The future of classical music / arts stations

[Bryn]

Ah, I’d call that mainstream classical. But I guess not everybody would. I thought you might be referring to,oh I don’t know, Rap, or Prog Rock or Psychobilly..........

I would concur, but am just so pleased to have been prompted to read it. How good it was to hear Prometeo in the RFH 4 years earlier.

[teamsaint]

I would concur, but am just so pleased to have been prompted to read it. How good it was to hear Prometeo in the RFH 4 years earlier.

That must have been great. Seems strangely unimaginable to be at such an event now.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ah, I’d call that mainstream classical. But I guess not everybody would. I thought you might be referring to,oh I don’t know, Rap, or Prog Rock or Psychobilly..........

Edit: sorry, thanks for the link.

Well if you call Nono "mainstream classical".... I begin to feel words and their meanings dissolving beyond our grasp or their useful applications.....

So here's Tom again, with suggestions for a list of......"contemporary classical".....is Nono more "mainstream" than any or all of these....?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/may/20/contemporary-music-guide-round-up

“Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.”

TS Eliot

[Bryn]

The concepts contemporary and mainstream need not be regarded as mutually exclusive.

[jayne lee wilson]

The concepts contemporary and mainstream need not be regarded as mutually exclusive.

...but each term changes as you append "classical" to them... as does "classical" itself.....so if Nono is "mainstream Classical", what is Bach or Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms...?

How far was Nono's great journey from the Canonic Variations & IL Canto Sospeso to Sofferte onde serene or No Hay Caminos....
serialist, post-serialist avantgarde, electronics.... and then, and then....?

[Bryn]

Bach is Baroque, Beethoven and Schubert are Classical (in the narrow sense), and Brahms is Romantic. All of them, along with Mahler, Stravinsky, Webern, Cage, Nono, Barrett et al are mainstream classical in the broad sense.

[teamsaint]

I think that most people, even many non enthusiasts for classical, would understand the difference between the broad category and the more subtle divisions, as Bryn says.

Radio three would be understood as a Classical Music station that covers Baroque, Romantic, Classical, C20, contemporary etc and even “ early” which covers a number of areas.

“ Rock Music” is a similar kind of all embracing term.

I have never read or heard Tom Service on anything outside of the kind of music that generally gets played on R3, if you include Nono and Knussen, for example, which are well within the R3 remit, even if not heard terribly often.

[cloughie]

...and then you have the classical charts and the view of what classical music is in the world outside Radio 3 with Sheku’svElgar CC as the highest real classical full work! Relatively speaking Weinberg is riding high! Anyone for Einaudi?

https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/classical-artist-albums-chart/

[Leinster Lass]

I've never listened to Scala Radio, but the latest listenership figures I can find, for December 2019, of ca. 250,000 a week, don't strike me as impressive - are they competing with Classic FM? And are Classic FM really competing with Radio 3 (or indeed vice-versa?)
It will be interesting to see whether, as the field becomes more crowded and the differences between stations become less clear, the world of online streaming/YouTube and the like will become the natural home for (dare I say 'serious?') lovers of broad-/narrowcast classical music - if it is isn't already.

[french frank]

I've never listened to Scala Radio, but the latest listenership figures I can find, for December 2019, of ca. 250,000 a week, don't strike me as impressive - are they competing with Classic FM? And are Classic FM really competing with Radio 3 (or indeed vice-versa?) It will be interesting to see whether, as the field becomes more crowded and the differences between stations become less clear, the world of online streaming/YouTube and the like will become the natural home for (dare I say 'serious') lovers of classical music?

Scala had 310k in the March 2020 quarter [Correction - it was a half year, but the weekly average]. I imagine it can be quite difficult to build up a regular audience from scratch: some people will try it and not like it. Others might very well like it but for whatever reason (can't find the wavelength, happy with what I already listen to, what's Scala Radio? etc) don't listen. I don't know quite what the idea was behind it. There is never going to be a big 'mass audience' for a classical station, and when there are already two established stations broadcasting it's even harder. I can't remember what they said would be their special contribution.

