Friday Night isn't Music Night

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  • ardcarp
    Late member
    • Nov 2010
    • 11102

    Friday Night isn't Music Night

    I look hopefully in the Radio Times at the Friday 7.30 pm slot on BBC4..........and am disappointed to find a general absence of 'classical' music. Couldn't the BBC, given its range of channels, dedicate just one weekly programme to it?
  • Petrushka
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 12234

    #2
    Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
    I look hopefully in the Radio Times at the Friday 7.30 pm slot on BBC4..........and am disappointed to find a general absence of 'classical' music. Couldn't the BBC, given its range of channels, dedicate just one weekly programme to it?
    I'd agree. After the feast of the Proms season, it seems we now have a famine.
    "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

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    • Cockney Sparrow
      Full Member
      • Jan 2014
      • 2283

      #3
      Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
      I look hopefully in the Radio Times at the Friday 7.30 pm slot on BBC4..........and am disappointed to find a general absence of 'classical' music. Couldn't the BBC, given its range of channels, dedicate just one weekly programme to it?
      Absolutely agree. The "Good Old Days" - what a misnomer, and of course of no relevance anyway. They've run out of recycled programmes and Proms material then. Thin gruel, no doubt, until they throw us a bone come Christmas. As I understand it there is a controller of all music, and I surmise that TV is very much his fiefdom. Endless repeats of pop and rock material, with ne-er a thought to their remit for quality, education, etc etc. Just as well I stockpile recordings from the summer and better times before the rot took a firm hold. Once exhausted I suppose I need to buy DVDs of artists in concert, or documentaries (Ken Russell, Palmer, perhaps Bridcut has made it to DVD?).

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      • DracoM
        Host
        • Mar 2007
        • 12960

        #4
        BBC Phil live on R3 tonight?

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        • ardcarp
          Late member
          • Nov 2010
          • 11102

          #5
          Originally posted by DracoM View Post
          BBC Phil live on R3 tonight?
          Indeed. But it is televised music that is getting short shrift...and TV tends to reach a wider public.

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          • DracoM
            Host
            • Mar 2007
            • 12960

            #6
            Yup, sorry - read the OP inattentively.

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            • maestro267
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 355

              #7
              We've had the brilliant "Composers in their own words" programmes on the last two Sundays. Let's face it, classical's always going to get just the token attention on TV nowadays. It's just the way it is, because general popular culture is geared towards stuff that you don't have to think too hard about, that doesn't challenge the intellect, that doesn't last more than 4 minutes.

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              • Eine Alpensinfonie
                Host
                • Nov 2010
                • 20570

                #8
                Originally posted by maestro267 View Post
                We've had the brilliant "Composers in their own words" programmes on the last two Sundays. Let's face it, classical's always going to get just the token attention on TV nowadays. It's just the way it is, because general popular culture is geared towards stuff that you don't have to think too hard about, that doesn't challenge the intellect, that doesn't last more than 4 minutes.
                But this is BBC 4. Supposedly the BBC's hi-brow TV channel (just as BBC 2 once was).

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                • french frank
                  Administrator/Moderator
                  • Feb 2007
                  • 30250

                  #9
                  Originally posted by maestro267 View Post
                  It's just the way it is, because general popular culture is geared towards stuff that you don't have to think too hard about, that doesn't challenge the intellect, that doesn't last more than 4 minutes.
                  There is a sort of argument that the BBC as beneficiary of public funding (the VAST majority of which goes to television) might provide something more than 'general popular culture' which is what hard-pressed commercial broadcasters have to provide in order to get the high listening figures which in turn bring in the advertising revenues which fund all their activity.

                  Some might think that the BBC doesn't really try hard enough to earn its money-on-a-plate …
                  It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

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                  • ardcarp
                    Late member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 11102

                    #10
                    BBC4 must save a lot by churning out endless repeats (railways and canals seem to figure largely), so, if only to fulfil some vaguely Reithian dream, surely a small corner for classical music could be found?

                    Agreed that composers In Their Own Words is great. Mrs Ardcarp was ecstatic about Britten's rehearsal in the episode I missed and will now catch up on.

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                    • hafod
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 740

                      #11
                      The BBC has five orchestras which grace - to a greater or lesser extent - radio 3. Proms apart, it is a disgrace that they all but shun BBC 4. What is to stop them transmitting their own concerts late at night? Most people have recorders they can set.

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                      • Petrushka
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 12234

                        #12
                        Originally posted by hafod View Post
                        The BBC has five orchestras which grace - to a greater or lesser extent - radio 3. Proms apart, it is a disgrace that they all but shun BBC 4. What is to stop them transmitting their own concerts late at night? Most people have recorders they can set.
                        After a highly successful Proms season when it has won plaudits for the improvement in playing standards under Sakari Oramo, and after the high national and international profile it receives at the Last Night, the BBC Symphony Orchestra goes into hibernation for the rest of the year on TV. Why are they not doing education projects on TV or live streaming concerts? There is an eye-catching Tchaikovsky concert next Wednesday under Semyon Bychkov which would be ideal. Why doesn't the BBC go into partnership with the LSO and the Barbican and live stream concerts (on a subscription basis if necessary) with a TV repeat at a later date?
                        "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

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