Results of the Mozart poll

[David Underdown]

I think RW's blog post may ahve been slightly miscontrued, I think he meant "we can't do these too often" in the sense that we don't have the resources to do these events more often - look at the first half of the sentence "despite the demand", and the sentence that follows.

[Don Petter]

Face it: our peculiar little crowd of Radio 3 Messageboard Refugees is in no way representative of the 1.8 million R3 listenership at large. How do I know? Because no "average, casual R3 listener" is going to be motivated to show up and discuss Radio 3 on a message board to begin with, much less make the jump to an identical forum once the original one is shut down! Only the hardest of the hardcore survived...it's a highly self-selected sample.

Probably true, and I am fully aware of the dangers of extrapolating any small sample. I can only report my own experience. Of people I know well, there are only six I can think of who are interested in classical music and have regularly listened to R3. None of them are people who would ever think of looking at a message board, much less posting to it. They have all mentioned at different times that they now never listen to Breakfast, and that they listen to R3 in general much less than they did before recent changes.

[french frank]

I think RW's blog post may ahve been slightly miscontrued, I think he meant "we can't do these too often" in the sense that we don't have the resources to do these events more often - look at the first half of the sentence "despite the demand", and the sentence that follows.

I'm sure you're absolutely right, David. My reply was a hilarious witticism to suggest that there are also those who are not clamouring for the next one!

My own view is that, although I think there are much better ways of focusing on the work of a particular composer, the Mozartfest didn't impact much on my own listening as I listen seldom and selectively these days, rather than in any sense relying on R3 for my daily music.

[french frank]

Well, completely cheesing off ONLY a quarter of the customers lurking around these parts is bleeping well near a miracle. I would have thought it would be well upwards of 70 percent. Can you say "sample bias"? Oh, I knew you could.

Maybe they are. After all, the people voting around here aren't exactly the people he's talking to every day, are they. His sample is probably skewed in the favourable direction just as hard as this one is skewed unfavourable.

I think you're splitting hairs here. I have the unique privilege of knowing how everyone voted and if you take the voters at the two extremes they are completely unpredictable to me. Both views include people with hugely impressive musical credentials whose opinions I value. Food for thought for all of us.

As I said earlier, a lot depends how you 'consume' Radio 3, and now that I'm not a regular listener I wasn't personally bothered by 12 days of Mozart. But intellectually, if the question were put to me, I can think of far better ways to focus on Mozart's music. But they wouldn't suit R3's purpose.

It boils down - as so often - to whether R3's main duty is to cater for its target audience or to cater for an audience which it hopes to attract. And also, one might have thought, whether it's possible to do both at the same time.

[amateur51]

It boils down - as so often - to whether R3's main duty is to cater for its target audience or to cater for an audience which it hopes to attract. And also, one might have thought, whether it's possible to do both at the same time.

And there's the rub. In pursuing the new audience, they appear to being doing an excellent job of alienating the established audience at the moment.

[VodkaDilc]

And there's the rub. In pursuing the new audience, they appear to being doing an excellent job of alienating the established audience at the moment.

Exactly the misguided path taken by so many in recent years: Gramophone, The Times, Church of England, BBC2 - the list goes on!

[johnb]

And about the lack of playlists: perhaps they deliberately didn't include them because they wanted people to be more open to the whole experience, rather than showing up for one particular piece and switching off when it's done. Rather than being prejudiced against works they think they won't enjoy, it encourages audiences to hear works in the context of the program.

An interesting idea but I doubt whether it is the case.

The online schedule and playlists appear to mirror those printed in the Radio Times, which devotes a restricted space to Radio 3. This makes me wonder whether there is an internal agreement between the department of the BBC that maintains the online schedules and BBC Worldwide (who publishes the Radio Times) that, in advance of the actual broadcast, the online schedules will only show what the Radio Times prints. (Most of the playlists seem to have appeared on the schedules shortly after the broadcasts occurred.)

In many instances the lack of any information of the works being broadcast was both frustrating and gave the impression of a cavalier attitude to Radio 3 listeners. But it might well be the ridiculous situation of the Radio Times tail wagging the BBC Schedules dog.

[french frank]

Apart from anything else, the post-broadcast playlists appear in a form which corresponds to the Listen Again recordings so that you can indeed pick and choose what you want to hear. Why should the broadcasts be any different? And what's the point of taking the choice - to check in advance or not - away from listeners?

