Latest RAJARs

[jayne lee wilson]

What things to do are more exciting than Hans Keller ?

Keller Thou Shouldst Be Living At This Hour …
England hath need of thee
I’m not sure whether I’m joking or not…

Not at all.... he had a wonderful critical intelligence. And loved football .
.(Excellent 1975 piece on it - "Everything to Lose"...sharp comments on modern tactical developments as contrasted with the 1970 Brazil World Cup winning team... )

With his talks and String Quartet lectures and analyses, his wonderful essays, I often say, "he taught me how to think".....

[Ein Heldenleben]

Not at all.... he had a wonderful critical intelligence. And loved football .
.(Excellent 1975 piece on it - "Everything to Lose"...)

With his talks and String Quartet lectures and analyses, his wonderful essays, I often say, "he taught me how to think".....

Sad to say but I just don’t think there are musical minds of his calibre (and who are prepared to engage with mass media) around any more . Also there isn’t the mass audience . Some of those shows he did for BBC2 would have got 2 million plus viewers - now that would be the figure for a successful drama.

[jayne lee wilson]

Sad to say but I just don’t think there are musical minds of his calibre (and who are prepared to engage with mass media) around any more . Also there isn’t the mass audience . Some of those shows he did for BBC2 would have got 2 million plus viewers - now that would be the figure for a successful drama.

HIs seminal, magisterial essay, "Music 1975" originally published in Ian Hamilton's New Review, had a huge influence on me. It led to my passion for Skalkottas ("a small, late Beethoven" ), and much else....

[Ein Heldenleben]

Since this has become a discussion which has more depth than some, yes to oddoneout's:
(for 'me' read 'and me'). We have no option but to accept what is happening, even though we see a valuable loss in it all.
And Heldenleben's:

And this is where Haley and the BBC differed back then: they did feel that there was something they weren't providing, and that the Third Programme was to fill a gap. With all the music available from various sources, Radio 3 doesn't fill a gap: it simply provides that one-click convenient package in a single place.

The fact that we value cultural interests that are diminishing in public support isn't a good outlook for those current 'honourable exceptions' either.

I am not sure they are “diminishing in public support”. Our galleries , museums (lockdown permitting ) have never been fuller . Most of the orchestral concerts And opera I went to were well supported . I just think that a lot of cultural leaders are frightened of anything that smacks of “we know what’s best for you “ . And yet that is why they are in the position they are. So they shove a lot of things out there that aren’t worth much attention in the hope that something will gain traction. It’s not so much of a problem in the classical musical sphere but it certainly is in contemporary fiction . To put it bluntly there’s a lot of rubbish published and indeed good stuff that desperately needs editing .

[jayne lee wilson]

In some ways it is an unavoidable cultural loss - figures such as Keller, or Stephen Hearst, both of whom had the pre-war Viennese experience but then had to flee the Anschluss (Keller's account of his narrow escape is extraordinary), brought with them a mittel-european intellectual and artistic depth and richness, the effortlessly expansive musical knowledge, that is probably impossible to recreate or even renew now.

It comes down much more now to individual curiosity - and of course, finding ways to inspire and educate such...I guess I (and others here), were lucky to catch the 20thC rearguard....

[Ein Heldenleben]

In some ways it is an unavoidable cultural loss - figures such has Keller, or Stephen Hearst, both of whom had the pre-war Viennese experience but then had to flee the Anschluss (Keller's account of his narrow escape is extraordinary), brought with them a mittel-european intellectual and artistic depth and richness, the effortlessly expansive musical knowledge, that is probably impossible to recreate or even renew now.

It comes down much more now to individual curiosity - and of course, finding ways to inspire and educate such...I guess I (and others here), were lucky to catch the 20thC rearguard....

Good point - when you’ve lived through that loss - the destruction of early 20th century Viennese culture which was so built around its Jewish population- you are that more determined to ensure its survival elsewhere .I am not a pessimist though - we don’t know how lucky we are.

