Welcome to my 3rd Annual Survey of Classical Music on Radio 3 outlining the music broadcast in 2011.
For those who weren’t familiar with the survey methods outlined I’ve used here please see the brief resume I prepared last year.
Overall Observations
That Mozartfest has naturally skewered the figures this year. So I’ve removed the Mozart works/extracts c950 that were broadcast during the ‘fest’ from Mozart’s total and the total Mozart symphonies broadcast. Thus the survey this year is over 353.5 days as the fest didn’t start till noon on Jan 1st. This accounts for 3.15% of the year. This basically means that any composer whose overall figure is greater than -3.15% has actually increased this year.
1. Anniversary composers
An excellent year for Liszt, Grainger and to a lesser extent Victoria. Others were ignored totally, Riegger or virtually so, Hovhaness.
2. General observations
Three years worth of surveys has now given the chance to observe on going trends by the R3 regime and its attitude to composers and periods pf muisc. With the exception of the considerably overplayed Vivaldi and Victoria in his anniversary year, generally pre 1750 music has suffered a noticeable decline this year, particularly Byrd & Tallis. This shows the general steady but noticeable narrowing of repetoire towards the mainstream classical and romantic composers. Many composers are represented by a smaller proportion of their output. Over 36% of the Vaughan Williams broadcast consists of the 5 CFM favourites. Over 75% of the Bernstein consists of either extracts from West Side Story or Candide. Half of the Bizet is Carmen, over 26% of the Prokofiev consists of Romeo and Juliet chunks & almost all of the Khachaturian consists of extracts from just 3 works. British music is still very much hit and miss, which a large decline in pre 1650 British music. Elgar and Britten appear to have done well, but much of their total consists of the ‘lighter’ side or better known works. Arnold seemed to have a reasonablly good year but the vast majority consisted of his ‘light’ side. Some British composers remained in the doldrums, Rubbra, Tippett, Simpson for example. Scandinavian music was still dominated by the big 3, with an improved year on last for Nielsen. American classical music had a poor year with an overemphasis on Gershwin the William Schuman COTW being the one highlight. The light fantastic series helped promote an increase in lighter works of composers such as Sullivan, E Coates, J Strauss II, John Williams & Richard Rogers. Composers such as Hindemith, Henze, Honegger, Rihm, Penderecki, Sessions, Carter, Tippett & Milhaud have now had 3 bad years in a row, either being virtually ignored or represented by just a few works. Martinu has suffered a major decline since his anniversary year of 2009 and the amount of Stravinsky being broadcast has steadily declined with a tendency to concentrate on the well known works, but with anything post 1951 being virtually ignored. The single piece of Atterburg and K A Hartmann broadcast this year were their first pieces for 3 years.
COTW was one of the few plus points for R3 this year, with a number of interesting and varied composers selected.
3. Popular Repertoire Increase
This is one of the most obvious and most worrying continuing trends in 2011. Most of the popular warhorses did even better this year. Top of the list were the 90 Hungarian Dances and 85 Slavonic Dances, with considerable increases for La Mer, Alborado del Gracioso, Romeo & Juliet (the Prokofiev), Swan Lake, The Bartered Bride, Vltava, Danse Macabre and particularly the Four Seasons (a 60% increase !!!). Once Rachmaninov’s 2nd PC had come top of the CFM charts there was a noticeable increase in this too!
The Symphony
I decided to monitor this and see how many complete symphonies by each composer were broadcast in 2011. There were a total of 1131 complete symphonies broadcast which represents just 3.5% of the total classical works/extracts broadcast. Afair proportion is made up of shorter 18th century works. Below is a list of the composers who had 10 or more complete symphonies/sinfoniettas/sinfonias played in 2011.
