H&N, Sat 27/8/16; 10:00pm

[Beef Oven!]

It seems that there are, however, those who have only to see the surname Matthews with either Colin or David in front of it to find an excuse to express reservations or worse

There is no evidence to support this, and it’s a shame that you’ve introduced this idea.

and who might in some cases be more concerned to doubt the appropriateness of having either composer's work included in H&N

Double ditto!

than to suggest where else they believe that it might better be aired; one may idly speculate on why that could be, if one has nothing better to do...

The discussion is not about where either of the Matthews brothers’ music should be aired - that’s a distraction from the topic under discussion.

Jayne’s observation about CM’s vc being from 2009 helps, but I take the view that H&N should be about music or a performance of music that is happening now; along with editorial values that seeks to de-emphasise backward looking or inconsequential music.

But beware, all of this is by definition, subjective. The forum's often excessively fastidious pursuit of factual truths concerning music must be suspended.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But is one of H&N's purposes to "upset" listeners? and, if so, which ones, how and why?

Not necessarily (though I was upset by the Glass) - but it would be useful to know what the purpose(s) of the Programme is, given its late-night "specialist" - in the sense that only people already interested would chose to listen to it "Live" regularly and/or to seek it out on the i-Player - timing.

Music written in a/one of the "mainstream" traditions (on manuscript paper with more-or-less "conventional" notation, largely using instruments that would not have been unfamiliar to Debussy, with a single - if with varying degrees of "interpretational fluidity" - structural trajectory [you start at bar one, and work your way to the best of your ability through the piece, reproducing the sounds indicated in that more-or-less conventional notation, and stop after the last bar], performed in venues that would not have been unfamiliar to Brahms, and aimed at a sympathetic audience attuned to the Musics of the Western Classical Traditions; those sorts of things) should be more widely represented in "mainstream" (between, say, 10:30am and 9:00pm) programmes. I regret that it is mainly in the Proms/EIF seasons (and not throughout the year) that this is the case.

The late-night, once-a-week programming of H&N suggests that a different type of listener is being catered for - one less upset by different approaches to sound organization from those that many of those above-defined "mainstream" audiences would accept as even being Music. This rarefied timeslot seems geared towards listeners interested and sympathetic towards whatever new ideas about what Music can be are emerging from across the world: a huge and vastly diverse repertoire. H&N is the only programme on any national broadcast station that features this repertoire: this is exactly what a Public Sector Broadcaster should be doing.

The real objection is not to any suggestion that Matthews' work shouldn't be featured in this "ghetto" slot, but that the new/unusual/different ways of thinking about Music has to be featured only there, and not during the mainstream periods - or, for that matter, on Radios 1, 2, 4, and 6. I would not at all object to this - I suspect that many "classical Music lovers" (especially, perhaps, some of those who most regularly claim to have "eclectic" or "wide-ranging" tastes in Music) would.

Maybe its producer/s should try a split one with music by Hespos and Stevenson...

I'll add only my regularly repeated complaint that as important a work as In Praise of Ben Dorain (a recording of which was, I believe, made for Scottish radio) hasn't been broadcast on Radio 3.

[ahinton]

There is no evidence to support this, and it’s a shame that you've introduced this idea.

I fear that there is, actually, otherwise I would not have "introduced this idea" - but please don't ask me to cite any, otherwise that might make matters worse...

The discussion is not about where either of the Matthews brothers' music should be aired - that’s a distraction from the topic under discussion.

It's surely a part of it, however incidental? The reason that I mentioned this was to highlight the issue of whether composers should be pigeon-holed on R3 as those who provide "mainstream" material and those who offer "specialist" ditto - and who might or might not benefit from such treatment.

Jayne’s observation about CM’s vc being from 2009 helps, but I take the view that H&N should be about music or a performance of music that is happening now; along with editorial values that seeks to de-emphasise backward looking or inconsequential music.

The first part here's fair enough; when Elliott Carter was alive, his work might be considered H&Nworthy, but presumably not the apparently ambitious and substantial piano sonata that he wrote and showed to Charles Ives (should its ms. ever turn up), since it was completed in 1924. The other bit about "editorial values that seek to de-emphasise backward looking or inconsequential music" is by definition on less safe ground, since we can all know whether something was completed last month but will have different viewpoints about what might be "backward looking" (although I accept that opinions might well differ rather less about what might be considered "inconsequential"); in any case, H&N as a programme title does not of itself imply forward, backward or sideways looking content as much as it does contemporaneous content.