[french frank]

I am not sure they are “diminishing in public support”. Our galleries , museums (lockdown permitting ) have never been fuller .

I ccouldn't say whether, literally and in proportion to population growth, they've 'never been fuller', but I take your point. Places like Tate Britain are popular, but more popular than the Tate itself, and providing 'modern culture'? Or could the crowds at concerts and opera just be suffering 'culture starvation'? I remember when I was in Aberdeen there were weeks of opera, individual concerts with the SNO, ballet with Scottish Dance. Blink and you missed them so people piled in. Here in Bristol, the WNO only comes for one week a year I think, and the 'International Series' of concerts are very limited and of mixed interest. If you get to the Great Metrop, things may be different.

I agree with the rest. I had an 'experimental' phase when I read a number of current fiction so-called best sellers (not the Archers, but the kind reviewed in the Guardian!). Apart from Ishiguro, I wasn't too impressed.

jayne, the whole central European influence was very strong at the BBC at that time. Martin Esslin, too, in the drama deparment at the Third, and Walter Goehr.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I ccouldn't say whether, literally and in proportion to population growth, they've 'never been fuller', but I take your point. Places like Tate Britain are popular, but more popular than the Tate itself, and providing 'modern culture'? Or could the crowds at concerts and opera just be suffering 'culture starvation'? I remember when I was in Aberdeen there were weeks of opera, individual concerts with the SNO, ballet with Scottish Dance. Blink and you missed them so people piled in. Here in Bristol, the WNO only comes for one week a year I think, and the 'International Series' of concerts are very limited and of mixed interest. If you get to the Great Metrop, things may be different.

I agree with the rest. I had an 'experimental' phase when I read a number of current fiction so-called best sellers (not the Archers, but the kind reviewed in the Guardian!). Apart from Ishiguro, I wasn't too impressed.

jayne, the whole central European influence was very strong at the BBC at that time. Martin Esslin, too, in the drama deparment at the Third, and Walter Goehr.

Yes the cultural delights are very much concentrated in London, and then Birmingham, Leeds , Cardiff , Manchester and to a lesser extent Suffolk(Snape to be specific ) and Newcastle. I don’t know the position in Scotland as I’m about as far from there as you can get and still be on the same island. Bristol is a good example of a city that should have more classical music but doesn’t . Too near London and Cardiff? The music dept at the BBC there got axed decades ago.

[Serial_Apologist]

Odd one out - there is something very paradoxical going on. On paper at least we have never had such a highly educated public with many more graduates than 50 years ago and very high rates of literacy . At the same time it has never been cheaper to access high (for want of a better word) art and culture and there has never been more available. Free galleries and museums , streaming services , Wiki, IMSLP , you name it. The problem is that cultural leaders , public intellectuals have more or less completely lost faith in the idea of cultural discrimination or rather in the propagation of that idea. Secretly they know that Wagner is a better composer than Neil Sedaka but they daren’t say it.So they retreat behind cobblers like “it all depends what you mean by better “

The only regular criticism you hear on mainstream Media now is that doled out by Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer on Match of the Day . For some reason sports still insists on neo-Arnoldian standards of performance .

If only we had that in other areas of the media

I think all this relates back to a questioning of the implicit values inherent in Enlightenment thinking - which had tacitly accorded cultural superiority to a European perspective on progress - which had downgraded cultures other than its own, thereby in effect "excusing" the exploitation of the peoples and resources of colonised peoples, while at the same time using the resulting accumulated wealth towards industrialisation and longterm environmental damage for which said "inferior" cultures could claim little responsibility.

I would maintain that the fact that opposition to exploitation, racism and the associated downgrading of cultures other than White and Western (and by and large Male-led) were also implicit in carrying Enlightenment thinking through has been sidelined, is due to the reality that it has been mainly left-wing thinkers and their followers that have pursued it to logical conclusions. Were the latter to be acknowledged, the tag of "elitism" so often thrown at those who, critically, engage with the artifacts of Western post-Enlightenment cultures, would be seen for what it is - embarrassment at the woeful inability of "bourgeois ideology" to embrace rather than seek to disown the best and most progressive of its cultural inheritance, and see it as having contributed to the enriching of "worldviews" as well as being enriched, thus taking a rightful place in a/the wider cultural domain.

