Schubert - the poll

[french frank]

Actually, B-o-D, that does capture a nuance which could be explored on the second poll.

There is an awful lot of difference between those who didn't listen because they don't like Schubert and those who didn't listen because they love Schubert (and really wanted something quite different from this).

For me, loving Schubert's music, the programme just seemed so overwhelming I couldn't be bothered to study the whole schedule to pick out what, as a stand-alone programme, might be valuable.

To come out with yet another gastronomic cliché, being presented with a huge plate of food, piled high, puts you off eating altogether.

David-G

With respect, I find this an extraordinary view.

Well, that's the purpose of the polls - to investigate what I said in the OP were the utter extremes! . I can understand both extremes. But I'm personally only positioned at one end!

DS

BBC may boast that only Rado3 can mount an event of this kind. This is probably true but that is because Radio3 has the monopoly of broadcasting classical music without advertisements.

And, more importantly, it has the money.

[Quarky]

Well it worked for me, much to my surprise.

Principally, it was a reacquaintance with his Lieder, having spent some time studying them in the past but these days listening to other types of music. And I eventually overcame my reservations about Graham Johnson's rather boring voice intonation, and decided he probably knows more about lieder than anyone else in UK.

I think that being locked up with Schubert for over a week was possibly the only way that my ears could have been realigned to his music.

But for me it was a one off, and I don't expect it to happen again. Now it's back to the future, with the late night programmes back on-line.

[John Skelton]

I would concur with suffolk wholeheartedly.
I caught the odd half hour here and there over the week (including that embarassing interview by S M-P with Gyles Brandreth where he admitted to not liking the composer) but it only served to confirm my life-long opinion that Schubert isn't in my top 10 of composers. And I can't believe that shovelling 8 whole days of non-stop Schubert is anything except detrimental to the composer and R3 itself. Naturally there will be those for whom Schubert is no.1 and will have been delighted by the wall-to-wall coverage but one has to ask them if they would also like 8 days of
A) Schoenberg, Berg and Webern
B) English "pastoral" (i.e. first half of 20th century) school of music - VW, Finzi, Butterworth et al
C) Serialist composers of the last half of the 20th century
etc etc...
Indeed some might argue that any of the three options offered above would at least amount to something bordering on intelligent programming in terms of placing musical development within a cultural and historical context but it would be just too much.

All three would make for very good series, spread out over the weeks / year. Which also goes for Schubert (the songs in cultural and social context, for instance). If I had a top 10 composer list Schubert would be in it, and I gave up attempting to find trees for wood and ...

what really ... disturbed me, were the attempts to produce / provoke a communal experience of Emotion with a capital E. What really disgusted me (exactly how I felt about it) was this https://twitter.com/#!/FranzIsUnwell. Perhaps it's me, but I don't like the idea of the people who came up with that and of the people who participated in that.

Retrospectively the way the thing was done, the weirdly coercive character of the presentation, the mix of post-'collegiate' fun / cleverness and schmaltz has had a deterrent effect on me: I wouldn't, now, casually listen to Radio 3. I wouldn't listen unless I'd a strong reason to; maybe some mainstream concerts if I'm especially interested in the performers and Hear & Now if and when there's music I want to listen to there. I have good access to music other than on Radio 3 and I know others don't, so I can afford the strength of reaction.

[Bax-of-Delights]

what really ... disturbed me, were the attempts to produce / provoke a communal experience of Emotion with a capital E. What really disgusted me (exactly how I felt about it) was this https://twitter.com/#!/FranzIsUnwell. Perhaps it's me, but I don't like the idea of the people who came up with that and of the people who participated in that.

Retrospectively the way the thing was done, the weirdly coercive character of the presentation, the mix of post-'collegiate' fun / cleverness and schmaltz has had a deterrent effect on me: I wouldn't, now, casually listen to Radio 3. I wouldn't listen unless I'd a strong reason to; maybe some mainstream concerts if I'm especially interested in the performers and Hear & Now if and when there's music I want to listen to there. I have good access to music other than on Radio 3 and I know others don't, so I can afford the strength of reaction.

So it would appear that we have two quite different discontents beginning to surface

A) The whole exercise and thinking about a "thon"
and
B) The style and presentation associated with it.

I'd hazard a guess that B is the far more damaging of the two in that it presages more of the same to come. Keeping an eye on R3's Facebook page generally gives the tenor of how the production team are thinking and undoubtedly the post-collegiate "fun" as JS mentions above is part and parcel of the mix. Those who have been antagonistic to the "thon" have been able to express their dislike for the exercise but their resident pit-bull attack dog "cavatina", late of these boards, has regularly posted what some might call quite vicious personal messages against them describing them as old fogeys. Steve B, a R3 producer, would appear to be quite happy with this kiind of language, adding his own put down of those opposed, calling them the "grumpies".

[BBMmk2]

B-O_D:-

If the presenters of these 'thons' have a downgrading patronising style , surely well, for me, at any rate, put them of tuning into R3 permanantly(which is what i am thinking of doing!)

[DracoM]

Making Schubert into wallpaper? That's OK, is it?

[BBMmk2]

That's what this marathon, and others of this kind, are doing to composer's music.

