Schubertathon - how much did you listen?

[french frank]

Here's a first crack at getting some figures. This is purely about the amount of listening you did, relative to your usual R3 listening; or how the Schubertathon affected your listening.

Another poll will be on detail/quality

[Old Grumpy]

The outcome will be interesting. The BBC blog comments seem to be about 50/50.

OG

[french frank]

The BBC blog comments seem to be about 50/50.

The latest one is currently 4-1 against. I'm genuinely sorry, when there appears to have been so much enthusiasm from the 'R3 team' (and hard work, I'm sure), that there is obviously quite a substantial amount of negativity among listeners. But this has been the case right from the beginning with the Beethovenathon. If they just take the view that a lot of people really like it and it's a whizzo way of publicising R3, so they'll carry on - they can't say they weren't warned. For all that makes any difference.

[french frank]

Just a bit of a bump for the poll [above], and to say that a second poll will try to extract information on enjoyment and which (general) features were successful and which were particularly disliked.

[Old Grumpy]

The latest one is currently 4-1 against. I'm genuinely sorry, when there appears to have been so much enthusiasm from the 'R3 team' (and hard work, I'm sure), that there is obviously quite a substantial amount of negativity among listeners. But this has been the case right from the beginning with the Beethovenathon. If they just take the view that a lot of people really like it and it's a whizzo way of publicising R3, so they'll carry on - they can't say they weren't warned. For all that makes any difference.

The link comes back to For3. The blog comments I was alluding to are here.


Apparently "comment posting is not available at present" - perhaps they feel it will begin to go against them!

OG

[french frank]

The link comes back to For3.

Oops! so it does/did. Now corrected. There are five comments there.

The blog comments I was alluding to are here.

Good grief! I was following that blog - huge number of new posts that I'd missed: but I suppose people were waiting until it had ended to comment.

Even so, it's not an overwhelming endorsement, is it?

[DracoM]

If you are to win people for a major composer, you have to contextualise him / her. If you insist in playing ONLY that composer literally non-stop day and night, and a decent percent of your potential public are [a] intimidated by such an avalanche or [b] just don't like the music, you're snookered. You never get them on board long enough for them to find out, and maybe love it.

This Schubertathom was so totally unrelieved, wall to wall. there was no, or very little escape, and the packaging by presenters was SO dire that I turned off as soon as I heard the mention of tweet or email.

In my CD collection are the bits of Schubert I love, so that when I was put off from listening to R3, I had my own Schubert selection there. Yes, it did indeed mean that I did not much expand my awareness and that's a shame, but the price to pay in terms of twitter and gush and sonic claustrophobia was just too high.

[JFLL]

I wonder whether there are two criteria, potentially in conflict, operating in the choices? 1, 5 and 6 are absolute, whereas 2, 3 and 4 are relative. For example, if one's normal listening habits are to catch the odd item, one could just as well answer 'About the same amount as usual' as 'caught the odd item'. So if the aim is to find out whether people's listening habits were affected by the Schubertathon, might not 2,3 and 4 suffice? (I suppose, on the other hand, that the assumption is that most people on these boards normally listen to quite a lot, so the conflict might not arise too often.)

[french frank]

I wonder whether there are two criteria, potentially in conflict, operating in the choices? 1, 5 and 6 are absolute, whereas 2, 3 and 4 are relative. For example, if one's normal listening habits are to catch the odd item, one could just as well answer 'About the same amount as usual' as 'caught the odd item'. So if the aim is to find out whether people's listening habits were affected by the Schubertathon, might not 2,3 and 4 suffice? (I suppose, on the other hand, that the assumption is that most people on these boards normally listen to quite a lot, so the conflict might not arise too often.)

First, we can't be too nuanced (though could have been slightly moreso) because we have a limited number of options. It's 10, but I felt it could get too fussy and people would then be unable to make the distinctions. It's quick impression stuff.

