In Our Time...not much music, Melvyn

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps he feels that discussion of music should be confined to Radio 3?

I think you have a point there, ami - the Music-based editions of the SBS were often handed over to other people, and when the comparitive neglect of Western Classical Tradition-based Music was raised with him, he would say that Musics from those traditions were represented in programmes of their own (Orchestra, Coming Home, Concerto, Philharmonia etc).

I do "mind" the low presence on IOT, if only because the series is so good on every other aspect of culture and understanding, and it'd be interesting for me to hear how they tackled, say, Serialism, New Complexity, Minimalism, Opera, Temperament, the Orchestra, recording, the Score etc etc etc. I think that others would have their interest in such topics as aroused and provoked as I have in the Mappa Mundi or whatever. I think we're missing a potential treat.

Come on, Melv - Man Up!

[Belgrove]

Even the programme on Wagner was, as I recall, more to do with his involvement with, and impact on German Nationalism rather than the music per se. The absence of music in culture is a curious gap in an otherwise excellent programme. How about the role of music in religious rite, as manifested in all faiths? Surely there are some academics out there who could contribute, or maybe they are all too specialised these days?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely there are some academics out there who could contribute, or maybe they are all too specialised these days?

Even if they are (which I don't think is the case, btw), that hasn't stopped other discussions, where three or four "specialists" from different studies are combined to attempt a larger view of a topic (or, failing that, a very civilized, argued disagreement).

But you're right - it is a "curious gap in an otherwise excellent" series.

[ardcarp]

to hear how they tackled, say, Serialism, New Complexity, Minimalism, Opera, Temperament, the Orchestra, recording, the Score etc etc etc.

Good topics, Ferney.

Surely there are some academics out there who could contribute

Any suggestions?

[aeolium]

Any suggestions?

Dr Jonathan Cross is very good on serialism (he gave a lecture on it at the South Bank during the Rest Is Noise festival last year). I wonder if Bragg steers clear of musical topics because he thinks he'll be covering subjects that ought to be covered by R3 - and used to be - or whether he simply lacks interest in and knowledge of them and doesn't feel he can mug up enough to ask intelligent questions of the specialists.

[mercia]

looking through the Culture section, I wouldn't say the visual arts are particularly well represented either - but then wouldn't we expect a literary bias with Lord B ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01drwny

the programme on tea lasts 2 hours 30 minutes (against 30 minutes for mathematics)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y24y

[Honoured Guest]

"IN OUR TIME

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of ideas"

[Serial_Apologist]

"IN OUR TIME

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of ideas"

Of which music, and the discussion thereof, forms a part.

[jean]

I think I'm with HG on this one.

Look through the archive - it's nearly all history of thought, perhaps political history - no music is ever discussed, certainly, but no works of visual art are either except as they represent a movement, and few works of literature.

I only had a glance at the As - the only literary work that gets in is the Aeneid, I'm not sure how. I'll have to LA because I can't remember what the focus of the discussion was.

[amateur51]

Of which music, and the discussion thereof, forms a part.

But not as large a part as tea, evidently.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I Look through the archive - it's nearly all history of thought, perhaps political history - no music is ever discussed, certainly, but no works of visual art are either except as they represent a movement, and few works of literature.

Chaucer; Chekhov; Byron; Candide; Dante; Defoe; Dickens; Don Quixote; Eliot (George and TS); Goethe; Heart of Darkness; Icelandic Sagas; Grimms; Joyce (twice); Dr Johnson; Kama Sutra; Marlowe; Morte d'Arthur; Milton; Madame Bovary; Metaphysical Poets; The Novel; Odyssey; Oresteia; Ovid; Pope; Proust; The Riddle of the Sands; Sassoon; Swift; Silas Marner; Shakespeare (x4); Tolstoy; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Wordsworth; Yeats (x2).

Visual Art is less well represented: Avant Garde Painting; Vasari; Ruskin; Munch - and Music with three programmes: Wagner; The Music of the Spheres; Music & Mathematics.

The point is that any of the subjects I mentioned before (and several others: "Opera", for example, or the Eton Choirbook - and if Dr Johnson, why not Bach? If Yeats deserves two programmes (which he does), surely the Eroica is worthy of at least one?) could take its place honourably alongside any of the subjects that have been included.

It all suggests that, as far as IOT is concerned, we're still das land öhne Musik (ooh! There's another programme suggestion!) - Music not considered a serious matter for a series discussing "the history of ideas".

[jean]

Hmmm...you're right; how did I come to miss all those?

[Serial_Apologist]

Hmmm...you're right; how did I come to miss all those?

Must have been in that hour when the clocks went forward, jean!

[ardcarp]

I don't quite get the point Honoured Guest is trying to make with his upper-case IN OUR TIME. It seems a pretty inappropriate title anyway since there is a distinct bias towards history (of science, of the ancient world, of philosophy, etc). It is about 'ideas' but since when was music or fine art not about ideas?

[Honoured Guest]

I don't quite get the point Honoured Guest is trying to make with his upper-case IN OUR TIME. It seems a pretty inappropriate title anyway since there is a distinct bias towards history (of science, of the ancient world, of philosophy, etc). It is about 'ideas' but since when was music or fine art not about ideas?

I directly copied (and put in quotation marks) the programme title and tag-line from the programme's webpage.