The Choir 26.01.14

[jean]

If this view is elitist, so be it.

No, that's an ingeniously non-elitist way of putting it.

I was thinking more of the poor souls and their predicament and talk of foisting.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

It's a while since I've lived in London and it did just occur to me to google the Philharmonia myself, and I discovered what you've just posted.

Creeping professionalisation of an area we used to have all to ourselves, I call it!

Letting the side down, I call it; I wouldn't want to sing with an outfit that has to be stiffened by pros.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Instrumentalists get paid in professional concerts, but in general, the choirs singing with them do not. Solo instrumentalists and singers get paid for their work. It isn't exactly natural justice. Last year, I was invited to sing in the chorus for Rutter's Requiem, for I which I would have to pay a fee. Then on realisation that I was an oboist, I was asked to play th obligato in The Lord is My Shepherd in the Requiem, for which I was paid a 3 figure sum for 5 minutes' work. It felt wrong. I only accepted it because the cellist was being paid too.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I'm not sure that The Choir has ever lived up to the specialist credentials of Choirworks. I assumed that was why it replaced a programme that really was for people interested in choral music - too elitist.

When I was a guest presenter of The Choir last year, talking about Baltic choirs and composers, there wasn't a whiff of an idea that we should be too elitist. Quite the opposite - the one thing the producer did not want was music or choral groups that are well-known (so no Arvo Part, No Peteris Vasks, no Latvian Radio Choir or Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir...) and I was very happy to have the opportunity to introduce listeners to a whole load of stuff they were very unlikely to have encountered before.

[Nick Armstrong]

Is there a 'not' missing before 'too elitist', GJ?

[ardcarp]

That depends how you read it, Calibs. Do you want a ne...pas?

Anyway, come back guest presenters! All is forgiven.

[Nick Armstrong]

That depends how you read it, Calibs.

I read it that an extra 'not' was necessary in the first sentence to tie in with the second - nobody said 'don't be too elitist'... on the contrary, Gabirel was encouraged to avoid the familiar in favour of introducing listeners to new material

[DracoM]

Well, GJ, how many tweets, emails, 'choral epiphanies', choral classics were you enjoined to introduce?
Ans = NONE.
In which case just measure what The Choir might be [ and was in your prog] and what it now is, and you might begin to understand that there seems to have been a MIGHTY sea-change in the whole production style and content.

And in understanding that, perhaps the grounds upon which some of us are in a state of near despair as to what is happening to it 'under new management'?

[Gabriel Jackson]

Is there a 'not' missing before 'too elitist', GJ?

Indeed there should!

[Gabriel Jackson]

Well, GJ, how many tweets, emails, 'choral epiphanies', choral classics were you enjoined to introduce?
Ans = NONE.
In which case just measure what The Choir might be [ and was in your prog] and what it now is, and you might begin to understand that there seems to have been a MIGHTY sea-change in the whole production style and content.

And in understanding that, perhaps the grounds upon which some of us are in a state of near despair as to what is happening to it 'under new management'?

If you actually read what I wrote, you will note that it was to counter a specific suggestion (made by you also) that The Choir, from the off, was intended to be a less "elitist" programme than Choirworks.

[french frank]

When I was a guest presenter of The Choir last year, talking about Baltic choirs and composers, there wasn't a whiff of an idea that we should be too elitist. Quite the opposite - the one thing the producer did not want was music or choral groups that are well-known (so no Arvo Part, No Peteris Vasks, no Latvian Radio Choir or Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir...) and I was very happy to have the opportunity to introduce listeners to a whole load of stuff they were very unlikely to have encountered before.

That may be. But the BBC 'reason' for discontinuing Choirworks was that having 90 mins devoted to choral music on a Sunday evening was a bit inflexible for the scheduling. So the idea was to have a 'Performance on 3' instead, which might feature choral music, but didn't need to. So far, so good.

Two years later, the BBC signed Aled Jones from Classic FM, for various presenting jobs on radio and television and, lo! 90 mins of choral music reappears on Radio 3 on a Sunday evening, with our new presenter in place of the old one. You may read into that what you wish, but I'm cynical: Aled Jones had a big personal following on Classic FM... I listened to the first two programmes and never listened again. Unlike you, apparently, I wasn't impressed. That doesn't preclude individual programmes being very good, certainly more recently (I believe that was stated here). I don't presume to pass judgement on what I haven't heard.

[ardcarp]

I'm not sure what 'elite' means really. To acknowledge it is to suggest that only stuck-up nobs sing in choirs. Many fine choirs (one could cite the male-voice choirs of mining communities) could be called 'elite' in terms of their performing standard. I was privileged to accompany the Morriston Orpheus on tour many years ago, and one could not help be struck not only by their standards but also by their musicianship and deep love of and commitment to the music they sang.

I think The Choir succeeds best when it chooses a theme (eg Male Voice Choirs, Baltic Choirs, Barber Shop, Youth Choirs) and explores it in some depth, preferably guided by someone with practical experience and thorough knowledge.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What I want to know is - what is wrong with elitism? It isn't the same as exclusivity.

Is Sky Sports going to adopt the same exclusivity and replace Premiership football with Scholes Park Raiders playing similar clubs?

(SPR is the club Jonathan Greening played for before moving (via York City) to the elitist Manchester United, and later to the elitist Middlesborough, the elitist West Bromwich Albion and the elitist Fulham, and is now playing for the trying-very-hard-to-be-elitist Nottingham Forest.)

Striving for the best is a good thing.

[DracoM]

If you actually read what I wrote, you will note that it was to counter a specific suggestion (made by you also) that The Choir, from the off, was intended to be a less "elitist" programme than Choirworks.

No: maybe I made the same mistake as thousands of others in expecting The Choir to be a more or less seamless continuation of the 'Choirworks' slot. How wrong I was.

[DracoM]

I'm not sure what 'elite' means really. To acknowledge it is to suggest that only stuck-up nobs sing in choirs. Many fine choirs (one could cite the male-voice choirs of mining communities) could be called 'elite' in terms of their performing standard. I was privileged to accompany the Morriston Orpheus on tour many years ago, and one could not help be struck not only by their standards but also by their musicianship and deep love of and commitment to the music they sang.

I think The Choir succeeds best when it chooses a theme (eg Male Voice Choirs, Baltic Choirs, Barber Shop, Youth Choirs) and explores it in some depth, preferably guided by someone with practical experience and thorough knowledge.

Precisely said, ardcarp, and FF, and it is that very loss of proper thematic focus and the loss of being led by an expert in the field that excites and educates that I most lament.