Silence! 8.10.17

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Silence!
The Listening Service

All music begins and ends in silence and often there's a bit in the middle, too. Some pieces skirt silence as they hover at the edge of audibility; in others the performers are completely silent. Tom Service ponders silence's fundamental importance to music and how composers have made it an integral part of their works, from classical concert hall to today's avant-garde, from indie pop to techno dance floor. And as he asks if we, as listeners, can ever actually experience real silence, he's joined by composer Michael Pisaro to hear about the implications of silence for him and his audience.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm trying to imagine how someone, who doesn't understand the concept, can discuss such a subject.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm trying to imagine how someone, who doesn't understand the concept, can discuss such a subject.

Good point! Bob Harris might have been a better choice.

[cloughie]

Good point! Bob Harris might have been a better choice.

...or Paul Simon. Would John Cage have acknowledged its importance or have thought it relative. To The Four Seasons and The Tremeloes it was golden. Vaughan Williams favoured it at midday!

[DracoM]

Tom Service, the Master-Gusher / Blusterer, has, IMO, little to offer on the concept or practice of 'silence', since it seems to be outside his skillset.

How does R3 with monotonous predictability keep investing its reputation in presenters who seem to have the unenviable ability of drawing down opprobrium or worse at every turn?

[Hornspieler]

Tom Service, the Master-Gusher / Blusterer, has, IMO, little to offer on the concept or practice of 'silence', since it seems to be outside his skillset.

How does R3 with monotonous predictability keep investing its reputation in presenters who seem to have the unenviable ability to draw down opprobrium or worse at every turn?

" Normal Service will be resumed as soon as .... "

No. Sorry. There's no such thing!

HS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm trying to imagine how someone, who doesn't understand the concept, can discuss such a subject.

Having "said" that, I did hear yesterday's broadcast of Mr Ibragimova's programme on Opera and found it an excellent discussion of the principal issues ... AND, he'd even slowed down the speed of his delivery so that he wasn't trying to cram absolutely everything he wanted to say into the half-hour programme. (An otherwise excellent programme was spoilt only by his "improvised" Opera with Lore Lixenberg, the humour of which I can't imagine many of the target audience would appreciate.) Well worth listening to, and perhaps suggesting that a Tom Service discussion of Silence might not be such a risible idea as his over-excited Concert presentations would lead us to believe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096smmh

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

How does R3 with monotonous predictability keep investing its reputation in presenters who seem to have the unenviable ability of drawing down opprobrium or worse at every turn?

They appear to have extremely secure contracts.

A bit like the "unbreakable vow" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:.