How much attention?

[mercia]

if 'serious' music deserves/demands our 100% complete and full attention, then the period of the day 6:30-9:00am is far from ideal to meet that demand, aren't most people at that time of day doing other things? and the longer the piece the more this full attention is demanded (does that follow?). I wonder if we've already had a thread which asks people if they set aside a certain time of day when they can give music their full attention, or are we happy to listen at any time, whilst doing other things. Would Bach be horrified to know that people are (for example) cleaning their teeth or feeding the cat whilst listening to one of his sacred cantatas ?

[Copied from the Eternal Breakfast ... - ff]

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm not so sure about Bach expecting 100% attention... certainly one gets the impression most composers before Liszt probably expected audience members to be wandering around, chatting, making eyes at each other, eating, drinking... etc. Perhaps church cantatas were an exception but I wonder...

[BBMmk2]

They were performed in church, so surely the congregation be sitting and listening?

[french frank]

As a first thought: ideally, it should have 100% attention, but given that that isn't always practical, how long can Breakfast pieces be? Surely, even a 6-minute piece is 'too long' [tbd] if you're doing something that takes less than 6 minutes? What other considerations should there be besides length?

[antongould]

As a first thought: ideally, it should have 100% attention, but given that that isn't always practical, how long can Breakfast pieces be? Surely, even a 6-minute piece is 'too long' [tbd] if you're doing something that takes less than 6 minutes? What other considerations should there be besides length?

If mercs is finding the cat is there not something to be said for well known pieces, not perhaps to the extent some dominate the SC survey, that are agreeable but do not demand full attention. This morning's Breakfast selection went down fine for those of us building a Lego Bat Cave. Now in BAL I am getting shouted at...........

[mercia]

........or are we happy to listen at any time, whilst doing other things.

of course we do do other things whilst listening, because we can, since I guess the advent of the gramophone - who to blame? Edison, Marconi or somesuch.

[Nick Armstrong]

If mercs is finding the cat is there not something to be said for well known pieces, not perhaps to the extent some dominate the SC survey, that are agreeable but do not demand full attention. This morning's Breakfast selection went down fine for those of us building a Lego Bat Cave. Now in BAL I am getting shouted at...........

You're lucky you're not listening to musak in Fenwicks, chum! Count your blessings!

of course we do do other things whilst listening, because we can, since I guess the advent of the gramophone - who to blame? Edison, Marconi or somesuch.

But the punters in 18th century concert halls could too - pints of sherry and bags of salted otters' tongues and generally wandering around.. No? Have I been watching too many fillums?

[french frank]

If mercs is finding the cat is there not something to be said for well known pieces, not perhaps to the extent some dominate the SC survey, that are agreeable but do not demand full attention.

If you have an audience of over half a million over the course of the week, the response to that would be: 'Well-known to whom?' What some people know very well, others will never have heard of. And, anyway, if your 'unfamiliar' piece' is only going to be 6-10 minutes long, why should you feel the need to sit down and pay full attention to it, if that's not usually what you do in the mornings? Just let it jingle away in the back of your consciousness like the Johann Strauss II.

If people are particularly struck by a new piece, they stop and listen. And just how difficult is it to catch that time up in the mornings? If people are finding time to text, tweet and email, just how enormously busy are they? If they really are hugely, can't stop, busy, they don't need to have the radio on at all. Problem solved - they can concentrate 100% on hurrying to clean their teeth and feed the cat.

But 'Breakfast' is what you get when the Radio 3's biggest concern is to maximise its listening figures.

[MickyD]

I totally agree, Caliban...just look at contemporary pictures of what is going on inside 18th century theatres during opera performances...slanging matches going on in the pit, culinary and sexual delights in the private boxes..these audiences must have been far more distracted than ourselves today!

[Nick Armstrong]

culinary and sexual delights in the private boxes

Bit like the Proms, then...


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[french frank]

I totally agree, Caliban...just look at contemporary pictures of what is going on inside 18th century theatres during opera performances...slanging matches going on in the pit, culinary and sexual delights in the private boxes..these audiences must have been far more distracted than ourselves today!

But they were listening/watching the equivalent of a pop/rock concert/ musical - i.e.contemporary music. I bet they didn't behave exactly like that when listening to a polyphonic Mass.

[amateur51]

Bit like the Proms, then...

I trust that this is not a vile reference to Mr Wright's Proms box

[LeMartinPecheur]

I'm permanently in a cleft stick on the issue of undivided (properly respectful?) attention.

1) It's definitely the best way. I recall Hans Keller demanding it and decrying, almost forbidding, anything less. Absolutely fine if it weren't for real-world trivia like work, driving, family, other people who interrupt...

2) Strict compliance with Keller's view would surely cut the R3 audience, recorded music usage and therefore sales by way over 50%. Can we seriously imagine that classical musicians could possibly survive without 'background' listeners?? I got a letter into The Listener (of blessed memory) making this very point contra Keller, though they censored the bit where I'd said he was sawing through the branch that he himself sat on!

3) My own personal experience as a teenager grappling with science homework with the R3 evening concerts on in order to 'hear', often for the first time, the standard symphonic repertoire indicates that, even when one thinks one missed every note so that all has pretty literally 'gone in one ear and out the other', some part of the musical brain has been working hard because when sitting down to listen with proper concentration for the first time, believing that effectively I'd never heard it, I found I already in some way 'knew' it - knew what would happen next.

4) So I look forward to setting aside hours and hours for proper listening when I retire, tho' I'm sure my wife and family have other plans...

[french frank]

LMP

1) HK also had misgivings at the idea of 'all day music'. But in the end, no one is 'forced' to listen with 100% attention. The argument is whether the content should nevertheless be aimed at people who aren't listening with much attention, or at those who are - and let the others pick out what they can. But it's the 'don't mention it's Opus 43 - that will intimidate people' mindset, rather than 'don't play Opus 43' that it so silly.

2) Same point. People can listen to the music any way they want, background or not: it's the planning of the programmes so that they are aimed at a) people who 'know little about classical music' and b) are only half listening anyway that is the problem.

3) Exactly. QED.

4) Good luck!

[Flosshilde]

But they were listening/watching the equivalent of a pop/rock concert/ musical - i.e.contemporary music. I bet they didn't behave exactly like that when listening to a polyphonic Mass.

Do you mean polyphonic masses written before the 18th century, or contemporary masses? If the former would any have been performed (or used) during church services? I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have been performed in a concert. As for the behaviour of congregations during a service, if my observations of services in Italy are any guide there would have been much coming & going & chatting to neighbours - the church as a social centre. I think that Protestants probably nodded off during the prolonged sermons, & woke up to join in with the hymn singing.