The implication is also that listeners will only choose to listen to what they know and enjoy, rather than choosing new works. In fact, the reverse is often the case: people want to be introduced to new works, not hear the same old warhorses all the time.

[PatrickOD]

I think you're splitting hairs here. I have the unique privilege of knowing how everyone voted and if you take the voters at the two extremes they are completely unpredictable to me. Both views include people with hugely impressive musical credentials whose opinions I value. Food for thought for all of us.
it's possible to do both at the same time.

You will know then, ff, that I voted for No2, 'Good idea, broadly well done but with some flaws'.
Which is, of course, the right answer.

Why? I hear you splutter.

No 1. Excellence can't be watered down by 'on the whole' qualifications. Ruled out.

No 3. A sad cop out.

No 4. 'Mozart' and 'a bad idea' are contradictory, and those who selected No 4 immediately realised the contradiction and tried to cover up. Ruled out.

No 5 As for 4, without apology, but with the preposterous position of arriving at a conclusion before the trial.

'Flaws' with 'broadly' are the operative words here, and much constructive criticism has been brought to bear in dealing with them, even by those who, unfortunately, voted for the wrong options.

[aeolium]

No 5 As for 4, without apology, but with the preposterous position of arriving at a conclusion before the trial.

PatrickOD, do you never think it is right to make a judgement about a project except on the basis of experience? What about, for instance, the current proposal for NHS reforms or the proposal to sell off a proportion of the country's woodlands? Or what if there were a proposal for a month of broadcasts on R3 in which each day featured the works of only one composer (a different one each day)? Would you always think it right to suspend judgement?

And did you listen to all of the 12-day broadcast? If not, then by your 'trial' analogy, you have failed to weigh up all the evidence :-p

Anyway, Lunchtime O'Boulez of Private Eye obviously would have voted wrongly, by your assessment. Here is his view:

"Whoever thought this was a good idea - stand up controller Roger Wright - deserves a head transplant. It was torture. Not that Mozart isn't wonderful, but blanket-bombing does no one any favours, least of all Mozart himself. Funnily enough, Wright said precisely that five years ago when asked if he was planning a Mozart marathon for the composer's anniversary in 2006. 'Our view' he replied, 'is that with Mozart end to end, the overall effect would be detrimental to the music.'"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No 4. 'Mozart' and 'a bad idea' are contradictory, and those who selected No 4 immediately realised the contradiction and tried to cover up. Ruled out.

"Mozart" and "a bad idea" may be contradictory to some, but that's to misunderstand the point. Playing Mozart's music is a good idea, but to play "every note" (apart from the ones they forgot) end-to-end and without any musical contrast, was (in my opinion) a ludicrous idea, and I suspect that all those who voted in this way would hold a broadly similar view.

[vinteuil]

"Mozart" and "a bad idea" may be contradictory to some, but that's to misunderstand the point. Playing Mozart's music is a good idea, but to play "every note" (apart from the ones they forgot) end-to-end and without any musical contrast, was (in my opinion) a ludicrous idea, and I suspect that all those who voted in this way would hold a broadly similar view.

Eine Alpensinf sums it up well; a ludicrous idea. But equally - of course - there were some 'good things' (it wd'v been a complete catastrophe for Radio 3 if there had been not one single good programme during the twelve days ) - so option 4 was the obvious choice. And more of us went for that option than any of the others. What sensible people we are...

[Eudaimonia]

without any musical contrast,

I'm sure they'd say the contrast came in the form of the presentation, interviews, drama, and novel juxtapositions of works. And given that context, even the late-night dedications show had its place. Strictly speaking, "blanket bombing" would be if they played everything in order as quickly as possible, which would have truly been lazy and pointless, wouldn't it.

As I said, this is the kind of programming you definitely won't find anywhere else: for good or bad, it sets R3 apart and has everyone talking about it. If a handful of people hate everything about it, so what? I think it would be more useful if we were all specific about what exactly went wrong and how we think something like this might improve next time rather than wasting our breath trashing the whole concept. For example, the concern over the playlists seems very valid-- if you could persuade someone to give you straight answers about that, you'd be getting somewhere.

[aeolium]

Option 5 made no mention of whether there were any good programmes or not. It emphasised that it was worse than just a bad idea - it was a terrible one (or 'ludicrous', to put it another way). So it was perfectly possible to vote for option 5 even allowing for the presence of one or two good programmes.

[3rd Viennese School]

Perhaps they should have played the Mozart symphonies but played the wrong minuets/ slow mvts!