A new presenter for COTW

[Ein Heldenleben]

... speaking from how it was for you?

.

In the case of certain areas of Eng Lit …very definitely yes.
I knew a few music undergrads in the 70’s who relied rather heavily on Grout.
Despite everything you read in the papers I get the distinct impression that undergrads work way,way harder now …

[vinteuil]

In the case of certain areas of Eng Lit …very definitely yes.
...
Despite everything you read in the papers I get the distinct impression that undergrads work way,way harder now …

I cannot recall how I faked my way thro' my Eng: Lit: in the 70s!

And I agree that the current generation seem more work-oriented than those in my cohort ever were...
.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I cannot recall how I faked my way thro' my Eng: Lit: in the 70s!

And I agree that the current generation seem more work-oriented than those in my cohort ever were...
.

If you don’t get a 2:1 now it’s a big problem…

[Frances_iom]

My informant puts it slightly differently: the recent music graduate is the latest in a line of all-rounder interns, who put in the heavy digging before DM "adjusts" their results. Point being, the research level of the programme isn't high enough, in my opinion, tending to regurgitate conventional encyclopedic material, rather than quarrying expert recent study. It's a question of time and money, of course, but DM's style plays a part too.

sounds as though the recent AI chat programmes could do this in nanoseconds - maybe some one with access will try a faux-Macleod script for a relatively unresearched composer.

[french frank]

Despite everything you read in the papers I get the distinct impression that undergrads work way,way harder now …

But they are definitely differently focused, so they come out not knowing a lot of things that we learned as central to our courses (ignoramususes! ; and knowing a lot of things that we didn't learn.

[JasonPalmer]

Will be interesting to see how things go with a new presenter.

[Old Grumpy]

If you don’t get a 2:1 now it’s a big problem…

Is that cos too many people have 2:1 or 1st Class degrees or there are too few jobs for those with degrees (or some other reason I haven't thought of)?

[Serial_Apologist]

I suppose I'm disqualified, as I don't listen to this programme these days. I prefer whole works to snippets, I'd rather they talked about the music than the composer's private life, and I don't care for Kate Molleson's style; so no change to my midday schedule.

I've long thought this programme should be replaced by one playing complete pieces, and not limited to five hour-long episodes. The spoken info would be about the work's structure, unusual features, aspects of originality, etc. But I see no chance of such a programme being introduced on Radio 3 in its present way of doing things.

It's informative in positive ways to learn thing about the composer's personality, temperament, family circumstances, background, his or her historic context, events (dear boy), contemporary artistic developments possibly analogous with their own, creative circles etc. Otherwise music only exists in a vacuum, which was the way in which we were taught about it - namely as how composer X entered his or her musical world, and thereafter changed music's direction or remained embedded in bygone styles and pathways, without explanation other than tacit assumptions regarding personality or de-contextualised academic traditions, leaving so much hanging and begging to be explained or at least explored. McLeod at least makes his subjects interesting, rounded people; if anything, though, he has gone too far in this direction, at the expense of the actual music itself, the one thing we have in front of our ears; he advocates a watered down postmodernist view that narrative and therefore biography can be viewed ahistorically, which leads him to go forwards and backwards for illustrative examples. It should surely be possible to combine both approaches - how a composer's development exemplifies either evolution of the creative personality or stagnation, what he or she is up against, and can ideally be evaluated on that twin basis?

[oddoneout]

My informant puts it slightly differently: the recent music graduate is the latest in a line of all-rounder interns, who put in the heavy digging before DM "adjusts" their results. Point being, the research level of the programme isn't high enough, in my opinion, tending to regurgitate conventional encyclopedic material, rather than quarrying expert recent study. It's a question of time and money, of course, but DM's style plays a part too.

Lacking encyclopedic knowledge I am not in a position to comment on the extent to which the content is regurgitated material. I would have thought those occasions when there are other people involved in the programme's content, giving their insight/opinions, the chances are reduced or eliminated. I also remember one of the Handel programmes a while back when DM admitted that what one such person had to say about a particular aspect of Handel's life and work had completely changed what he thought he knew, so perhaps he isn't always completely against revising his opinions?

[french frank]

It's informative in positive ways to learn thing about the composer's personality, temperament, family circumstances, background, his or her historic context, events (dear boy), contemporary artistic developments possibly analogous with their own, creative circles etc. Otherwise music only exists in a vacuum [...]

