In Our Time...not much music, Melvyn

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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

Well, thank you for that. Your reasons for so doing are a little too specialist for my immediate understanding: do you wish to contradict or confirm the point in the opening post?

[Honoured Guest]

I just posted some relevant factual information - always useful in informed discussion! - to remind people how this programme declares its purpose, and perhaps to spark some further comments.

There isn't a point in the opening post! There's an observation that In Our Time doesn't discuss musical topics, and a question asking if anyone knows whether either Melvyn Bragg or the series producer is responsible. A third alternative might be the Radio 4 Controller or the series Commissioner. This is a factual question, and no one has yet posted that they know the answer! So, why not ask the programme team? Or write to Feedback, as it's an interesting question.

[ardcarp]

There isn't a point in the opening post!

Well, I don't know what constitutes 'a point', HG, but my observation that music doesn't figure much in Melvyn's programme was my point, and the point on which most people have joined in this discussion.

[french frank]

This is a factual question, and no one has yet posted that they know the answer! So, why not ask the programme team? Or write to Feedback, as it's an interesting question.

People are welcome to pose their questions here, too (it's only a public talking shop). Since Radio 4 is beginning to broadcast more and more speech and discussion programmes on music, there would be no reason not to discuss the 'ideas' behind, say, the Ars Nova: it would come within the stated remit which seems to be about informing the audience about a range of subjects. I don't believe anyone was suggesting a change in the concept of IOT, with Stephen Fry choosing a selection of his favourite Wagner recordings.

Music has its ideas as well as literature or philosophy, and since Radio 3 no longer offers a strand where it would fit there would seem a point in remarking here that a Radio 4 strand which might feature it doesn't (though only to the audience here which has an interest in music. Others might find it out of place anywhere.)

[jean]

...why not...write to Feedback...

That's no way to get answers!

[Radio64]

I wonder if the Sturm und Drang or The Baroque Movement episodes of IOT touch on music at all
..

No, the S+D one doesn't mention music at all as far as I recall.

I only listen to teh literature ones and I can't say as music has ever come into much - again, going on memory.

[Sir Velo]

I wonder if the Sturm und Drang or The Baroque Movement episodes of IOT touch on music at all
if IOT is going to cover every aspect of human history and endeavour since the beginning of man, it will have to run to thousands of episodes

I think you'll find there is the briefest mention of Haydn in the first programme. I agree with Honoured Guest (first time for everything ), why doesn't the OP ask the programme makers why music isn't included in these programmes. Certainly, from his Desert Island Discs appearance, Bragg is a man with a knowledge and appreciation of music, and many South Bank Shows over the years have been devoted to composers.

[Flosshilde]

That's no way to get answers!

Indeed - I've never, never, ever heard anyone 'called to account' on that proigramme admit that they might have been a tiny bit wrong - everything is exactly as it should have been & couldn't have been any better (a bit like HG, really )

[Honoured Guest]

Indeed - I've never, never, ever heard anyone 'called to account' on that proigramme admit that they might have been a tiny bit wrong - everything is exactly as it should have been & couldn't have been any better (a bit like HG, really )

No one is saying that In Our Time is "wrong"! First, Ardcap observed, after painstakingly scrutinising the evidence of the first 634 editions, that the programme doesn't discuss musical topics. Later posters have helpfully pointed out that three of these 634 programmes do in fact touch on music to some extent. Ardcarp wondered whether this policy might be either Melvyn Bragg's decision, or the producers'. No poster has displayed any knowledge on this matter. Every Feedback programme includes a brief investigatory feature, and this query about a very popular longrunning Radio 4 programme is juat the sort of thing that they look into.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ardcap observed, after painstakingly scrutinising the evidence of the first 634 editions, that the programme doesn't discuss musical topics.

No he didn't. If you painstakingly scrutinise the OP, you will see that ardcarp stated that "MUSIC hardly ever figures". 3/634 is a pretty accurate description of "hardly ever".

[Barbirollians]

Didn't the young Melvyn Bragg direct the famous Monitor portrait of Barbirolli ?

[ardcarp]

Every Feedback programme includes a brief investigatory feature

...you mean the BBC propaganda bit?

I always thought 'feedback' meant from the public to the institution.

[teamsaint]

...you mean the BBC propaganda bit?

I always thought 'feedback' meant from the public to the institution.