Discovering Music - axed

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry salymap - you've told me before not to correct older people, even when they're embarassingly wrong

Education, innit?

[french frank]

I believe that Discovering Music is one of the best programmes on R3. I have learnt so much from it. I preferred the older style studio presentation as a lecture with edited clips, rather than as a live performance and questions from an audience.
It has never been pitched at too high a level, but it does assume some basic knowledge of music. There is nothing aloof about that, after all surely financial programmes on Radio 4 require quite a lot of knowledge. Shall these be cut too?

I will miss it greatly. The suggested replacement will be a feeble shadow of the original.

I agree with every point, Flay. From a musicological point of view, I did sometimes find the old DM a bit hard to follow, but that was the stimulating part of it (I don't know much!).

Most enjoyable was David Owen Norris and Ashley Wass on Mozart the Improviser, which I listened to last night. A propos, I was puzzled by Wednesday's Breakfast playlist which mentioned that Mozart's C minor Fantasia K396 was transcribed(?) and arranged by Maximilian Stadler. I listened in vain on the iPlayer for an explanation of what this meant but no further details were given. Okay, I actually have an edition of the Sonatas and Fantasies and got a first clue. On the internet I found an essay on the subject. I would love the kind of 'Talking About Music' programme that dealt with topics like this, not fully musicological but historical. Where would that possibly be now in the schedule?

I don't expect a scholarly explanation on the Breakfast programme, but why mention the 'arrangement' which gives quite a misleading impression (an 'arrangement' like Grieg's arrangements?). Either mention the important fact - Mozart left it unfinished (possibly as a violin sonata) and Stadler completed it, or just play it.

[french frank]

embarassingly wrong

Ahem ... [Enough of the nitpicking. - Ed)

[salymap]

Sorry salymap - you've told me before not to correct older people, even when they're embarassingly wrong

Glass houses and stones, am51. Embarrassing had two'r's when I was at school 100 years ago.

[salymap]

Sorry ff, didn't see you were calling us to order. Been asleep you see.

[amateur51]

Glass houses and stones, am51. Embarrassing had two'r's when I was at school 100 years ago.

But you knew what I meant, saly, whereas ....

[french frank]

The last substantial message was #62.

I will delliver a leckturette on it, if peeple wish ...

I think I will anyway.

Mozart left an incomplete manuscript of what appeared to be a violin/piano sonata. Stadler removed the short piece of a violin part (sometimes attributed to him rather than Mozart) and completed the work as the solo piano Fantasia which we now have as K396. A reasonable theory supported by Dennis Pajot is that it wasn't working as a violin sonata because the piano writing was too 'saturated'. So Mozart abandoned it (it dated from 1782, long before his death) as a fragment. His autograph manuscript ended, it seems, at the penultimate bar of the opening Adagio. So Stadler's 'arrangement', in fact, was to add the rest of the piece - another 23 bars, if I have counted correctly .

Not as satisfying as the altogether brilliantly wonderful C minor Fantasia K475 ...

[Barbirollians]

Frankly, I won't miss it - I find Stephen Johnson patronising and often the " performance " that followed was very routine.

[JoeG]

Controversial! I believe I have a high sensitivity to being patronised - that means being talked down to ;-) and always thought that Stephen Johnson was firmly on the enthusiastic side of the fence.

[Pianorak]

. . . always thought that Stephen Johnson was firmly on the enthusiastic side of the fence.

Agree 100%.

[french frank]

The other point Barbirollians makes - the 'routine' performance which followed - is a direct result of the programme's makeover in 2003. It may be interesting for the small number of people in the live audience to see a real violinist playing a snatch of something and a real orchestra playing the whole piece afterwards, but I felt it was all loss for the radio audience. Gone the one-to-one talk which focused attention so well, and dragging in an entire orchestra seemed unnecessary. It seemed to start out as a platform for Charles Hazlewood to turn and conduct but that fizzled out with the dropping of his name from the programme's title.

SJ fine, but someone like David Owen Norris could sit at a piano and demonstrate points on his own. Or, I mentioned the one he did with Ashley Wass on Mozart the Improviser. Memorable. Fantasias, cadenzas, variations - all wonderfully illustrated.

[aeolium]

Yes, I agree with the criticism about the playing of the whole piece at the end of DM. I can see the rationale behind it - so that all the audience can then listen to the whole work with the presenter's narrative and illustrations fresh in their mind, but the result too often lacked the sense of a real concert performance. I think it was a mistake to change the format to an illustrated lecture in front of an audience - I think they should have stuck with an illustrated radio talk, of 45 minutes or an hour, and arranged it so that the work being discussed would then be played in concert later in the week. Perhaps it is due to an uncertainty about what audience they are pitching the programme at - those who don't know the work at all or those who do know it but would like to learn more about it.

[Flay]

I think they should have stuck with an illustrated radio talk, of 45 minutes or an hour, and arranged it so that the work being discussed would then be played in concert later in the week.

Exactly, Aeolium, then there is something to look forward to.

I have mainly used it as an archive to gain insight into works I have discovered for myself over the years. For example Bruckner's 9th.

[Barbirollians]

Which is why Interpretations on Record was such a fascinating programme in the past - not only did you get an expert talking head but lots of different illustrations.

[amateur51]

The other point Barbirollians makes - the 'routine' performance which followed - is a direct result of the programme's makeover in 2003. It may be interesting for the small number of people in the live audience to see a real violinist playing a snatch of something and a real orchestra playing the whole piece afterwards, but I felt it was all loss for the radio audience. Gone the one-to-one talk which focused attention so well, and dragging in an entire orchestra seemed unnecessary. It seemed to start out as a platform for Charles Hazlewood to turn and conduct but that fizzled out with the dropping of his name from the programme's title.

SJ fine, but someone like David Owen Norris could sit at a piano and demonstrate points on his own. Or, I mentioned the one he did with Ashley Wass on Mozart the Improviser. Memorable. Fantasias, cadenzas, variations - all wonderfully illustrated.

I completely agree, ff!