[jayne lee wilson]

Paradoxically or not, one of many reasons I tend to support younger presenters (Danielle J, Kate M, Elizabeth A etc...) is simply that I feel they have more of a chance to create an appealing and substantial Radio 3 culture for now and later; to reach out. But they need time to develop and learn. (And preferably not be criticised from the POV of some concept of "Professional Presentation")....

Getting past traditions of presentation or content doesn't have to mean a shallowness. Radio 3 have been struggling with that, as FF has frequently reported.
.
But I think the need, the desire for depth and substance will keep coming back....look at the remarkable, rapidly developing awareness of the Climate Change Issues and the COP26 Conference..... all can seem almost impossibly chaotic and difficult (Pope's "a little learning is a dangerous thing" never seems truer than it does now), but we must retain hope, and believe in our humanity, our seriousness.

The Cultural World is almost impossibly diverse now, but the 2021 Proms, for those who could hear their message and respond to it, were a wonderful voice, and vote, of hope for the future....but still growing from the Living Presence of the Past.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think all this relates back to a questioning of the implicit values inherent in Enlightenment thinking - which had tacitly accorded cultural superiority to a European perspective on progress - which had downgraded cultures other than its own, thereby in effect "excusing" the exploitation of the peoples and resources of colonised peoples, while at the same time using the resulting accumulated wealth towards industrialisation and longterm environmental damage for which said "inferior" cultures could claim little responsibility.

I would maintain that the fact that opposition to exploitation, racism and the associated downgrading of cultures other than White and Western (and by and large Male-led) were also implicit in carrying Enlightenment thinking through has been sidelined, is due to the reality that it has been mainly left-wing thinkers and their followers that have pursued it to logical conclusions. Were the latter to be acknowledged, the tag of "elitism" so often thrown at those who, critically, engage with the artifacts of Western post-Enlightenment cultures, would be seen for what it is - embarrassment at the woeful inability of "bourgeois ideology" to embrace rather than seek to disown the best and most progressive of its cultural inheritance, and see it as having contributed to the enriching of "worldviews" as well as being enriched, thus taking a rightful place in a/the wider cultural domain.

Possibly - but in philosophy all this predates more modern debates on cultural relativism . It was then much more to do with what do we mean when we say one work of art is “better “ than another. That somewhat arcane debate played out in the more public sphere as Dylan is just as good a poet as Keats. You can then argue what do you mean by poet?

It’s left the idea of cultural arbitration distinctly unfashionable. Hans Keller who has been mentioned above had very wide musical tastes - once introducing a Deep Purple programme for example.But I bet he could have advanced a convincing argument as to why Beethoven’s Ninth is superior to Smoke On The Water - much as though I love them both .

[oddoneout]

Odd one out - there is something very paradoxical going on. On paper at least we have never had such a highly educated public with many more graduates than 50 years ago and very high rates of literacy . At the same time it has never been cheaper to access high (for want of a better word) art and culture and there has never been more available. Free galleries and museums , streaming services , Wiki, IMSLP , you name it. The problem is that cultural leaders , public intellectuals have more or less completely lost faith in the idea of cultural discrimination or rather in the propagation of that idea. Secretly they know that Wagner is a better composer than Neil Sedaka but they daren’t say it.So they retreat behind cobblers like “it all depends what you mean by better “

There is a whole other discussion to be had there which doesn't really belong on this thread, but on the matter of literacy levels I don't think even on paper this country does that well https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...h-is-for-harry Given that lack of adequate literacy levels blocks access to so many areas of life, that means that even where good cultural opportunities exist the reach may be limited, and that has wide-reaching implications.
Having a degree these days is no guarantee of high levels of literacy, numeracy, knowledge, analytical skill or linguistic facility in this country.
Rather more on topic perhaps I found this BTL comment rather heartening, although I accept it might make some purists shudder.