[umslopogaas]

#51 DracoM and #52 Brassbandmaestro

Surely whether or not musical wallpaper comes out of the radio depends on your ears, not the music or the presentation? In this case we got whole works, in good performances, sometimes great ones, intelligently presented (OK, maybe you dont like the style, but I would maintain that it is none the less intelligent). If YOU choose to listen, its great music. If YOU choose to have it on in the background while you do the hoovering, its wallpaper. But dont lay responsibility for that at Schubert's door, or at Radio Three's.

My own feelings have already been expressed elsewhere by others: to repeat what others have already said, I think it is wonderful music and I would have no problem with a season devoted to all of it, but I also like other composers and I want my Schubert varied with a bit of Stravinsky, Wagner, Monteverdi, Bach etc etc. A couple of hours a day for as long as it takes to play the lot would have been fine, but all day and evey day was not.

[JFLL]

For me, loving Schubert's music, the programme just seemed so overwhelming I couldn't be bothered to study the whole schedule to pick out what, as a stand-alone programme, might be valuable.

That's exactly my view. And the nuggets I would have enjoyed, such as Brendel or Fischer-Dieskau talking about Schubert, were buried away in catch-all programmes, so one didn't know when they were on. You practically had to listen the whole time if you didn't want to miss anything. It would have been much better to have, say, an hour of Brendel talking about Schubert interpretation. But hour-long programmes are pretty well a thing of the past, it seems (with a few honorable exceptions) -- too much concentration required.

[rank_and_file]

My memory may be slipping, but do you really think CFM in any way reinstates "the old Third Programme ethos and standards"?

S_A

Your post 24 queries whether a separate “Radio 3/Third Programme” would not have to be in the CFM (popular) format, and, if not, could a more “highbrow” classical and Western arts station exist on its own.

Off hand over 10 years of my life has been partly taken-up with sniping at the ever-increasing downward quality of Radio 3 content. It seems to me, despite the comments on the old BBC board, now this one, that all the BBC really care about is listening numbers - quantity compared to quality. Therefore, my suggestion that one clearly separates the output from the present BBC media management influence.

Whether or not a 21st century “Third Programme” could exist as a subscription channel is a mute point. I am presently paying £145.50 licence fee and very rarely watch any BBC television at all. I would be quite prepared to pay £150 as an annual subscription - less than the price of a goodish seat for one opera performance at the ROH!

Your post 29 seems to be a misunderstanding on your part.

Thought I would respond, although this is now way off topic.

[kernelbogey]

[...]the attempts to produce / provoke a communal experience of Emotion with a capital E [...] the weirdly coercive character of the presentation, the mix of post-'collegiate' fun / cleverness and schmaltz[....]

I tolerated a little of this presentation, hearing SMP with Brandreth, and then with the, you know, breathless, and, I mean, often clever, Tom S chatting in the studio over the music. When I saw, on the website, that they really did have a skeleton in the studio, it struck me that the presentation team had got quite carried away with an inward-looking fun experience. Taken together with the tasteless @Franzisunwell jape, it looks, as John S implies, like an attempt to draw the 'uninitiated' (i.e. 'Schubert-Virgins' ) into some kind of Radio Three rag (a la Children in Need: all that was missing, indeed, was some kind of Pudsey-like Franzisunwell logo).

In all of this the producers and managers show a lack of understanding of, and connectedness with, a core R3 audience.

[BBMmk2]

#51 DracoM and #52 Brassbandmaestro

Surely whether or not musical wallpaper comes out of the radio depends on your ears, not the music or the presentation? In this case we got whole works, in good performances, sometimes great ones, intelligently presented (OK, maybe you dont like the style, but I would maintain that it is none the less intelligent). If YOU choose to listen, its great music. If YOU choose to have it on in the background while you do the hoovering, its wallpaper. But dont lay responsibility for that at Schubert's door, or at Radio Three's.

My own feelings have already been expressed elsewhere by others: to repeat what others have already said, I think it is wonderful music and I would have no problem with a season devoted to all of it, but I also like other composers and I want my Schubert varied with a bit of Stravinsky, Wagner, Monteverdi, Bach etc etc. A couple of hours a day for as long as it takes to play the lot would have been fine, but all day and evey day was not.

Don't get me wrong, I love Schubert's music(not all though), but at times with these typ of schedules, a listenercould be overwhelmed by just one persons music?

[umslopogaas]

#57 Brassbandmaestro

Precisely. Even a seasoned listener to classical music might be overwhelmed by a week of one composer, non stop, and a novice might be sent running, never to return.

I hope they wont do it again.

But I fear they will. Hopefully in the summer, when I can go out and do and a bit of gardening. Without a portable radio.

[Osborn]

On average R3 listeners tune in for just about 7 hours a week. Such listeners won't have felt 'saturated' by Schubert. Over 40% of R3 listeners (about 850,000) listen to CFM anyway. So they won't have felt 'saturated' either.

In effect the usual moaners were moaning that Schubert's music (& related programmimg) was being transmitted when they were listening & also when they weren't listening. Ludicrous.

[french frank]

On average R3 listeners tune in for just about 7 hours a week. Such listeners won't have felt 'saturated' by Schubert.

There's a flaw in that reasoning. It's like assuming that because the average age of the UK population is 39, everyone is 39.

Over 40% of R3 listeners (about 850,000) listen to CFM anyway. So they won't have felt 'saturated' either.

But some may be predominantly CFM listeners who pop over to R3 for the odd programme (no, they won't have felt saturated). Others may be predominantly R3 listeners who pop over to CFM for the odd programme (they may well have felt saturated).