The Choir 7.6.15

[light_calibre_baritone]

In what way truly awful?

Yeah agreed, GJ. JEG's ORR contains some of the world's finest orchestral players... It's like a HIP version of the John Wilson Orchestra!

[french frank]

The Choir's format doesn't warrant an entire performance of a lengthy piece like Missa S;

Isn't that the point of the criticism? The old Choirworks format concentrated on the great choral works, which it played in full. The programme was intended for people who enjoyed choral music. That was axed for The Choir, which like the bulk of the daytime programmes was precisely for people for whom 'a snippet of Beethoven' was introducing them to something new.

The two programmes had/have different formats and different target audiences. It's not surprising if people who thought Choirworks was a good programme are unimpressed by The Choir. The moreso since when Choirworks was dropped the excuse was that a 90-minute programme devoted to choral music on a Sunday evening imposed an inflexibility upon the schedule, and a much better idea would be to have an ordinary concert which could still contain choral music from time to time. And yet, two years later they dropped that idea and returned to 90 minutes of The Choir on a Sunday evening, presumably because the BBC had just signed up Aled Jones from Classic FM to do Songs of Praise and Good Morning Sunday on Radio 2, so they thought they'd make the best use of him by giving him The Choir on Radio 3 too. The result was a programme designed to attract his fans over on Classic FM by being a bit more 'people-based' rather than music-based. Hence snippets of the great works and contributions from listeners.

[underthecountertenor]

In what way truly awful?

Still no answer, I see. I'm intrigued to know, for I can't hear it on either of the JEG recordings. But perhaps my ears are mediocre, for which I deserve pity rather than censure (since we're apparently into passive aggression hereabouts).

[DracoM]

FF

You put it admirably succinctly.

In fact my guess is - certainly talking to musical friends etc - that a number of people not necessarily major choral music fans DID indeed come to love some of the major works exactly via Choirworks.

For my money, CD Masters and Choirworks are two of the most most significant losses to the schedules in terms of style / content / format on R3. I think you can tell on air that Rob Cowan would dearly wish to expatiate on different interpretations of the same piece with a fellow presenter as he did with Jonathan Swain. Sad loss for us all.