The Spectator's view of R3

[John Skelton]

A fact which makes all the more remarkable, nay insulting, to send him to Vienna to cover the New Year's Day concert. I don't wish to deprive the man of his Sachertorte and Melange, but at least Martin Handley or Susan Sharpe could honour the Viennese by correctly pronouncing the names of their composers, streets and monuments.

Perhaps he speaks Wienerisch?

[mangerton]

Faure - sorry can't put the acute on the e - consistently pronounced like foray by even the most careful presenters.

You may find this link helpful, kernelb:

http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/ALTchrc.html

[Don Petter]

You may find this link helpful, kernelb:

http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/ALTchrc.html

Although it might be easy to remember ALT numbers for a few common accented characters, if you're using Windows you don't even have to remember any numbers - just use the Character Map, which has more letters and symbols than you'll ever need, and will copy them to your clipboard to paste into your text wherever you want.

Run charmap.exe, found in your System32 folder. I have a short cut to it on my desktop so it is always easily available.

[VodkaDilc]

Updates to The Spectator's R3 crusade:

Last week:
My thanks to readers who are sending examples of Radio 3 vacuity. The email is letters@spectator.co.uk. The address is ‘Radio Twee’, The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP. The winner gets a DVD of Handel’s Serse. When I switched on last, I heard a listener explaining at some length how she had been converted to opera by listening to Madam Butterfly nine years ago. That was the sum of the musical information conveyed. She did not remember who had sung the role.

And this week:
Thank you, readers, for your reports on ‘Radio Twee’. Here is Sarah Mohr-Pietsch: ‘Of course Bach didn’t mind about dying, because in those days people believed in Heaven and thought they were going there.’ More, more.

[Simon]

Tell me. I haven't the time or inclination to waste any more time on this.

The dirham is the currency of the UAE. It was Alistair's little pun on Katie's surname, substituting it for a brass farthing. Unless there was something else that I missed, too. :)

[ahinton]

The dirham is the currency of the UAE. It was Alistair's little pun on Katie's surname, substituting it for a brass farthing. Unless there was something else that I missed, too. :)

No, you missed nothing and it was indeed just as you say (as if that were important, which I do not claim it to be for one moment)...

[french frank]

The winner gets a DVD of Handel’s Serse.

Sounds like a bribe to get people to listen.

[Vile Consort]

I bet there isn't another (?) European country where anyone gets this exercised by improper pronunciation of proper nouns in other peoples' languages.

If it is true that other countries don't get exercised about this issue, it's because their announcers don't make a complete hash of it in the first place so there is nothing to become exercised about.

[Simon]

If it is true that other countries don't get exercised about this issue, it's because their announcers don't make a complete hash of it in the first place so there is nothing to become exercised about.

I don't generally listen to classical music stations when abroad, but foreign broadcast media staff - especially TV - can certainly mangle English!

I expect RAI etc. would manage Britten and Elgar, but I'd like to hear their attempts at Ralph Vaughan-Williams.

[Pabmusic]

I don't generally listen to classical music stations when abroad, but foreign broadcast media staff - especially TV - can certainly mangle English!

I expect RAI etc. would manage Britten and Elgar, but I'd like to hear their attempts at Ralph Vaughan-Williams.

Agreed. But even we British are not entirely sure about Elgar's name. We have changed the pronunciation of it ourselves since about WW2. Elgar pronounced it El-gr, which was the usual pronunciation, consistent with the very similar 'Edgar'. This has been attested to by many who knew the man or his daughter. (Not long ago there was a discussion on another thread as to why Huw Weldon says El-gr throughout Ken Russell's 1962 Monitor film.) Why it changed I've no idea. I think perhaps that some have been uncertain about it and see it as a 'foreign' name, and therefore slightly exotic; it is actually Old English (Anglo-Saxon), meaning 'elf spear' (Edgar means 'wealthy spear'). I know that I have been asked several times over the years what country the Elgars came from originally. The name 'Algar', a variant of the same name, seems to be more easily recognisable, and doesn't seem to be mispronounced.

[Panjandrum]

Updates to The Spectator's R3 crusade:

Here is Sarah Mohr-Pietsch: ‘Of course Bach didn’t mind about dying, because in those days people believed in Heaven and thought they were going there.’ More, more.

I finally have realised that hers is a vacation manque: she should have been a primary school teacher!

[John Skelton]

And this week:
Thank you, readers, for your reports on ‘Radio Twee’. Here is Sarah Mohr-Pietsch

It's Sara Mohr-Pietsch.

[Word]

It's Sara Mohr-Pietsch.

Clearly there's also space for another cheap and lazy column where someone records all the mistakes that Charles Moore has been able to sneak past the sub-editors.

[hackneyvi]

From this week's Spectator: Charles Moore's view of R3:

To me, a musical ignoramus, the pleasure of listening to Radio 3 is related to the idea that you (meaning, himself [meaning, "I" {meaning, Moore}]) might learn something.

Is a man an ignoramus about subjects of real interest to him? If music was a significant recreation for Moore and he had learned much from listening to R3 in the past, surely he wouldn't be an ignoramus?

To me, the pleasure of listening to Radio 3 is hearing live and modern/contemporary music (or, some of it). Sometimes the talks, like the one of last week on Brahms' German Mass.