Annoying R3 Trailers

[Serial_Apologist]

I don’t think the birdsong is fake . It has too many of the “plosive “ sounds that nightingales make - that must be almost impossible to initiate . Equally it doesn’t sound awfully like the nightingales I’ve ever heard but then I guess their songs vary a lot . One thing that’s always struck me is how poor the cello playing sounds given that she was a leading professional. Often wondered whether that’s thanks to the rudimentary recording. On a general point I don’t think mixing birdsong and classical music works - they don’t fit musically or in terms of tuning and they just get in the way of each other.

Well, I would have to disagree, citing Jonathan Harvey's "Bird Concerto with Pianosong", in which sampling and other electronic means are used in conjunction with acoustic piano and orchestra in combination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4Y8i1PuYM

[Roger Webb]

It works for me in Rautavaara's 'Cantus Arcticus'

One of my least favourite works! However, at least Respighi used a gramophone record of a real Nightingale in his Pines of Rome....I think many orchestras now have a digital copy of the original which they play through the PA system.

[LMcD]

I don’t think the birdsong is fake . It has too many of the “plosive “ sounds that nightingales make - that must be almost impossible to initiate . Equally it doesn’t sound awfully like the nightingales I’ve ever heard but then I guess their songs vary a lot . One thing that’s always struck me is how poor the cello playing sounds given that she was a leading professional. Often wondered whether that’s thanks to the rudimentary recording. On a general point I don’t think mixing birdsong and classical music works - they don’t fit musically or in terms of tuning and they just get in the way of each other.

It works for me in Rautavaara's 'Cantus Arcticus'

[Roger Webb]

Look out for an upcoming Sunday evening feature 'The Great Nightingale Scandal' starring controversial musicological detective Ludwig van Cluedoh, who will, I understand, be played by Tom Service. After hearing all the evidence, listeners will be invited to text /call /email to tell us whether or not (and why) they agree with his conclusions.

I once challenged T Service after he had made the oft repeated (by BBC presenters) claim that Debussy wrote/orchestrated/'finished' La Mer at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. He didn't reply, unlike Martin Handley (who lives near Eastbourne) when I pointed out the same mistake, and he argued the toss, adding further spurious claims - Debussy tied himself to a mast in a storm (he was probably thinking of Turner!)....Debussy wrote 'Minstrels' in Eastbourne ( no he didn't).

It makes such a good story but......to the British only! I went to the exhibition and series of lectures at Debussy's birthplace in St-Germain-en-Laye called 'Sous l'ombre des vagues', the subject about the influence of the sea on Debussy. At no point did anyone mention Eastbourne!

There's no doubt that Debussy stayed at the Grand Hotel (room 200) and that he took the finished score of La Mer to correct the proofs and that while there he wrote a replacement movt. for Images bk 1 and called it 'Reflets dans l'eau', (curiously this is never mentioned!), and probably bought his Blüthner piano there, but that's it.....what a shame!

[AuntDaisy]

Look out for an upcoming Sunday evening feature 'The Great Nightingale Scandal' starring controversial musicological detective Ludwig van Cluedoh, who will, I understand, be played by Tom Service. After hearing all the evidence, listeners will be invited to text /call /email to tell us whether or not (and why) they agree with his conclusions.

Auntie may, or may not, have a recording of the actual Nightingle Cello broadcast, but there is a first-hand account from Beatrice Harrison in the archives.

Sound Archive "BEATRICE HARRISON", 21402. TX Home Service 23/2/1955, RX 4/1/1955

Story of the first broadcast by the nightingale, to her cello accompaniment. Recorded at her home at Nutfield, Surrey.
Sd.1. Describes how she used to play her cello in the garden at night and how on one occasion a nightingale echoed her playing. Gardener said cello had brought nightingale back after many years absence. World wide broadcast eventually arranged. Describes difficulties on the night.." rabbits nibbling wire..donkey knicking over engineers and microphone"..nevertheless broadcast successful.
Sd.2. Tells of meeting with King George V few months later at H.M.V.; his congratulations on "encircling the Empire with her cello." Enormous sale of records and corresponding increase in income. Thousands of letters: visitors from all over the world; stories of their questions. Still corresponds with some of them.