F J HAYDN 139
MOZART W A 110
BEETHOVEN 92
SIBELIUS 53
SCHUBERT 50
BRAHMS 42
MAHLER 41
TCHAIKOVSKY 39
DVORAK 35
BRUCKNER 34
MENDELSSOHN 34
SCHUMANN 28
BACH CPE 27
PROKOFIEV 27
NIELSEN 20
ABEL 16
BERLIOZ 15
SHOSTAKOVICH 15
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 15
BRITTEN 13
STRAVINSKY 13
LISZT 10
The Mendelssohn total doesn’t include the String Symphonies which on reflection I should have included in the total. A couple of notable composers who didn’t have any complete symphonies broadcast include Miaskovsky and Honegger! The W A Mozart total does not include the Mozartfest.
The Results
There were just over 32,000 works/extracts performed in 2011, including the Mozartfst (a 1.8% decrease on 2010) by over 2180 composers which is around 250 less composers than in 2010. There were around 500 composers who featured in 2011 that didn’t feature in 2009 or 2010 and around 500 composers who featured in 2010 that didn’t feature in 2011. However over 880 of these composers are represented by one extract/work only (up on the previous two years) and only a little over 350 composers had more than 10 works/extracts broadcast. The amount of non-classical music broadcast in programmes that are mainly considered to be classical was around the same as last year.
There were 58 composers who had over 100 works/extracts broadcast on R3 in 2011, up on previous years. These are listed below in descending order with the 2009/2010 positions and the % increase or decrease compared to 2009 and 2010 indicated (the minus indicates a percentage decrease). The figures for W A Mozart do not include the nearly 950 works/extracts played during the Mozartfest and as mentioned above 3.15% of normal R3 broadcast time was lost to the ‘fest’ so any composer doing better than -3.15% on last year actually did better overall.
My beautifully lined-up table hasn't worked again. The figures show 2011 position, composer, 2011 total, 2009 position, 2010 position and the % difference from 2009 & 2010 in that order.
1 MOZART W A 1390+ 2 2 15.08% 1.30%
2 BACH J S 1295+ 1 1 0.62% -9.55%
3 BEETHOVEN 1080+ 6 3 23.75% 10.39%
4 SCHUBERT 930+ 5 4 0.75% -1.27%
5 BRAHMS 770+ 9 8 24.45% 8.28%
6 HANDEL 725+ 3 6 -32.40% -3.46%
7 CHOPIN 670+ 10 5 19.43% -26.75%
8 HAYDN F J 610+ 4 9 -43.21% -3.11%
9 LISZT 610+ 22 17 53.71% 45.83%
10 DVORAK 520+ 13 11 18.16% 2.87%
11 VIVALDI 520+ 14 14 18.50% 16.18%
12 SCHUMANN R 515+ 12 7 12.77% -27.79%
13 TCHAIKOVSKY 495+ 16 10 23.69% -3.30%
14 DEBUSSY 490+ 11 12 3.88% -3.35%
15 MENDELSSOHN FELIX 475+ 7 13 -35.19% 6.08%
16 RAVEL 415+ 15 15 6.47% -3.92%
17 RACHMANINOV 330+ 21 23 11.18% 15.41%
18 BRITTEN 325+ 20 19 7.67% 7.36%
19 GRIEG 320+ 24 24 20.12% 15.48%
20 STRAUSS R 320+ 17 16 -11.54% -15.26%
21 SIBELIUS 315+ 18 18 3.15% -3.35%
22 ELGAR 315+ 23 25 12.03% 14.87%
23 PURCELL H 290+ 8 20 -51.57% -1.01%
24 SAINT-SAENS 265+ 33 35 31.81% 23.28%
25 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 240+ 28 28 18.67% -4.37%
26 PROKOFIEV S 240+ 29 31 20.25% -0.83%
27 VERDI 235+ 30 29 18.64% -2.88%
28 MAHLER G 235+ 35 22 28.94% -17.25%
29 SHOSTAKOVICH 225+ 26 32 8.73% -2.14%
30 FAURE 220+ 32 34 15.91% 0.00%
31 GRAINGER 215+ 49 55 48.17% 54.13%
32 ROSSINI 210+ 31 33 10.75% -3.17%
33 STRAVINSKY 210+ 19 27 -29.47% -15.81%
34 WAGNER 210+ 27 21 5.63% -27.30%
35 TELEMANN 205+ 25 26 -8.33% -19.68%
36 GERSHWIN 185+ 48 38 37.93% 5.35%
37 BERLIOZ 177+ 36 36 11.34% -12.32%
38 MONTEVERDI 170+ 39 30 18.60% -29.22%
39 WEBER 170+ 50 47 34.30% 19.07%
40 STRAUSS J II 165+ 44 42 20.73% 15.24%
41 BARTOK 155+ 34 39 -14.67% -4.99%
42 SCARLATTI D 155+ 38 40 7.74% 1.94%
43 BACH C P E 150+ 47 46 21.57% 18.30%
44 VICTORIA 150+ NEW NEW 76.16% 72.85%
