The Envy of the World?

[french frank]

From penthouse expensive radio receivers to the homeless man with a wind up radio, BBC radio 3 is available.

Just occasionally one has to resist the temptation to nullify an unsullied reputation for reasoned debate by going completely OTT and writing something like, "What's the point of Radio 3 being 'available' when it's all total rubbish?"

[Serial_Apologist]

The link was actually to Bowie not Beck. When I added the word "probably" as regarding influence, I was thinking more of the changed world, the fact that Bowie was known to millions more people than Bach or Beethoven were, that his celebrity and appeal were already to a "mass" audience so he must have 'influenced' more musicians. But I don't think that, for that reason, his music is in any way comparable, not even 'in its own way', as the fudge goes. This is why I find it unutterably sad that the 'classical' musicians of the past are sidelined in terms of the attention they get, the number of hours listened to, the amount of ink spilt in the expressing of opinion. And in a world of ephemeral enthusiasm, the baby goes out with the bathwater: I really don't think that Bowie, Beck, Knopfler - Hendrix - will attract much attention in a hundred years or so. But probably neither will Bach. It will be the continuing lure of the new, as now.

But I could be quite wrong!

It's a complex issue to get one's head around. let alone explain that complexity, here or anywhere else. The ephemeral treats of disposability, the latter in turn of simplification and reductionism, analogous with promoting platitudinous popular explanations to explain away otherwise avoidable everyday problems or put them down either to imponderables or the vagaries of human nature. Previous ages supported arts with loftier aims and principles in mind, many of which have now fallen into question in an age paradoxically wedded to consumerism.

[Frances_iom]

....he often travelling so not really practical to carry a large cd collection around. ....

I have a miserable 100GB of mp3'd cds on my laptop - about 1000 cds worth - about 25% of the capacity of my hard drive - the same amount would now fit onto a relatively low cost micro SDHC card that would fit in a smart phone

[ChandlersFord]

HC quite a favourite of mine, but when I mentioned his name to a broadsheet journalist, his response was: "He irritates the pants off me." So there you have it on listener opinions of presenters.

We still have this quote from TEotW on the FoR3 homepage: "In these days of ‘managerialism' and relentless commercial competition – not to mention the BBC’s own controversial attempts to compete with its commercial rivals – Radio 3 will continue to be at risk."

And my favourite bit: "The BBC has never sat down to define 'culture', or what a 'cultural network' should be doing. Nor has it really ever faced up to the fact that if such a network is to do its job properly, it will, by definition, only have a very small audience."

YIPPEE!!! Essential Classics has 800,000 listeners!! Keep going chaps. As our Foreign Secretary might say: '**** culture."

I get him mixed up with Humphrey Burton, who fished in similar waters. Now him I DID find irritating, though I'm thankful for several programmes that he made.