[ahinton]

Music written in a/one of the "mainstream" traditions (on manuscript paper with more-or-less "conventional" notation, largely using instruments that would not have been unfamiliar to Debussy, with a single - if with varying degrees of "interpretational fluidity" - structural trajectory [you start at bar one, and work your way to the best of your ability through the piece, reproducing the sounds indicated in that more-or-less conventional notation, and stop after the last bar], performed in venues that would not have been unfamiliar to Brahms, and aimed at a sympathetic audience attuned to the Musics of the Western Classical Traditions; those sorts of things) should be more widely represented in "mainstream" (between, say, 10:30am and 9:00pm) programmes.

You express very clearly what you refer to here, but the fact that those descriptors cover so large a range of music written today as to embrace most if not all of the music, for example, of four English composers all born in 1943 - Gavin Bryars, Brian Ferneyhough, David Matthews and Robin Holloway - seems to me to leave an unanswered question, not least because the second of them is unlikely to be considered "mainstream" by many! "Mainstream" might also risk implying "middle-of-the-road" - a sort of Radio 3 equivalent to Radio 2 (and people who walk in the middle of the road tend to risk getting knocked down in any case).

The late-night, once-a-week programming of H&N suggests that a different type of listener is being catered for - one less upset by different approaches to sound organization from those that many of those above-defined "mainstream" audiences would accept as even being Music.

I agree that it does, but I'm less confident that it should; the risk that, by implication, H&N (by reason of what you rightly say about it) is aimed at "different" listeners could be seen as promoting the idea that not many people will listen to both Lachenmann and Holloway with equal interest.

This rarefied timeslot seems geared towards listeners interested and sympathetic towards whatever new ideas about what Music can be are emerging from across the world: a huge and vastly diverse repertoire. H&N is the only programme on any national broadcast station that features this repertoire: this is exactly what a Public Sector Broadcaster should be doing.

I agree that it should, provided that promulgation of that very diversity is not compromised, otherwise ghettoism/exclusivism/divisiveness might be thought to cling about it.

The real objection is not to any suggestion that Matthews' work shouldn't be featured in this "ghetto" slot, but that the new/unusual/different ways of thinking about Music has to be featured only there, and not during the mainstream periods - or, for that matter, on Radios 1, 2, 4, and 6. I would not at all object to this - I suspect that many "classical Music lovers" (especially, perhaps, some of those who most regularly claim to have "eclectic" or "wide-ranging" tastes in Music) would.

Hear, hear!

I'll add only my regularly repeated complaint that as important a work as In Praise of Ben Dorain (a recording of which was, I believe, made for Scottish radio) hasn't been broadcast on Radio 3.

And I'll add mine! (and yes, it was recorded for BBC Scotland).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... pigeon-holed on R3 ...

But the fact that their work features on R3 (and not 1, 2, 4, 6 ... ) suggests that they have already been "pigeon-holed"? Or, if that is not seen as "pigeon-holing" to put different repertoires on different stations, then why should "pigeon-holing" be used as a term for the different programmes within each station?

H&Nworthy

I would prefer to think of it (in this case, at any rate) as more "H&N appropriate".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You express very clearly what you refer to here, but the fact that those descriptors cover so large a range of music written today as to embrace most if not all of the music, for example, of four English composers all born in 1943 - Gavin Bryars, Brian Ferneyhough, David Matthews and Robin Holloway - seems to me to leave an unanswered question, not least because the second of them is unlikely to be considered "mainstream" by many!

That is a valid point - though I would point out Ferneyhough's use of aleatoric opportunties in works like the Sonatas for String Quartet, Transit and Sieben Sterne, and his use of tape material in Mnemosyne and Stelae for Failed Time, together with the extended performance techniques required in the majority of his scores (to counter the "playing techniques not unfamiliar to Hindemith" that I neglected to include in my criteria of "what do I mean by 'mainstream'?") - there are many connections with the Mainstream as I have defined it; but enough diversions from it, too.

"Mainstream" might also risk implying "middle-of-the-road" -

It might, and it was to avoid such dismissive associations that I offered my own suggestions "towards a definition of 'mainstream' when I use it in this context".

[Beef Oven!]