45 SMETANA 140+ NEW 51 32.87% 19.58%
46 HOLST G 140+ 46 NEW 12.06% 29.79%
47 PUCCINI 125+ 53 49 18.75% 6.25%
48 JANACEK 125+ 37 43 -13.10% -9.35%
49 BRUCKNER 120+ 52 NEW 13.93% 27.05%
50 NIELSEN C 120+ 43 NEW -7.58% 41.84%
51 RIMSKY KORSAKOV 120+ NEW NEW 24.59% 27.05%
52 POULENC 120+ 45 41 -6.98% -18.92%
53 RAMEAU 115+ 42 45 -12.69% -8.59%
54 BYRD 115+ 40 37 -14.71% -41.12%
55 BIZET 110+ NEW 52 10.00% 0.00%
56 WALTON 110+ NEW 48 20.00% -9.10%
57 SATIE 100+ NEW NEW 27.46% 33.33%
58 SULLIVAN 101+ NEW NEW 45.55% 46.54%
There were four composers who had over 100 works/extracts broadcast in 2010 who failed to achieve it this year. They were Barber, Mussorgsky, Bernstein & Tallis.
SC
For those who weren’t familiar with the survey methods outlined I’ve used here please see the brief resume I prepared last year.
Overall Observations
That Mozartfest has naturally skewered the figures this year. So I’ve removed the Mozart works/extracts c950 that were broadcast during the ‘fest’ from Mozart’s total and the total Mozart symphonies broadcast. Thus the survey this year is over 353.5 days as the fest didn’t start till noon on Jan 1st. This accounts for 3.15% of the year. This basically means that any composer whose overall figure is greater than -3.15% has actually increased this year.
1. Anniversary composers
An excellent year for Liszt, Grainger and to a lesser extent Victoria. Others were ignored totally, Riegger or virtually so, Hovhaness.
2. General observations
Three years worth of surveys has now given the chance to observe on going trends by the R3 regime and its attitude to composers and periods pf muisc. With the exception of the considerably overplayed Vivaldi and Victoria in his anniversary year, generally pre 1750 music has suffered a noticeable decline this year, particularly Byrd & Tallis. This shows the general steady but noticeable narrowing of repetoire towards the mainstream classical and romantic composers. Many composers are represented by a smaller proportion of their output. Over 36% of the Vaughan Williams broadcast consists of the 5 CFM favourites. Over 75% of the Bernstein consists of either extracts from West Side Story or Candide. Half of the Bizet is Carmen, over 26% of the Prokofiev consists of Romeo and Juliet chunks & almost all of the Khachaturian consists of extracts from just 3 works. British music is still very much hit and miss, which a large decline in pre 1650 British music. Elgar and Britten appear to have done well, but much of their total consists of the ‘lighter’ side or better known works. Arnold seemed to have a reasonablly good year but the vast majority consisted of his ‘light’ side. Some British composers remained in the doldrums, Rubbra, Tippett, Simpson for example. Scandinavian music was still dominated by the big 3, with an improved year on last for Nielsen. American classical music had a poor year with an overemphasis on Gershwin the William Schuman COTW being the one highlight. The light fantastic series helped promote an increase in lighter works of composers such as Sullivan, E Coates, J Strauss II, John Williams & Richard Rogers. Composers such as Hindemith, Henze, Honegger, Rihm, Penderecki, Sessions, Carter, Tippett & Milhaud have now had 3 bad years in a row, either being virtually ignored or represented by just a few works. Martinu has suffered a major decline since his anniversary year of 2009 and the amount of Stravinsky being broadcast has steadily declined with a tendency to concentrate on the well known works, but with anything post 1951 being virtually ignored. The single piece of Atterburg and K A Hartmann broadcast this year were their first pieces for 3 years.