I agree but as perhaps you're implying, the five hours per week could be better balanced. If I remember correctly after several years Essential Classics was flagged as being at the 'more accessible' end of the spectrum because CotW went into the music in more depth which - here I agree with smittims - it really doesn't. Since Discovering Music was ditched there really isn't a programme that goes into music in any depth. [And too many hours are spent with short, usually incomplete, pieces. I may have said this before ]

[Serial_Apologist]

Lacking encyclopedic knowledge I am not in a position to comment on the extent to which the content is regurgitated material. I would have thought those occasions when there are other people involved in the programme's content, giving their insight/opinions, the chances are reduced or eliminated. I also remember one of the Handel programmes a while back when DM admitted that what one such person had to say about a particular aspect of Handel's life and work had completely changed what he thought he knew, so perhaps he isn't always completely against revising his opinions?

Additional materials or biographical details are what brings me back each time a composer (of interest to me) is re-visited. Whether or not this is the main intention of re-visits, who can say?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Is that cos too many people have 2:1 or 1st Class degrees or there are too few jobs for those with degrees (or some other reason I haven't thought of)?

Yes it’s a feedback loop . The more people that get firsts or 2:1’s the more you need one to get a milk round job and the greater the pressure to award them..

[oddoneout]

Yes it’s a feedback loop . The more people that get firsts or 2:1’s the more you need one to get a milk round job and the greater the pressure to award them..

It's an easy way to whittle down the number of applicants for a post. What happens when every graduate is 1st class is anyone's guess ...
The concept starts very early in the educational sausage factory - from first encounter with SATS in infant school to GCSEs/A levels at the other end, they all have to be top grades.

[Serial_Apologist]

I agree but as perhaps you're implying, the five hours per week could be better balanced. If I remember correctly after several years Essential Classics was flagged as being at the 'more accessible' end of the spectrum because CotW went into the music in more depth which - here I agree with smittims - it really doesn't. Since Discovering Music was ditched there really isn't a programme that goes into music in any depth. [And too many hours are spent with short, usually incomplete, pieces. I may have said this before ]

That is exactly what I am saying. Old-style presentation, charged with being elitist by some: "In the finale movement the composer dispensed with tonality almost to the final bars, relying on the poetic text by Stefan George for which he brought in a solo soprano singer to provide a sense of narrative no longer intrinsic to the harmony". Why would Schoenberg do that, though - seriously? Was it inherent in the musical language that sooner or later the use of pitches foreign to any prevailing sense of key would usurp old form-giving signs? And why at that moment? Did Freud's discoverings in the mechanics of the Unconscious have any bearing on what was happening in the arts - nay in Austro-German culture and politics as a whole? Did being Jewish have anything to do with it? Was Schoenberg travelling a path towards abstraction analogous with painters we could have learned from a biographical exegesis he knew personally, such as Wassily Kandinsky? Why weren't others such as Stravinsky following this path, even though they would be regarded as equally path-breaking? What was happening in Schoenberg's marriage at the time that had a bearing, possibly? Or was atonality just "waiting" to happen - like the collapse of Himalayan glaciers, in the "nature" of things? We wouldn't have known from a Radio 3 introduction, probably, back in the 1950s/early 60s. Now we can have some idea, courtesy COTW - but what precisely is going on the the music, the art work, is barely explained, from the point of view of the disinterested amateur listener, who presumably is thought too unsophisticated to consider of importance anything intrinsic to a particular work beyond anecdote.

[french frank]

In fairness, though, I'm not sure that CotW was ever that sort of programme. Was it? - genuine question. Perhaps the new controller is looking in and will think a new format would be a good thing :-). Or perhaps someone will suggest it to him. But then, perhaps we should just be grateful that we've got it at all, even as it is.

That is exactly what I am saying. Old-style presentation, charged with being elitist by some: "In the finale movement the composer dispensed with tonality almost to the final bars, relying on the poetic text by Stefan George for which he brought in a solo soprano singer to provide a sense of narrative no longer apparent in harmony". Why would Scheoberg do that, though - seriously? Was it inherent in the musical language that sooner or later the use of pitches foreign to any prevailing sense of key would usurp old form-giving signs? And why at that moment? Did Freud's discoverings in the mechanics of the Unconscious have any bearing on what was happening in the arts - nay in Austro-German culture as a whole? Was Schoenberg travelling a path towards abstraction analogous with painters we could have learned he knew personally, such as Wassily Kandinsky? Why weren't others such as Stravinsky following this path, even though they would be regarded as equally path-breaking? What was happening in Schoenberg's marriage at the time that had a bearing, possibly? Or was atonality just "waiting" to happen - like the collapse of Himalayan glaciers, in the "nature" of things? We wouldn't have known from a Radio 3 introduction, probably, back in the 1950s/early 60s. Now we can have some idea, courtesy COTW - but what precisely is going on the the music, the art work, is barely explained, from the point of view of the disinterested amateur listener, who presumably is thought too unsophisticated to consider anything intrinsic to a particular work beyond anecdote.