The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Frances_iom]

OK: did I just hear S M-P describe Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 21 as "The Elvira Madigan"?
I know it was used in the 1967 film but I was never aware that the concerto had been christened that title either before the life of the Danish tightrope walker or after the film.

you did just after the 7.30 headlines certainly in the 10mins between waking and switching it off - the morning is basically R2 of the third age

[french frank]

Ah, now we know where the production staff at Breakfast get their info...

Not necessarily: I believe Classic FM also refers to it as the 'Elvira Madigan'.

It's what's called 'contextualisation'.

[Mr Pee]

I remember buying an LP of nos. 20 and 21 back in the 1970s and the C Major was labelled as the "Elvira Madigan" then, so it's old news really. I'd never heard of the film at the time.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Not necessarily: I believe Classic FM also refers to it as the 'Elvira Madigan'.

It's what's called 'contextualisation'.

Ah. I'm surprised you didn't add a or a ff.

Since the film is now 44 years old and fallen into relative obscurity I'm not sure how many of the "new" band of listeners would make the contextual connection.

[longinus]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the other (another) faux pas this morning - apparently, the reason Aeneas abandons Dido is to go off and fight the Trojan War. Now I didn't know that. Perhaps I misunderstood.

[french frank]

Perhaps I misunderstood.

Well, he'd wandered o'er the seas for some while after the Trojan War ended, and then he was supposed to go on to Italy to found the New Troy.

[longinus]

Yes, I know. The "perhaps I misunderstood" was sarcastic (is there a smiley for sarcasm?). What really hacks me off is that SM-P clearly doesn't know the opera - so why does she feel competent to tell us about the plot? It's no good presenters having a Masters in music if they are too sloppy to check their scripts. These people are like teachers - the very least one can expect is that they get the facts right.

[french frank]

Well, again, I'd have to say that at root (sorry, Cav) it's the station policy that's at fault.

In their submission to the Trust's review, the ISM particularly said there should be better research:

"[The] knowledge and experience [of BBC staff] should be utilised to increase the quality of information within Radio 3 broadcasts."

"A greater level of research is required for presenters with staff support and an increased knowledge of pieces being played; and whilst listener engagement is welcome, the use of listeners to send in 'information about the music that the presenter should know' is not."

It's not much good having presenters writing their own scripts if they're going to rely for information on Wikipedia, CD liner notes or concert programmes notes (Ghost Trio, anyone?) without it being rigorously checked.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Pity they don't advertise for someone to do the research for them, I'm urgently seeking employment in the London area at the moment and I quite sure I could do a better job, I know I make the odd error here and there on these boards, but if I was researching for broadcast and the website, then I'd be proud to make sure I was as 100% accurate as I could possibly be.

[mercia]

to play devil's advocate for a moment, if one looks at, for instance, the website Breakfast playlists, there's a heck of a lot of information to get right - dates of composers, lots of foreign names, all those CD & track numbers, umlauts etc. - if it's just one person doing it, it's quite an undertaking .................?

[Suffolkcoastal]

Possibly quite an undertaking but if you have good musical knowledge then I think relatively straightforward. It takes me for example about an hour minutes to transfer the information I need for each day to my spreadsheet for playlist monitoring, taking note of the seemingly continual stream of errors!

[Paul Sherratt]

Suffolk,

Apply for a position !
I'm sure you could work from home.

[aeolium]

sc, why don't you create a corrected replica of the R3 schedules which could be set up as a link to the forum and which could be used more reliably by people here? OK, unpaid work and a bit tiresome but it would demonstrate to the BBC that you could do the job better than it is being done at present. It wouldn't of course get rid of errors by presenters when they introduce the works, but it'd be a start.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Earworms, earworms, earworms, earworms, earworms, earworms........

What an utterly pointless exercise.

One might as well just read out a list of fictitious listeners and any combination of musical themes and add the two together.
Oh, what's that you say? They did.

Tomorrow: what music do you enjoy while on the lavvy.

[mercia]

Earworms, earworms, earworms, earworms, earworms, earworms

yes I must say that really got to me this morning. I don't know about tunes sticking in my head but that word is now truly stuck there.