Davey Speaks

[MrGongGong]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/08/dont-apologise-for-classical-music-complexity-alan-davey-radio-3#comments

[Bryn]

Strange how he appears to compare and contrast 'vinyl' with mp3 rather than with high resolution downloads, which do not suffer either the necessary dynamic compression and RIAA equalisation of the vinyl product, or the data compression of lossy downloads. As to Adams, he has a history of playing the contrarian game. His Harmonielehre and his promotional activity in relation to it. In one comment he would denounce Schoenberg's approach and in the next declare his love for Schoenberg's music. So now he is aping the old Lebrecht "who killed classical music" line. Best left on the side of the plate, I think.

[Richard Barrett]

Best left on the side of the plate, I think.

Yet another embarrassing spectacle of a patrician getting down with the youth.

[french frank]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...dio-3#comments

Did you have any thoughts on the article, Gongers?

My comments would be that the BBC's own mistake has been to attempt to lure people over to Radio 3 to experience (or "sample" as they used to say) anything that might come under the heading of "classical"- contemporary or by 'Dead White Males' - music. Classical music wiped off Radio 2, nothing on Radio 1, 'ooh, look, Mary Anne Hobbs just played a classical track on her show' on 6 Music. Proms coverage on television reduced to the First and Last Nights on the mainstream channels, 'light' Proms now moved to BBC Four (including John Williams, Scott Walker, Oklahoma, plus four jazz concerts - all getting their TV showings - but still only 25 concerts televised in all).

If Proms can be specially tailored to welcome and encourage new, younger audiences (Steve Reich in a multi-storey carpark, David Bowie, Urban Classic), why can the BBC services which have already captured these very audiences not put on similar programming? Why have 'classical' programmes to be placed on non-mainstream, minority interest rather than integrated into routine programmes? It doesn't sound to me like 'no distinction between the different genres'.

[MrGongGong]

Did you have any thoughts on the article, Gongers?
.

Yes
I think he is confused

[french frank]

Yes
I think he is confused

He self-evidently isn't coming from the same place as the avantgardista. As a broadcaster he has a particular job to fulfil - and the article probably sprang from talking with Adams last month at the Barbican where Adams was conducting Doctor Atomic. I agree with Bryn that JA sounds like Lebrecht.

Yet, so far little on the Varèse evening except the astounding revelation that Martin Handley got something wrong.

[cloughie]

Strange how he appears to compare and contrast 'vinyl' with mp3 rather than with high resolution downloads, which do not suffer either the necessary dynamic compression and RIAA equalisation of the vinyl product, or the data compression of lossy downloads. As to Adams, he has a history of playing the contrarian game. His Harmonielehre and his promotional activity in relation to it. In one comment he would denounce Schoenberg's approach and in the next declare his love for Schoenberg's music. So now he is aping the old Lebrecht "who killed classical music" line. Best left on the side of the plate, I think.

I do wonder if the interest in new vinyl is maybe temporary. I hear that some purchasers have bought them to look at rather than play, but many will become bored once they discover what we all did all these years ago but with no alternative, finding that they pick up scratches, swing, deteriorate towards side ends and they warp. Cynical moi? but it does seem an inconvenient music source for the mobile phone, social media driven 21st century! Converting their playlists to vinyl takes up a lot of space.

[Bryn]

... Yet, so far little on the Varèse evening except the astounding revelation that Martin Handley got something wrong.

My excuse is that I only had it on in the background via this laptop's speakers (I will listen to the iPlayer HD Sound offering via the 'hifi' later. Re. MH's errors, he was pre-empted by the programme listing re. the Étude ... but should have checked which tapes were used for Déserts. I'm sure Robert Worby would not have tripped up there. Wrong horse for the course?

[Quarky]

He self-evidently isn't coming from the same place as the avantgardista. As a broadcaster he has a particular job to fulfil - and the article probably sprang from talking with Adams last month at the Barbican where Adams was conducting Doctor Atomic. I agree with Bryn that JA sounds like Lebrecht.

Yet, so far little on the Varèse evening except the astounding revelation that Martin Handley got something wrong.

Is anyone suggesting that the Avant Garde is possibly the salvation of Classical Music? Well may be, may be not. Was listening and enjoying the Varese evening last night, but was subverted by the wonderful voice of Véronique Gens in Lunch Time Concert (you know, the lady that sang Bailero). Thanks for reminding me -will listen again.

My feeling is that Classical Music has got to get down to some extremely basic common denominators with other forms of music to ensure a healthy future.