I have three sources for listening: my CDs where I select exactly what I want to listen; the internet, probably YouTube, when there's something I particularly want to hear but don't have on CD; also, usually on the internet, searching for something I've heard about but don't know (the curiosity factor). The serendipitous discovery on Radio 3, certainly live, comes at the cost of listening to a sequence of e.g. Puccini - Keith Jarrett - Handel - Tom Lehrer - Liszt, a mix that I find unpleasant. But it brightens up some people's day

[cloughie]

Scala had 310k in the March 2020 quarter [Correction - it was a half year, but the weekly average]. I imagine it can be quite difficult to build up a regular audience from scratch: some people will try it and not like it. Others might very well like it but for whatever reason (can't find the wavelength, happy with what I already listen to, what's Scala Radio? etc) don't listen. I don't know quite what the idea was behind it. There is never going to be a big 'mass audience' for a classical station, and when there are already two established stations broadcasting it's even harder. I can't remember what they said would be their special contribution.

I have three sources for listening: my CDs where I select exactly what I want to listen; the internet, probably YouTube, when there's something I particularly want to hear but don't have on CD; also, usually on the internet, searching for something I've heard about but don't know (the curiosity factor). The serendipitous discovery on Radio 3, certainly live, comes at the cost of listening to a sequence of e.g. Puccini - Keith Jarrett - Handel - Tom Lehrer - Liszt, a mix that I find unpleasant. But it brightens up some people's day

I tuned into Scala briefly when it started but not since - will try it now on ‘Alexa’.

[Richard Barrett]

How good it was to hear Prometeo in the RFH 4 years earlier.

I'm a great admirer of Nono's work but the RFH performance of Prometeo I saw struck me as dead and dusty, like something in a museum, without any of the tension and concentration I was expecting (not helped by one of the conductors sauntering to and fro across the stage and sitting on a step when he wasn't conducting. The space had something to do with it, but mostly it was the overly reverential atmosphere. I felt that Nono himself would hardly have recognised it. A couple of days previously I'd been at the ICA to see Peter Wiegold's "Notes Inégales" group which in contrast I had found rough, expressive and energising. After the Nono performance it took me a while to be able to regain my attachment to his music.

[antongould]

Scala had 310k in the March 2020 quarter [Correction - it was a half year, but the weekly average]. I imagine it can be quite difficult to build up a regular audience from scratch: some people will try it and not like it. Others might very well like it but for whatever reason (can't find the wavelength, happy with what I already listen to, what's Scala Radio? etc) don't listen. I don't know quite what the idea was behind it. There is never going to be a big 'mass audience' for a classical station, and when there are already two established stations broadcasting it's even harder. I can't remember what they said would be their special contribution.

I have three sources for listening: my CDs where I select exactly what I want to listen; the internet, probably YouTube, when there's something I particularly want to hear but don't have on CD; also, usually on the internet, searching for something I've heard about but don't know (the curiosity factor). The serendipitous discovery on Radio 3, certainly live, comes at the cost of listening to a sequence of e.g. Puccini - Keith Jarrett - Handel - Tom Lehrer - Liszt, a mix that I find unpleasant. But it brightens up some people's day

Are you saying sequences such as you show are in mainstream shows e.g. Breakfast and EC or purely on the Mix shows e.g. the In Tune Mix and Night Tracks ...... ????

[french frank]

Are you saying sequences such as you show are in mainstream shows e.g. Breakfast and EC or purely on the Mix shows e.g. the In Tune Mix and Night Tracks ...... ????

That particular mix was played on "The Squire's" breakfast programme this morning, according to the running order when I posted. People are allowed to say they really like that mix, and others are allowed to say they don't.

[Leinster Lass]

That particular mix was played on "The Squire's" breakfast programme this morning, according to the running order when I posted. People are allowed to say they really like that mix, and others are allowed to say they don't.

Tom Lehrer's Pigeon Murder Instruction Manual cheered me up, the news summary depressed me a bit, but the Joan Sutherland that followed it was a real tonic.

Petroc also played a remarkably derivative Nordic piece that sounded like a cross between The Ride Of The Valkyries and Night Ride and Sunrise (or possibly Lemminkainen's Return) without being remotely as interesting as any of them. I might just use that as an excuse to listen yet again to the Four Legends.

Is it possible that the playlist is created in such a way that at everybody listening, or who hap[pens to tune in, will find at least one item to his or her liking and hang around for a while, if only out of mild curiosity?