Essential Classics??

[tsuji-giri]

Radio 4 is hyping 'Essential Classics', which will apparently be on Radio 3 in the mornings, while I am at work.

It sounds suspiciously like dumbing down to me...

Read all about it here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014r87y

There is also a quiz, which you can try if you are terminally bored.

In the case of question 20 in the quiz, my answer is none, I shall be out of it, and it's a waste of money, anyway everyone has 'Always look on the bright side' these days.

[Roehre]

Radio 4 is hyping 'Essential Classics', which will apparently be on Radio 3 in the mornings, while I am at work.

It sounds suspiciously like dumbing down to me...

Read all about it here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014r87y

There is also a quiz, which you can try if you are terminally bored.

In the case of question 20 in the quiz, my answer is none, I shall be out of it, and it's a waste of money, anyway everyone has 'Always look on the bright side' these days.

Essential classics? For whom? And without an indication when what's broadcast definitely for people without work or who
do use R3's essential classics as musical wallpaper, a kind of muzak for those who think "hearing = listening", or for those who are afraid of silence, or for those who have the attention span of a flea.

This is not dumbing down, this is killing off.

[Al R Gando]

R3 must always offer entry points for those who are interested in classical music, but would like to find out more.

[french frank]

R3 must always offer entry points for those who are interested in classical music, but would like to find out more.

It does. Breakfast and In Tune are designated 'primary entry points for new listeners'. Essential Classics is presumably a 'secondary entry point for new listeners'. ...

As for 'finding out more', not much ambition of R3's part at Breakfast time .. Oh, and don't forget, the later evening is still off limits for classical listeners. And Discovering Music is being axed.

Still, there are the evening concerts left.

[Roehre]

R3 must always offer entry points for those who are interested in classical music, but would like to find out more.

That means informing listeners about the music, presenting other music than the eternal war horses, let alone snippets of those war horses.
I seem to recall that radio 3 and the third programme didn't have phone-ins, hardly-knowledgeable "presenters" or non-musicians talking about music which hardly interests anyone but themselves, but did succeed in keeping my attention and educate me - I myself coming from a completely non-musical background and therefore necessarily absorbing the knowledge presented on the aformentioned programmes in the past.
With this new schedule we might attract people, but we don't offer them the challenge to develop -not their taste, not their knowledge (if they do so desire), not a wider repertoire than the absolute minimum.

[french frank]

Radio 4 is hyping 'Essential Classics', which will apparently be on Radio 3 in the mornings, while I am at work.

Yes, Radio 4 would be hyping it. This is what the original commissioning brief said:

"This is a significant part of Radio 3’s weekday daytime schedule and should aim to hold on to as much of the breakfast audience as possible whilst drawing in new listeners from the post-Today Radio 4 switch over. It should also be an entry-point programme to appeal to listeners with a broad interest in mainstream classical music."

That why the start is now 9am. It's the time Radio 4 listeners are thinking of switching over to Classic FM.

[VodkaDilc]

R3 must always offer entry points for those who are interested in classical music, but would like to find out more.

Isn't this the sort of thing which "Your Hundred Best Tunes" used to do well. Alan Keith's presentation style would not be popular today perhaps (whether it would be called minimalist or funereal is, I suppose, a matter of interpretation), but he introduced the popular classics without unnecessary chat or patronising attempts to grab an audience.

However I recall that it was not on R3.

How did I find my way into R3 without these promised 'entry points'? I am thinking about a different age I know (1960s), but we just jumped in and tried it. Some things were too much at first, but we gradually widened our knowledge and interests. I think the same thing happened when our generation began to explore serious literature and broadsheet newspapers - no watered down attempts to catch us, we just accepted challenges. Have people really changed that much?

[Al R Gando]

Isn't this the sort of thing which "Your Hundred Best Tunes" used to do well.

Not in the way I was thinking of ;) If this is going to be a show in which a knowledgable presenter (viz Rob Cowan) takes us around major work, gets the bonnet up to show how it ticks, and we go away at the end with much greater knowledge and understanding of the nuances of that piece... that surely cannot be a bad thing at all? There's no end of scholarly history progs of the Donald McLeod type, where we hear how the composer liked his bacon fried of a morning... but not nearly enough programs in which we look at a single work in detail.

Essentially this ought to be a program on the level of a university seminar. That surely cannot be "dumbing down"?

[MrGongGong]

Assuming that people need a "gentle introduction" is simply daft
in my experience some of the best introductions to orchestral music (for example) are
Ligeti :Atmospheres
Xenakis: Metastasis

when I played Volumina to a group of 16 year olds earlier this year they were all excited about hearing more organ music , if I had started with the complete works of Karg Elert

I'd definitely listen to Unpopular Classics

[antongould]

..........I think the same thing happened when our generation began to explore serious literature and broadsheet newspapers - no watered down attempts to catch us, we just accepted challenges. Have people really changed that much?

Sadly based on a sample of 5 - my children if anyone would like to take them - YES! As Roehre rightly says the attention spans of fleas/gnats. We have debated before why this is - everything seems to have to be instant whereas with us it was just the coffee!

[french frank]

How did I find my way into R3 without these promised 'entry points'? I am thinking about a different age I know (1960s), but we just jumped in and tried it. Some things were too much at first, but we gradually widened our knowledge and interests.

I can't believe that the brave spirits that we were, knowing nothing, could stick around long enough to even listen to the music after being fed all the dross about what music makes you feel good to be alive (WHEEEEEEE!), what music makes you go sleepy-byes (Aaaahhhh ....), what is the Big Toe, Little Toe music.

Sorry, it's not the knowledge level that's the problem, it's the presumption that if you don't know much about music you have to be treated like a 5-year-old.

Where are the grown-ups' programmes?

[VodkaDilc]

Essentially this ought to be a program on the level of a university seminar. That surely cannot be "dumbing down"?

I really hope you are right!

[french frank]

Sadly based on a sample of 5 - my children if anyone would like to take them - YES! As Roehre rightly says the attention spans of fleas/gnats. We have debated before why this is - everything seems to have to be instant whereas with us it was just the coffee!

But even in those days most people weren't interested in Radio 3. Why should they be now?

[Roslynmuse]

Not in the way I was thinking of ;) If this is going to be a show in which a knowledgable presenter (viz Rob Cowan) takes us around major work, gets the bonnet up to show how it ticks, and we go away at the end with much greater knowledge and understanding of the nuances of that piece... that surely cannot be a bad thing at all? There's no end of scholarly history progs of the Donald McLeod type, where we hear how the composer liked his bacon fried of a morning... but not nearly enough programs in which we look at a single work in detail.

Essentially this ought to be a program on the level of a university seminar. That surely cannot be "dumbing down"?

Your description sounds suspiciously like Discovering Music - which is being axed...

I can't believe RC is going to be allowed to 'get the bonnet up', especially before noon.

[french frank]

If this is going to be a show in which a knowledgable presenter (viz Rob Cowan) takes us around major work, gets the bonnet up to show how it ticks, and we go away at the end with much greater knowledge and understanding of the nuances of that piece...

But, going back to the commissioning brief:

"Presentation should be light and brief, without in-depth musicological or complicated biographical detail (which is more suited to COTW which follows)."

Don't sound like a university seminar to me. And, in any case, I don't believe Rob is a musicologist. His area of expertise is 'recording history'. You know, like CD Masters ... Comparing different versions, not analysing individual works.