Essential Classics??

[Nick Armstrong]

That'll have cost them a few squid!

[Nick Armstrong]

Might I draw attention to my appearance on Essential Classics tomorrow. No phone-in needed....

11.00
Rob's Essential Choice
Sibelius
The Tempest: a selection from the incidental music Lilli Paasikivi (mezzo - Ariel) Heikki Keinonen (baritone - Caliban) Lahti Opera Chorus & Symphony Orchestra Osmo Vanska (conductor) BIS CD 581.

[Nick Armstrong]

Just to put in a pat on the back, the Essential Classics prog was good yesterday - although I had to switch off before Rick Stein came on. But my journey to work was agreeably accompanied by Sibelius and the complete Ravel violin sonata - a real delight.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Just to put in a pat on the back, the Essential Classics prog was good yesterday - although I had to switch off before Rick Stein came on. But my journey to work was agreeably accompanied by Sibelius and the complete Ravel violin sonata - a real delight.

Yesterday was the first chance I've really had to listen to Essential Classics and I found it rather good - classic Beecham recording, Toscanini humming along to 'Che gelida manina', Ravel Violin Sonata in G, superb Minkowski recording of L'Arlesienne. Lovely stuff. It could almost have been CD Masters... I also found the 'guest slot' nowhere near as bad as I'd feared, though I like Rick Stein anyway.

[mercia]

well, I thought the listener-interactivity, by way of reminiscences about Solomon, on today's Sunday Morning with James Jolly, was quite interesting - it reminded me of some of the reminiscences that grace this forum

I guess there's good interactivity and bad interactivity

[antongould]

Exactly what we like and participate in is good and the rest is tosh!

[CliffChallenger]

Are people as irritated with me by the quizzes - one a week may be ok, but why everyday? I have just heard three extracts of Shepherd on the Rock and we've been asked to identify which one is Jack Brymer. I don't know. I don't really care and I guess they assume we are not woken up enough to listen to a whole Schubert song

[antongould]

Some people like you will be others like me won't there can be no one fits all programme and might it not be pretty sad if there was. Easily the most visited thread on these boards is of course a quiz..............................

[french frank]

Easily the most visited thread on these boards is of course a quiz..............................

But all members are free to visit it or not. It isn't a condition of using the forum that you have to read the thread.

The main question is whether Radio 3 should stand apart from other (BBC) radio stations in offering something more demanding, with higher intellectual standards, more rarefied repertoire &C

There's theoretically a proportionally increasing audience for rubbish and tat. In the case of Radio 3 the policy may backfire because the audience for light entertainment hasn't been used to seeking it on R3; therefore more listeners may leave than are attracted.

[antongould]

Are people as irritated with me by the quizzes......

I was simply answering the question and added an, I thought pertinent, observation.

[Curalach]

Some people like you will be others like me won't there can be no one fits all programme and might it not be pretty sad if there was.

Anton, I thought your comment about quizzes pertinent and amusing, it was the sentence quoted above that I found difficult.
Like CliffChallenger I strayed on to R4 this morning, while some woman was caterwauling on R4, and heard the quiz and what surrounded it.
I have refrained so far from commenting on the new morning schedule but will do so now. Mindless pap!

[french frank]

I was simply answering the question and added an, I thought pertinent, observation.

As you are perfectly entitled to do. I hope there was no rebuke in my response: I simply made in turn what I considered a 'pertinent observation'.

Why not respond, in turn, to my observation? Then we can move on to the next point of discussion.

"The main question is whether Radio 3 should stand apart from other (BBC) radio stations in offering something more demanding, with higher intellectual standards, more rarefied repertoire &c."

[antongould]

Anton, I thought your comment about quizzes pertinent and amusing, it was the sentence quoted above that I found difficult.
Like CliffChallenger I strayed on to R4 this morning, while some woman was caterwauling on R4, and heard the quiz and what surrounded it.
I have refrained so far from commenting on the new morning schedule but will do so now. Mindless pap!

............sorry to cause you difficulty and even sadder that you find it pap - I readily accept your view is that of the majority hereabouts what has been debated recently is what is the size of the pro-lobby in the total Radio 3 population?

[french frank]

what has been debated recently is what is the size of the pro-lobby in the total Radio 3 population?

But that isn't the question at all: the amount of pro and anti opinion. Even the BBC says it isn't a matter of numbers.

[antongould]

Sorry I was responding to Curlach.......there was absolutely no rebuke in your reply - other than accusing me of stealing Radio 3 you have always been, probably far too, fair.

I think Radio 3 does stand far apart from other BBC stations and from the blasted CFM probably IMHO about as far apart as it always did. It is just that the world and the stations and the funding regime and most of all the listening population is changing (attention span, diversions etc.)...as we have debated before. But what we do have that previous generations didn't are things such as TTN and above all the iplayer - purely a personal view as always - it's not a bad place to be in a scary world.