Schubert on 3

[DublinJimbo]

Hyperion tie-in to The Spirit of Schubert

From the Hyperion web site: To celebrate BBC Radio 3's 'Spirit of Schubert' event which is running for the last week of March we are delighted to offer a 30% discount on all our Schubert titles.

I don't know how long this link will remain valid, and it isn't clear if the special price only applies while The Spirit of Schubert is running its dreadful course on R3. Might be worth a look, though.

(If the link doesn't cooperate, go to Current Offers in the left side-bar. The Spirit of Schubert is currently the first item there.)

[Don Petter]

Annoyingly I see I left a stray "a" in my comment there, and it can't be edited Oh well, don't suppose a typo in the Grauniad needs to be much lamented

I think it would indeed give it the stamp of authenticity.

[Nick Armstrong]

It's beyond even an Alan Partridge parody, isn't it?

"Trelawney, you ignorant shhhhhhh" ..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iE6cuQQbAI

[Serial_Apologist]

"Trelawney, you ignorant shhhhhhh" ..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iE6cuQQbAI

[LeMartinPecheur]

...the fact that Schubert died at 31 of syphilis...

Is this a fact of any sort? Putting aside the doubts, whatever their validity, about whether or not Schubert had really contracted syphilis, his actual cause of death is usually given as typhoid fever. It is pretty clear that he was fully compos mentis to within a few hours of his death.

Which makes it something of an irony that his last works are plainly coloured by expectation of early death which was what he had to expect if he'd been told he really had syphilis. But before any very marked decline in his condition from this disease he's actually carried off in very short order by typhoid, a risk presumably to which everyone - hale or sickly - was exposed in Vienna.

[hackneyvi]

I had the misfortune to catch some of "Play Schubert for me" at the weekend. Sarah Mohr-Pietsch at one stage broke to 'interview' a "Schubert Virgin", some rather tiresome female presenter from radio 5 Live (apparently), who had been handed a pile of CDs sometime earlier and asked to report back her findings (why, I asked myself aloud, who the hell cares?). She then proceeded to relate, to Ms Mohr-Pietsch's apparent edification, how she'd put the music on and listened to it through a filter of bawling kids. Aural "wallpaper" was how she described it. Her most illuminating point to relate was that she had enjoyed the Gloria from a mass setting because it was sunny outside and she thought it was nice. Utter twaddle.

Mohr-Pietsch, in a vain attempt to draw something meaningful from this banal observation, then went on to advance "so I think we're beginning to realise there are actually two Schuberts, one a serious composer one has to listen to in our otherwise silent sitting rooms or the concert hall..." (the sentence thankfully trailed off at that point, though I suspect the intended conclusion was likely to have been 'and the one it is perfectly OK to listen to through a cacophony of screaming children, washing machines and general chatter'.) Risible stuff.

She had Giles Brandreth on the phone - on Saturday night, I think.

He's ok Brandreth - I understand why people don't like him but under the Derek Nimmo exterior lurks an intelligent man. But all he had to say was that he hadn't heard much Schubert before and still didn't really like him.

I think the biggest change that I see from this experience is that where I did formerly believe I was being spoken to by intelligent, thoughtful people - and from whose generally intelligent and thoughtful speech I deduced in them a love and interest in music; this was quite as clearly implied as it needed to be; now - well, I feel I'm listening to DJs. And DJs of the prattling calibre of Radio One in the era of Dave Lee Travis.

[amateur51]

"Trelawney, you ignorant shhhhhhh" ..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iE6cuQQbAI

Almost too tempting, I'd say

[MrGongGong]

Is this a fact of any sort? Putting aside the doubts, whatever their validity, about whether or not Schubert had really contracted syphilis, his actual cause of death is usually given as typhoid fever. It is pretty clear that he was fully compos mentis to within a few hours of his death.