Parts of this were used in Scrapbook for 1924

Interestingly, this 1955 broadcast refers to / uses HMV B2853 & HMV B2470.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Not sure if it was a fraud, but the BBC Archives recording was apparently mislabelled...
They added a correction to a 2022 Private Passions with Tim Birkhead.

I don’t think the birdsong is fake . It has too many of the “plosive “ sounds that nightingales make - that must be almost impossible to initiate . Equally it doesn’t sound awfully like the nightingales I’ve ever heard but then I guess their songs vary a lot . One thing that’s always struck me is how poor the cello playing sounds given that she was a leading professional. Often wondered whether that’s thanks to the rudimentary recording. On a general point I don’t think mixing birdsong and classical music works - they don’t fit musically or in terms of tuning and they just get in the way of each other.

[LMcD]

Not sure if it was a fraud, but the BBC Archives recording was apparently mislabelled...
They added a correction to a 2022 Private Passions with Tim Birkhead.

Look out for an upcoming Sunday evening feature 'The Great Nightingale Scandal' starring controversial musicological detective Ludwig van Cluedoh, who will, I understand, be played by Tom Service. After hearing all the evidence, listeners will be invited to text /call /email to tell us whether or not (and why) they agree with his conclusions.

[smittims]

This celebrated event has been misrepresented more than once, and is an interesting example of the way people's memories work . I've heard references to 'that recording of Beatrice Harrison playing her cello while the bombs were falling'. This is a confusion with another famous recording of nightingales in, I think, 1944, with, not bombs dropping, but RAF bombers overhead on their way out.

[AuntDaisy]

At about 0650 today, Tom M followed his back-announcement of the last music with an extended 'talk-up' of next Sunday's Nightingalefest, celebrating (?) that recording of cello+said bird, possibly in Berkeley Square. (And didn't this turn out to be some kind of fraud?). This then was followed immediately by the slightly weird trailer for Night Tracks, with Hannah P doing the main announcement in their pillow-talk voice.
I listened to the News, then switched off the radio.

Not sure if it was a fraud, but the BBC Archives recording was apparently mislabelled...
They added a correction to a 2022 Private Passions with Tim Birkhead.

A correction: Since we broadcast this programme, new evidence has been brought to light. We’ve now learned that the recording initially believed to be the original 1924 broadcast of Beatrice Harrison and the nightingale, as labelled by the BBC Archives and the National Sound Archive, is instead likely to be a commercial recording released in 1927 by HMV. The labelling has now been corrected to ensure this mix up won’t happen again. Suggestions that the song of the nightingale in 1924 may have been sung by a siffleur are not new but probably impossible to verify since it seems likely that the original 1924 broadcast was never recorded, as the recording technology did not exist at the time. Claims about the real bird being replaced in 1924 by a professional bird imitator, Madame Saberon, are based on written testimony to the BBC from relatives of Madame Saberon, as well as accounts from Madame Saberon herself. There continues to be competing accounts of this extraordinary musical event as well as huge public interest; this demonstrates just how important the story of Beatrice and the nightingale is in the history of broadcasting.

[kernelbogey]

(And didn't this turn out to be some kind of fraud?).

Apparently not.

[kernelbogey]

At about 0650 today, Tom M followed his back-announcement of the last music with an extended 'talk-up' of next Sunday's Nightingalefest, celebrating (?) that recording of cello+said bird, possibly in Berkeley Square. (And didn't this turn out to be some kind of fraud?). This then was followed immediately by the slightly weird trailer for Night Tracks, with Hannah P doing the main announcement in their pillow-talk voice.
I listened to the News, then switched off the radio.

[oddoneout]

Isn't that typical. Just as they rethink the invasion of the ads I have given up on most R3 listening due to the "refresh"!

[kernelbogey]

I'm really enjoying the new In Tune trailer, for the moment at the end where Sean says 'In Tune, with me, Sean Rafferty', and KD comes in with 'AND ME, Katie Derham'. The way she says those two words is... to die for!

................and it's a self-promoting lie

[LMcD]

But how are we supposed to know Radio 3 is '......the home of classical music'?

I think most of us will manage somehow.