No Association Whatsoever Thread

[Nick Armstrong]

Why not on Radio 3?

On a similar theme, this rebroadcast series has been buried away on Radio 4extra this week:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b009x7g5?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

(All 15 episodes from 2008 - 2012 are available on “Sounds”)

[smittims]

Thanks, Nick. I missed that. I hope he does E minor. That's a key with a very interesting history.

I believe it is forbidden to mention tonality, modulation and other snobbish elitist things on Radio 3. Kate Molleson has got through five programmes on Schoenberg without going beyond the most general remarks about the music.

[gradus]

I wonder how many people have heard of the Foundation of St Katherine (founded 1147!), me neither until this week. It is a little haven of peace and calm just off London's Commercial Road. We went there for a celebratory meal after an inaugural lecture. Well worth considering if you're looking for an overnight stay away from the usual hotel haunts.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks, Nick. I missed that. I hope he does E minor. That's a key with a very interesting history.

I believe it is forbidden to mention tonality, modulation and other snobbish elitist things on Radio 3. Kate Molleson has got through five programmes on Schoenberg without going beyond the most general remarks about the music.

Well, that is true, but I have to say there were things to learn about AS that would otherwise have involved trolling through more biographies than I know of. The series might have led a number of listeners into investigating further, while at the same time questioning why it is that this composer has been so much sidelined for so long by Radio 3 and the BBC. A series on his lesser known pupils would be a good follow up.

[smittims]

I agree. Maybe the more general approach will do more good . That is, I accept, the brief of COTW.

[oddoneout]

I agree. Maybe the more general approach will do more good . That is, I accept, the brief of COTW.

I think COTW has more than one approach, which is why it gets criticised sometimes for not providing enough depth. For the mainstay, well-known composers the programmes pick one aspect, whether of life or composition, and provide more depth, but for less familiar(whether in terms of how well known or how often broadcast) composers a more general approach is taken - an overview. That I think is a reasonable thing to do with the likes of Schoenberg(who falls into both categories unfortunately), providing enough material for someone to investigate further, but without deterring by going into technicalities straightaway. Now in an ideal world R3 would have follow-on programmes to look at such technicalities in more depth, but this isn't an ideal world. It's one that regards its listeners as uninterested(if I'm being polite, incapable if I'm not) in knowing more about what they are listening to or why familiar pieces(the dreaded well loved tunes) are as they are etc.

[smittims]

Quite so. I think Humphrey Carpenter relates how the original plan was to link programmes on the Light, Home and Third, dealing with progressively weightier aspects of music fr different levels of listener, in true Reithian fashion. I don't think this was ever seriously carried out. Classical music did at one time appear regularly on Radio Two, but not now I think.