I fear that there is, actually, otherwise I would not have "introduced this idea" - but please don't ask me to cite any, otherwise that might make matters worse...

Then you should’ve let sleeping dogs lie (your accusation is not even true in the first place about David, and I don’t think anyone has mentioned Colin in this context previously).

[Richard Barrett]

The real objection is not to any suggestion that Matthews' work shouldn't be featured in this "ghetto" slot, but that the new/unusual/different ways of thinking about Music has to be featured only there, and not during the mainstream periods

Exactly. Ghettos are a human invention, not a law of nature, and there's always an agenda behind their creation. But maybe the inclusion of Matthews on an H&N programme has even more sinister implications, viz. that someone somewhere now regards even such relatively MOR music as marginal enough to be relegated to a late-night slot, in favour of Vasks et al.

[ahinton]

Then you should’ve let sleeping dogs lie (your accusation is not even true in the first place about David, and I don’t think anyone has mentioned Colin in this context previously).

I was going to try to avoid this, but see post #23, for example...

[jayne lee wilson]

Then you should’ve let sleeping dogs lie (your accusation is not even true in the first place about David, and I don’t think anyone has mentioned Colin in this context previously).

I have to support AH here - disparaging remarks about David Matthews and his music (involving present company) were indeed a feature of the lengthy (& actually rather good) debate we had about contemporary music in the stormy wake of his 8th Symphony's Premiere last year, as also during the later discussion about the movement-order of Mahler's 6th, with reference to an article of his. They were sometimes unnecessarily unpleasant. So - we hit back, a serious situation was created, but - life went on. That was it, it was over. (Until very recently... )

[Beef Oven!]

I have to support AH here - disparaging remarks about David Matthews' music (involving present company) were indeed a feature of the lengthy (& actually rather good) debate we had about contemporary music in the stormy wake of his 8th Symphony's Premiere last year, as also during the later discussion about the movement-order of Mahler's 6th, with reference to an article of his. They were sometimes unnecessarily unpleasant. So - we hit back, a serious situation was created, but - life went on. That was it, it was over. (Until very recently... )

You need to pay closer attention. AH said that there are those who only have to see the surname of Matthews with the names Colin or David in front of it etc ......... that’s a gross distortion. It was better than that, as you implicitly acknowledge.

Some very articulated criticisms were made of David’s music (music I’m quite keen on). No one mentioned Colin’s (better) music, IIRC.

Best let sleeping dogs lie.

[ahinton]

You need to pay closer attention. AH said that there are those who only have to see the surname of Matthews with the names Colin or David in front of it etc ......... that’s a gross distortion. It was better than that, as you implicitly acknowledge.

Some very articulated criticisms were made of David’s music (music I’m quite keen on). No one mentioned Colin’s (better) music, IIRC.

Best let sleeping dogs lie.

Das Lied, anyone? Mahler being 1,000 times better a composer than either Matthews? - and in a context in which only Colin had been involved (in the commissioned re-orchestration of that work's opening movement)? I felt obliged to aver that Mahler was 1,000 times better a composer than any of us and leave it at that although, in so doing, why 1,000 and not 1,033 or 379 or some other figure (144, perhaps, since you mention a "gross" distortion, which sadly I do not believe to be the case) remains open to question.

Sleeping dogs may indeed lie, provided that they are asleep in the first place...

[Beef Oven!]

Das Lied, anyone? Mahler being 1,000 times better a composer than either Matthews? - and in a context in which only Colin had been involved (in the commissioned re-orchestration of that work's opening movement)? I felt obliged to aver that Mahler was 1,000 times better a composer than any of us and leave it at that although, in so doing, why 1,000 and not 1,033 or 379 or some other figure (144, perhaps, since you mention a "gross" distortion, which sadly I do not believe to be the case) remains open to question.

Sleeping dogs may indeed lie, provided that they are asleep in the first place...

No more from me on this thanks, a bit too OCD.

[ahinton]

No more from me on this thanks, a bit too OCD.

Nor from me. OCD? Overly Colin and David?

[french frank]

This might be a good moment to intervene and say that the main point being discussed here was raised with the controller last week (even "Can H & N be on earlier?"!!) along with many others. There's no reason why this one point shouldn't be pursued separately by listeners with their own ideas: e.g. ask what the exact brief is for the programme; whether there is any specific strategy for scheduling contemporary music on R3 &c.