Music and Chat and the wrong kind of listener

[salymap]

>>>>One or two of the respected older broadcasters [male] have sadly embraced the new format very enthusiastically.
I will say no more.

http://www.besttrackermortgage.org/m...ator-image.gif

Should be paid off by now

[french frank]

I totally agree, salymap, but the radio model we get on air via the Proms is not so much men in the pub as women in the cafe, isn't it? With lovely music as an add-on in the background? No, I exaggerate of course, but you maybe get what I mean?

Draco - that hardly explains what's happened to Radio 3 which has a man firmly in control, dictating the 'editorial strategy'! And his boss is a man. And his boss's boss is a man - and he's at the top.

[Pabmusic]

I suspect this is just one more manifestation of an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. The problem (I think) is that art is not to most people's tastes, but those with control cannot accept that. Gustav Holst summed it up quite well when he talked to Vaughan Williams about

"'Aristocracy in art' - art is not for all but only for the chosen few - but the only way to find those few is to bring art to everyone - then the artists have a sort of masonic signal by which they recognise each other in the crowd"

But such a view would be dismissed now as elitist and patronising, so we have to pretend that everyone really wants art and would respond if only we could find the right approach. Thus the approach becomes as important as (sometimes more important than) the art itself. But if Holst was right at all, there can never be an approach capable of drawing in anyone but the 'chosen few' - that is a minority.

The upshot of all this is that an attempt to win new listeners on such a false basis is only ever likely to be partly successful, yet risks antagonising the 'chosen few' of the committed audience.

[Thespian]

The Arte live Webpage is wonderful as it shows full length concerts with NO presenters. Just set a few cameras up and press record. You even see all the scene/orchestra changes. No Chat, No Guests, just the Concert.

[Osborn]

...which has a man firmly in control, dictating the 'editorial strategy'! And his boss is a man. And his boss's boss is a man - and he's at the top.

But God's a woman, so that evens it out

[salymap]

The Arte live Webpage is wonderful as it shows full length concerts with NO presenters. Just set a few cameras up and press record. You even see all the scene/orchestra changes. No Chat, No Guests, just the Concert.

Thespian. Are they the concerts from the Salle Pleyel? If so I had them on my favourites but my computer crashed last week and I lost all faves. If you could give me the link I would be grateful.

[Serial_Apologist]

I suspect this is just one more manifestation of an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. The problem (I think) is that art is not to most people's tastes, but those with control cannot accept that. Gustav Holst summed it up quite well when he talked to Vaughan Williams about

"'Aristocracy in art' - art is not for all but only for the chosen few - but the only way to find those few is to bring art to everyone - then the artists have a sort of masonic signal by which they recognise each other in the crowd"

But such a view would be dismissed now as elitist and patronising, so we have to pretend that everyone really wants art and would respond if only we could find the right approach. Thus the approach becomes as important as (sometimes more important than) the art itself. But if Holst was right at all, there can never be an approach capable of drawing in anyone but the 'chosen few' - that is a minority.

The upshot of all this is that an attempt to win new listeners on such a false basis is only ever likely to be partly successful, yet risks antagonising the 'chosen few' of the committed audience.

Sure: we go to clubs, concerts, wear I Love Miles Davis badges etc to say this is where/how we belong. But if what you say is true, why when not at St Pauls Girls School then did Holst spend so much time teaching music at Morley College to the underprivileged of Southwark and surrounds? Art is in doing as opposed to consuming, it is just one way among many of "putting oneself into" activity. The different importances we invest in the market place of music account for the different responses here to what the BBC is doing to R3.

S-A

[Paul Sherratt]

salymap,
I don't know if this is the page you need ?

http://liveweb.arte.tv/

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Or this (it has Salle Pleyel and Cite de la Musique) concerts:

http://www.citedelamusiquelive.tv/

[salymap]

Thanks a lot both, I think it's the latter but have put them both on favourites.

[Thespian]

salymap,
I don't know if this is the page you need ?
http://liveweb.arte.tv/

That's the one I was talking about.

[Guest]

The Arte live Webpage is wonderful as it shows full length concerts with NO presenters. Just set a few cameras up and press record. You even see all the scene/orchestra changes. No Chat, No Guests, just the Concert.

Which was the sub-text of what I said upthread: NOW we have an increasing number of parasites feeding off that body, who need to draw a salary / fee and the BBC/R3 are seemingly actively facilitating it in the basis upon which the Proms and indeed much of the new schedules is predicated: presenter + guest + chat + fun '...oh, yes and here's some music, but we'll be back later with more chat'.

They seem to be suggesting that indeed the music / drama is NOT enough but that it has to be wrapped in some kind of airy forgettable nothing as if that in itself will make the music / drama more appetising. It won't and it is patronising and self-deceiving to think it. IMHO R3 has now set itself on what looks like to be a suicide trajectory in that is working towards negating many of the principles that govern the arts they purport to serve - i.e. serious scrutiny about serious statements. They are trying to pretend that the music and the arts covered are somehow NOT trying to challenge or move or subvert or shout, but merely a kind of comforting wallpaper. i.e. CFM. and for me that way madness and self-immolation lie.