tdbrad7
For somebody who isn't actually that into classical music, I do find 3 to be very listenable. Late Junction is where it's at for eclecticism and eccentricity, even if it has been somewhat tamed in recent years.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/30/breakfast-radio-britain-morning

[oddoneout]

Possibly - but in philosophy all this predates more modern debates on cultural relativism . It was then much more to do with what do we mean when we say one work of art is “better “ than another. That somewhat arcane debate played out in the more public sphere as Dylan is just as good a poet as Keats. You can then argue what do you mean by poet?

It’s left the idea of cultural arbitration distinctly unfashionable.

Hans Keller who has been mentioned above had very wide musical tastes - once introducing a Deep Purple programme for example.

But I bet he could have advanced a convincing argument as to why Beethoven’s Ninth is superior to Smoke On The Water - much as though I love them both .

And probably was much criticised by some for allowing his superior intellect to be thereby sullied, a view (prejudice?) that sadly still seems to persist and is part of the "them and us" which surrounds R3.

[Serial_Apologist]

Possibly - but in philosophy all this predates more modern debates on cultural relativism . It was then much more to do with what do we mean when we say one work of art is “better “ than another. That somewhat arcane debate played out in the more public sphere as Dylan is just as good a poet as Keats. You can then argue what do you mean by poet?

It’s left the idea of cultural arbitration distinctly unfashionable. Hans Keller who has been mentioned above had very wide musical tastes - once introducing a Deep Purple programme for example.But I bet he could have advanced a convincing argument as to why Beethoven’s Ninth is superior to Smoke On The Water - much as though I love them both .

The ways in which "western cultural appreciation" has parcelled the arts up into categories has something to answer for too, here. Are we allowed to express appreciation for Wagner's and Scriabin's efforts to create the genre-defying Gesamtkunstwerk, bringing the different categories together, or for that matter the latterday installations replacing exhibitions As We Used To Know Them with entire locations in which visitors can immerse themselves in sculptures that are more like buildings while listening to electronic music while a light show is in progress, maybe a poet reciting poetry?

Once one gets into a concept of art which fuses it with locale we are re-engaging with age-old conceptions of art as inseparable from the patterns of living - which one branch of it, architecture, has always been in any case... and maybe why architecture often seems to come last when we think of The Arts? Industrialisation and urbanisation caused the formal arts to be hived off into a separate time slot - rather like religious observances, which were once part and parcel of the rhythm of daily living (and in some cultures outwith the Western traditions still are). Church and the upper échelons of society had prepared the way by differentiating the sacred (= "more serious") from the secular (village gatherings i.e. around the May Pole for celebratory purposes), making what was viewed as "serious" a preserve for those privileged to afford concert, ballet and opera attendance, and in the 20th century using the entertainment industries at the main familiarisation routes for the masses. It was from a position of overview that cultural moulding bodies such as the BBC would distinguish between different demographics as suitable consumers.

[Ein Heldenleben]

And probably was much criticised by some for allowing his superior intellect to be thereby sullied, a view (prejudice?) that sadly still seems to persist and is part of the "them and us" which surrounds R3.

I don’t think he was criticised to be honest.There was quite a lot of cultural crossover in the sixties . Malcolm Arnold wrote a concerto for Deep Purple and Symphony Orchestra (mind you I think eyebrows were raised at that ) . The Beatles borrowed from Tavener Stockhausen etc, Led Zeppelin used music concrete. If anything there are more silos now (and certainly less talent in the rock and pop world at least). Who are the “them and us “ In Radio 3 exactly? It’s very eclectic at the moment - perhaps a little too much so as it seems to be playing more and more traditional Radio 2 fare e.g Great American Songbook on EC - I like it but it’s overplayed . Frankly I’d rather they played more heavy metal …