Which makes it something of an irony that his last works are plainly coloured by expectation of early death which was what he had to expect if he'd been told he really had syphilis. But before any very marked decline in his condition from this disease he's actually carried off in very short order by typhoid, a risk presumably to which everyone - hale or sickly - was exposed in Vienna.

Go Dahlhaus

[Frances_iom]

...well, I feel I'm listening to DJs. And DJs of the prattling calibre of Radio One in the era of Dave Lee Travis.

can't comment on R1 DJs - a few years ago I used a hairdressing salon which had R2 on all day - I was appalled by the coarse language and utter vulgarity of the DJs so R3 still has a long way to fall in this regard - one of the pair commented on seems to be happy dj'ing pop in Late Junkshop.

[JFLL]

I'm coming to the conclusion that all the blithering and blathering in this Schubert week is to do with the belief of many in Radio 3 that classical music would be loved by everybody just as much as pop music, football, fast food, sex etc., if only we made it accessible. Now Schubert is a composer with (superficially) probably the largest popular appeal of all the great composers (perhaps bar Mozart). I think the R3 people think 'Just one more push, folks, and the masses will be hooked on classical music and Radio 3'. Hence a lot of the patronising and vacuous nonsense, tweets, twitters, phone-ins, emails, trails, witterings and so on. I think it's a fallacy, myself – as we all know, classical music is often hard work (even Schubert in his late piano and chamber music) and often requires concentration, sensibility, (dare I say) taste and all the other unfashionable virtues. It certainly doesn't go well with a culture of short attention-span and instant gratification which we seem to have arrived at. I just don't think there is a mass audience there.

OK, maybe I'm just a boring old el**ist, so perhaps it doesn't matter. But how far can R3 go in alienating its core audience?

[Don Petter]

I can't answer your last question, but I think your first paragraph is a very perceptive (and persuasive) argument.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

OK, maybe I'm just a boring old el**ist, so perhaps it doesn't matter. But how far can R3 go in alienating its core audience?

On the contrary, you speak good sense.
Incidentally, I have not been tempted to switch on Radio 3 once this week.

[bach736]

Mohr-Pietsch, in a vain attempt to draw something meaningful from this banal observation, then went on to advance "so I think we're beginning to realise there are actually two Schuberts, one a serious composer one has to listen to in our otherwise silent sitting rooms or the concert hall..."

"A review, however favourable, can be ridiculous at the same time if the critic lacks average intelligence, as is not seldom the case." Franz Schubert letter 1825

[Panjandrum]

Incidentally, I have not been tempted to switch on Radio 3 once this week.

I agree that the trailers and some of the presentation have been risible but I'd be surprised if a true music lover didn't find something to tempt them. Among the delights I've heard have been:

Rosamunde (complete incidental music);
Unfinished (Compl. (sic) Newbould);
Symphony No.2 (Staatskapelle/Sawallisch);
Fierrabras;
Piano recitals (Lewis and Cooper);
Misc lieder (DFD/GM);
Symphony No.3 (Kleiber).

If none of that appeals, lord 'elp us.

[Roehre]

I agree that the trailers and some of the presentation have been risible but I'd be surprised if a true music lover didn't find something to tempt them. Among the delights I've heard have been:

Rosamunde (complete incidental music);
Unfinished (in Newbould's Completion);
Symphony No.2 (Staatskapelle/Sawallisch);
Fierrabras;
Piano recitals (Lewis and Cooper);
Misc lieder (DFD/GM);
Symphony No.3 (Kleiber).

If none of that appeals, lord 'elp us.

It does appeal to me, but of this list only Fierrabras hasn't been broadcast recently, and that's the only work (also admittedly the longest) which is available in one or two recordings only (and the only one from this list I actually listened to - and was unhappy with the BBC's extremely bad planning at the end of it, btw).

I even endure the risible, dis-heartening, stupid presentation of Breakfast , where they play God by resurrecting the composer through tweets even (through iplayer or my skybox, so I can skip what I don't want to listen to and thus escape the bl***y nonsense as well ) for those little snippets one quite literally never had the chance to listen to.