COTW was one of the few plus points for R3 this year, with a number of interesting and varied composers selected.
3. Popular Repertoire Increase
This is one of the most obvious and most worrying continuing trends in 2011. Most of the popular warhorses did even better this year. Top of the list were the 90 Hungarian Dances and 85 Slavonic Dances, with considerable increases for La Mer, Alborado del Gracioso, Romeo & Juliet (the Prokofiev), Swan Lake, The Bartered Bride, Vltava, Danse Macabre and particularly the Four Seasons (a 60% increase !!!). Once Rachmaninov’s 2nd PC had come top of the CFM charts there was a noticeable increase in this too!
The Symphony
I decided to monitor this and see how many complete symphonies by each composer were broadcast in 2011. There were a total of 1131 complete symphonies broadcast which represents just 3.5% of the total classical works/extracts broadcast. Afair proportion is made up of shorter 18th century works. Below is a list of the composers who had 10 or more complete symphonies/sinfoniettas/sinfonias played in 2011.
F J HAYDN 139
MOZART W A 110
BEETHOVEN 92
SIBELIUS 53
SCHUBERT 50
BRAHMS 42
MAHLER 41
TCHAIKOVSKY 39
DVORAK 35
BRUCKNER 34
MENDELSSOHN 34
SCHUMANN 28
BACH CPE 27
PROKOFIEV 27
NIELSEN 20
ABEL 16
BERLIOZ 15
SHOSTAKOVICH 15
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 15
BRITTEN 13
STRAVINSKY 13
LISZT 10
The Mendelssohn total doesn’t include the String Symphonies which on reflection I should have included in the total. A couple of notable composers who didn’t have any complete symphonies broadcast include Miaskovsky and Honegger! The W A Mozart total does not include the Mozartfest.
The Results
There were just over 32,000 works/extracts performed in 2011, including the Mozartfst (a 1.8% decrease on 2010) by over 2180 composers which is around 250 less composers than in 2010. There were around 500 composers who featured in 2011 that didn’t feature in 2009 or 2010 and around 500 composers who featured in 2010 that didn’t feature in 2011. However over 880 of these composers are represented by one extract/work only (up on the previous two years) and only a little over 350 composers had more than 10 works/extracts broadcast. The amount of non-classical music broadcast in programmes that are mainly considered to be classical was around the same as last year.
There were 58 composers who had over 100 works/extracts broadcast on R3 in 2011, up on previous years. These are listed below in descending order with the 2009/2010 positions and the % increase or decrease compared to 2009 and 2010 indicated (the minus indicates a percentage decrease). The figures for W A Mozart do not include the nearly 950 works/extracts played during the Mozartfest and as mentioned above 3.15% of normal R3 broadcast time was lost to the ‘fest’ so any composer doing better than -3.15% on last year actually did better overall.
My beautifully lined-up table hasn't worked again. The figures show 2011 position, composer, 2011 total, 2009 position, 2010 position and the % difference from 2009 & 2010 in that order.
