0.00% -23.76%
72 WEIR J 75+ new 165.52% 1183.33%
73 GLUCK 75+ 64 -10.34% 8.57%
74 CORELLI 75+ 68 -9.64% -16.67%
74 DELIUS 75+ 59 -19.35% -9.64%
75 HOWELLS 70+ 81 7.35% 58.70%
76 GLINKA 70+ 89 28.57% 5.88%
76 PARRY H 70+ 90 30.91% -15.29%
76 SATIE 70+ 72 -8.86% 12.50%
77 LASSUS 70+ new 86.84% 44.90%
78 BRIDGE 70+ 62 -21.35% -18.60%
79 PAGANINI 70+ 92 30.19% 32.69%
79 STANFORD 70+ 78 -2.82% 15.00%
80 SCHUMANN C 65+ new 168.00% 157.69%
81 BARBER 65+ 91 20.37% -15.58%
81 MACMILLAN J 65+ new 51.16% 27.45%
82 FINZI 60+ 95 26.00% 10.53%
83 BRUCH 60+ 75 -16.22% 19.23%
84 MESSIAEN 60+ 93 17.31% 15.09%
84 SUK 60+ new 27.08% -8.96%
85 VILLA LOBOS 60+ 69 -26.83% -6.25%
86 DOWLAND 60+ 54 -44.86% -61.69%
86 KORNGOLD 60+ 85 -3.28% -32.18%
86 PALESTRINA 60+ 80 -14.49% -32.18%
87 BUXTEHUDE 55+ 60 -36.96% 31.82%
87 DONIZETTI 55+ 86 -3.33% 34.88%
88 ADAMS J 55+ 84 -9.52% 32.56%
88 MARTINU 55+ new 39.02% 9.62%
89 ALBENIZ 55+ 82 -16.42% -20.00%
89 BORODIN 55+ 82 -16.42% -12.50%
89 LIGETI 55+ 90 1.82% 12.00%
89 PIAZZOLLA 55+ 87 -5.08% 14.29%
90 FALLA 55+ 53 -101.85% -34.94%
91 FARRENC L 50+ new 5200.00% 140.91%
91 GABRIELI G 50+ 92 0.00% -8.62%
91 MASSENET 50+ 79 -24.29% 39.47%
92 BAX 50+ new 24.39% 18.60%
92 COWELL 50+ new 1175.00% 1175.00%
92 GLASS P 50+ 79 -27.14% 24.39%
93 HUMMEL 50+ new 21.95% -13.79%
93 LULLY 50+ 94 -1.96% -39.02%
93 WOLF H 50+ 76 -31.51% -54.00%
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