I decided that where there is conflict, one or other clear option will predominate. For example, I could have chosen 'About the same amount as usual' but chose 'Didn't listen at all' (I have now given up on R3). But given that I could hardly fail to have noticed that this great Composerfest was on, if it had seemed at all an enticing prospect, I probably would have listened: I elected not to on the grounds that it didn't seem enticing to me, personally. Not listening was, for me, a choice related to the event, rather than just 'listening as usual, not'. If it was only 'the odd item', I would have chosen that, not 'quite a lot more', but if I dipped in deliberately to, say, four or more, I would have chosen 'quite a lot more'. [Don't forget, the average amount of listening pw is only 5.5-6.5 hours, less than an hour per day, so four programmes could have taken me well above the average (or 'quite a lot').]

I think most people will have an impression of what they felt about the Schubertathon, related to their usual listening, and what efforts they made to listen more or listen less, regardless of whether they are usually heavy, light or 'not at all' listeners.

[Don Petter]

I think most people will have an impression of what they felt about the Schubertathon, related to their usual listening, and what efforts they made to listen more or listen less, regardless of whether they are usually heavy, light or 'not at all' listeners.

I tend to agree with JFLL here. I didn't know whether to choose 3 or 5, both of which applied to me.

In view of your summary paragraph above, it would have been better to just have 2, 3 & 4. As it is the votes will inevitably be split between the two methods of assessment.

[french frank]

I tend to agree with JFLL here. I didn't know whether to choose 3 or 5, both of which applied to me.

In view of your summary paragraph above, it would have been better to just have 2, 3 & 4. As it is the votes will inevitably be split between the two methods of assessment.

Hmmm, so my theory doesn't hold for you!

I don't think it matters too much if 'votes' are split. It isn't a competition to see who 'wins': merely to gauge whether the amount of listening was affected by the event; whether it persuaded people to listen more or less. A snapshot. Each option tells a story of some sort.

[JFLL]

Hmmm, so my theory doesn't hold for you!

I don't think it matters too much if 'votes' are split. It isn't a competition to see who 'wins': merely to gauge whether the amount of listening was affected by the event; whether it persuaded people to listen more or less. A snapshot. Each option tells a story of some sort.

I can see what you mean about a 'snapshot', Frank, but it seems at the moment that 'Caught the odd item' is 'in the lead', so that might skew the results a bit. Will you assume that votes for that item mean 'I normally listen to quite a bit, but in this case I only caught the odd item'?

Don't want to make your life too difficult, though, honest!

[pilamenon]

I listened a bit more than usual, but option 3 was closer than option 2, so I voted "about the same".

My appreciation of Schubert's genius has been further enhanced. There was only once occasion - on the first Sunday afternoon concert from Maida Vale - when the BBC Singers were making such a racket that I was glad to turn off - not sure whether that was Schubert's fault or theirs. There does seem to be a consensus emerging that there was a vast amount to enjoy, whilst on the other hand so much of the presentation was really quite painful.

On the principle, however, I do object to the removal of other types of music from the schedules that form part of Radio 3's remit, such as jazz. It is even less fair and excusable to expect jazz or world fans to acknowledge the superior claim of Schubert to their time, than to ask some classical listeners to compromise. They didn't have to do that to create a memorable Schubert festival - I think it's selfish and mean-spirited.

[Don Petter]

I can see what you mean about a 'snapshot', Frank, but it seems at the moment that 'Caught the odd item' is 'in the lead', so that might skew the results a bit. Will you assume that votes for that item mean 'I normally listen to quite a bit, but in this case I only caught the odd item'?

Don't want to make your life too difficult, though, honest!

Nor do I, ff, equally honest!

But I hope you don't assume that because, for me, 'Caught the odd item' is all I ever do with R3 these days (usually in the car) and so it equates with 'About the same amount as usual'.

I think the 'thon' would indeed have turned me off and reduced my listening if I hadn't already got to that stage anyway by all the other R3 triteness.

[aeolium]

None of the options exactly reflected my own experience, which was to listen a bit less than usual, but I appreciate the difficulty of coming up with a comprehensive list of options. I usually listen to lunchtime concerts, some evening concerts, and CD Review, but in this case I only selected items I particularly wanted to hear such as the Paul Lewis concert in which he played D845, the completion of the E major symphony D729 and the C major Fantasy D934 (and act 1 of Der Graf von Gleichen on TtN). So I went for option 5.