1 MOZART W A 1390+ 2 2 15.08% 1.30%
2 BACH J S 1295+ 1 1 0.62% -9.55%
3 BEETHOVEN 1080+ 6 3 23.75% 10.39%
4 SCHUBERT 930+ 5 4 0.75% -1.27%
5 BRAHMS 770+ 9 8 24.45% 8.28%
6 HANDEL 725+ 3 6 -32.40% -3.46%
7 CHOPIN 670+ 10 5 19.43% -26.75%
8 HAYDN F J 610+ 4 9 -43.21% -3.11%
9 LISZT 610+ 22 17 53.71% 45.83%
10 DVORAK 520+ 13 11 18.16% 2.87%
11 VIVALDI 520+ 14 14 18.50% 16.18%
12 SCHUMANN R 515+ 12 7 12.77% -27.79%
13 TCHAIKOVSKY 495+ 16 10 23.69% -3.30%
14 DEBUSSY 490+ 11 12 3.88% -3.35%
15 MENDELSSOHN FELIX 475+ 7 13 -35.19% 6.08%
16 RAVEL 415+ 15 15 6.47% -3.92%
17 RACHMANINOV 330+ 21 23 11.18% 15.41%
18 BRITTEN 325+ 20 19 7.67% 7.36%
19 GRIEG 320+ 24 24 20.12% 15.48%
20 STRAUSS R 320+ 17 16 -11.54% -15.26%
21 SIBELIUS 315+ 18 18 3.15% -3.35%
22 ELGAR 315+ 23 25 12.03% 14.87%
23 PURCELL H 290+ 8 20 -51.57% -1.01%
24 SAINT-SAENS 265+ 33 35 31.81% 23.28%
25 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 240+ 28 28 18.67% -4.37%
26 PROKOFIEV S 240+ 29 31 20.25% -0.83%
27 VERDI 235+ 30 29 18.64% -2.88%
28 MAHLER G 235+ 35 22 28.94% -17.25%
29 SHOSTAKOVICH 225+ 26 32 8.73% -2.14%
30 FAURE 220+ 32 34 15.91% 0.00%
31 GRAINGER 215+ 49 55 48.17% 54.13%
32 ROSSINI 210+ 31 33 10.75% -3.17%
33 STRAVINSKY 210+ 19 27 -29.47% -15.81%
34 WAGNER 210+ 27 21 5.63% -27.30%
35 TELEMANN 205+ 25 26 -8.33% -19.68%
36 GERSHWIN 185+ 48 38 37.93% 5.35%
37 BERLIOZ 177+ 36 36 11.34% -12.32%
38 MONTEVERDI 170+ 39 30 18.60% -29.22%
39 WEBER 170+ 50 47 34.30% 19.07%
40 STRAUSS J II 165+ 44 42 20.73% 15.24%
41 BARTOK 155+ 34 39 -14.67% -4.99%
42 SCARLATTI D 155+ 38 40 7.74% 1.94%
43 BACH C P E 150+ 47 46 21.57% 18.30%
44 VICTORIA 150+ NEW NEW 76.16% 72.85%
45 SMETANA 140+ NEW 51 32.87% 19.58%
46 HOLST G 140+ 46 NEW 12.06% 29.79%
47 PUCCINI 125+ 53 49 18.75% 6.25%
48 JANACEK 125+ 37 43 -13.10% -9.35%
49 BRUCKNER 120+ 52 NEW 13.93% 27.05%
50 NIELSEN C 120+ 43 NEW -7.58% 41.84%
51 RIMSKY KORSAKOV 120+ NEW NEW 24.59% 27.05%
52 POULENC 120+ 45 41 -6.98% -18.92%
53 RAMEAU 115+ 42 45 -12.69% -8.59%
54 BYRD 115+ 40 37 -14.71% -41.12%
55 BIZET 110+ NEW 52 10.00% 0.00%
56 WALTON 110+ NEW 48 20.00% -9.10%
57 SATIE 100+ NEW NEW 27.46% 33.33%
58 SULLIVAN 101+ NEW NEW 45.55% 46.54%
There were four composers who had over 100 works/extracts broadcast in 2010 who failed to achieve it this year. They were Barber, Mussorgsky, Bernstein & Tallis.
SC
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