[Lat-Literal]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...dio-3#comments

I was going to suggest that you didn't need the "e" but alas it isn't Sir Humphry in a mine with a really effective lamp. Sadly, I doubt that any of those people are still around.

Having a performance of Steve Reich in a (South London) multi-storey carpark was definitely on the right tracks. Much more so, I think, than any well-meaning but ever so slightly excruciating testament to Bowie and similar. The point about encouraging a classical counter-culture is quite neat, not least as it is an inversion of its establishment image. It also accommodates the undeniable fact that in terms of coverage it is on the fringes. But I am not sure that it is wholly right. Not only is the picture muddied by the existence of various counter-cultures within classical music itself but it is a concept that sounds like it lives in the 1960s. In contrast, the rock music aspects of the Proms - and they are not all bad by any means - are the 1980s several decades late. No, the here and now and we have addressed such things before is principally about performance art. That is, it's very much about the situation or the installation. And unlike, say, any original version of situationism, it isn't politically revolutionary plus it is clean cut. People will cycle to it, have a health drink on arrival and do nothing at all that will frighten the horses. That suits - it should suit very well - innovative approaches to classical music with the aim of "outreach" to young people.

He self-evidently isn't coming from the same place as the avantgardista. As a broadcaster he has a particular job to fulfil - and the article probably sprang from talking with Adams last month at the Barbican where Adams was conducting Doctor Atomic. I agree with Bryn that JA sounds like Lebrecht.

Yet, so far little on the Varèse evening except the astounding revelation that Martin Handley got something wrong.

I was very tired last night but I did listen a little to those programmes - is it "Tuning Up?" - and "Ameriques". I will be listening to a bit more so, yes, it lured me slightly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is anyone suggesting that the Avant Garde is possibly the salvation of Classical Music?

Well, it always has been so far!

My feeling is that Classical Music has got to get down to some extremely basic common denominators with other forms of music to ensure a healthy future.

My concern is that so much of it already has.

[cloughie]

Well, it always has been so far!


My concern is that so much of it already has.

Look to history ...yesterday's avant garde is potentionally today's or tomorrow's basic repertoire or maybe rock 'n' roll. Berlioz Sym Fantistique, Rite of Spring, Schoenberg throwing away the rule book....

Maybe the wrong common denominators are being sought. There is probably less of a gap between the tuneless pop rap and such and avant garde than with the popular tunes of the classics, that Cfm and Radio 3 copying it are trying to do.

[Lat-Literal]

My concern is that so much of it already has.

One bit that did amuse me was the reference to Dalston. That and Hoxton are hardly typical. A few years ago, a friend at Womad introduced me to his friend who was having considerable success with an installation called "Grass" - one room in which the floor, walls and ceiling were all turfed. That was in that sort of area. In contrast, when there was the broadcast of Reich from where? Peckham? I thought art but I also thought black and white, urban cool and multicultural. Take a certain thing to a certain place and the rest will occur naturally but then it is a question about the extent to which the establishment is comfortable with it. Sometimes I think it wants to keep alternative approaches separate.

You could easily have a classical music tent at Camp Bestival. There could be ballet tours of universities publicized like rock gigs on 6 Music and in the NME. Quartets could turn up often if sporadically in Pret a Manger and Starbucks. There could be an ale and opera festival "in the forests". Prince Harry could be the patron of a UK Sistema. Someone could go tagging and paint "Where is Boulez" alongside every railway line into Central London. And there could be an orchestra playing permanently beside the security fence in Palestine.

Etc!

[Richard Barrett]

My feeling is that Classical Music has got to get down to some extremely basic common denominators with other forms of music to ensure a healthy future.

Which means what?

Perhaps I should expand on that question. What does that mean to you? Because to me it seems to mean that it's a "healthy" situation if artists are restricted to a common denominator of any kind. That doesn't sound at all healthy to me. I was talking at the weekend to a friend who is a flute teacher in state secondary schools (not in the UK, needless to say) who was bemoaning the fact that these days teenagers' attention spans and demand for instant gratification have advanced to the point that if they aren't able to play a piece right away they give up trying, and eventually give up the instrument altogether. Maybe it would be "healthy" for flute students only to play pieces that can be sight read by beginners? because that's the common denominator here. At a certain point it's necessary to say, well, some things are not so easy to get into, and there should be less concentration on making them easier and more on encouraging people to use their intelligence and imagination.

[ahinton]

Which means what?

Nothing as far as I can tell; I've read that several times in case I was missing something but to no avail.