OED: Snob, n. ‘One who despises those who are considered inferior in rank, attainment, or taste.’

The idea occurs that the highground of lofty superiority has shifted. Proms season again, and the old chestnut of To Clap or Not to Clap arises. Some prefer to reserve their applause until the end of the work; others like to yield to their spontaneous urge to applaud as and when.

Now, to despise others for their ignorance or lack of self-control might well be considered snobbish but there is nothing snobbish about merely preferring to wait until the piece has finished rather than to clap between movements or after every song. Unfortunately, your preference does not prevail against the preference of others to clap.

The ‘clap when you feel like it’ school of thought has become increasingly common. So far so … good. But what does one make of the accusation that preferring to keep one’s appreciation until the end is ‘fatuous snobbery’ (in full, ‘the fatuous snobbery of not clapping after any movement as proof of holier-than-thou cognoscenti-dom’), as a recent Guardian columnist (and Radio 3 presenter) would have it? That is not an attack on the point of view, it is a disparaging comment aimed at those who have a different preference. It says ‘my view is right’ and despises those of inferior taste. In other words, it’s a dictionary illustration of snobbery.

The choice of the adjective ‘fatuous’ is ironic. Could our critic not concede that not all who prefer there to be no applause until the end are trying to prove anything, nor do they necessarily have ‘holier-than-thou’ – or any other – feelings towards the clappers. Other than irritation, perhaps, since on the battle-ground between those who want silence and those who want to make a noise the winners are always the ones who want to make a noise.

It was a treasurable moment when that same Radio 3 presenter, two days after the concert about which he had been writing, was obliged to ask the audience, well, what exactly? He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask them not to applaud as, presumably, the performer had requested, but came out with: ‘Ladies and gentleman, you are welcome in that short gap … uh … NOT to applaud if you want to prove your holier-than-thou cognosc-… [no, I jest] … if you want to maintain the sense of nocturnal reverie …’ What you were welcome to do if you DID wish to applaud the presenter did not say. He certainly could have been clearer that the performer did not welcome applause at that moment.

But we rest our charge of snobbery on the obvious scorn shown towards the dissenters – who in most concert halls are likely to be the majority.

Even more bizarre is the argument raised by some that in the good old days people used to clap, chat, eat, drink, be merry and other things besides while the music played. So? Do they want to ‘turn the clock back’? Well, it makes a change from accusing others, contemptuously, of wanting to ‘turn the clock back’.

The new snobs are the ones who declare that their way is right when in fact they are merely jumping on the moving bandwagon of cultural fashion – which no fashionista would wish to miss.

The BBC Trust’s newly launched review of the service licence for Radio 3 (and those for Radio 4 and Radio 7) asks the public whether they think that Radio 3 (£50m per year)  is ‘value for money’. This is surely an impossible question to answer. If you value it highly then it will be value for money; if you don’t value it, it won’t be.

In similar vein we see that the Government has recently released the salaries of the country’s top civil servants. It appears that just nine of them are paid more than the Controller, Radio 3.

On the other hand, the list of top salaries at the BBC shows that no fewer than 26 people have a basic salary higher than that of the Controller, Radio 3. Not a single civil servant in the country has a salary close to that of the controller’s immediate boss, the Director of Audio and Music.

The Director General points out that these top-of-the-tree executives and managers could earn much more in the commercial sector. It’s a competitive market. But what about top civil servants: couldn’t they earn much more in the commercial sector? Aren’t their jobs just as crucial?

As for Radio 3, it costs about the same as Radio 2. Out of that it has to run the 2-month Proms season, a unique world-famous music festival, engage 100-musician orchestras rather than 5-man bands, put on long-form dramas costing £15,000-£25,000 per hour, broadcast live opera every week, cover outside broadcast live events on a regular basis.

Radio 3 pulled in an average of two million listeners per week last quarter; for the same money Radio 2 had an average of 14 million. But how much of its output is more than a series of high profile, highly paid stars, chatting, spinning CDs and personally pocketing a lot of licence fee payers’ money? Radio 3′s money is spread around among a lot of people and doesn’t make any millionaires – well, unless you get to be controller

BBC managers would be much better ‘value for money’ if they had pay grades on a par with civil servants’. Meanwhile, Radio 3 itself is showing signs that it could desperately do with a bit more.

What to say about this new, exciting idea:

Personally, I don’t even care what my favourite aria is, still less the Nation’s.

Anyway, since when has ‘the Nation’ been listening to Radio 3′s Breakfast programme? (Ah, they will, Eusebius, they will.)

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I just caught last week’s Discovering Music – flagged up on the home page’s ‘Now iPlaying’ – on the iPlayer, and what an invigorating mental work-out that was! I found the 90 minutes a bit long and would have liked it to have finished with, say, 30 minutes of exquisite ‘split choir’ singing. But the programme was packed with information and examples of this Renaissance style, ranging from Striggio to Giovanni Gabrieli.

There was also that quirky sense of humour, rather reminiscent of I Fagiolini, not surprisingly since the presenter was their director, Robert Hollingworth, who I suspect is responsible for a lot of the ‘little beans’ nonsense. I prefer this style (the ‘old’ style Discovering Music) where the presenter is speaking to the listener (me), rather than to a hall full of people who occasionally clap or ask a question.

I wonder how Hollingworth would feel about doing a children’s programme à la David Munrow? It could be the kind of thing like Pied Piper which adults also enjoy so it doesn’t matter so much if only a few children are listening.

Not such a good report, I’m afraid, of the gruesome new ‘Charts Show’. Perhaps I misunderstood in thinking the Breakfast feature would be redeemed by Rob Cowan’s reviews. The five minutes of interspersed talk was limited to such enlightenment as ‘new entry’, ‘in at number 18′, ‘up from last week’ and a run-down of the Top Ten, repeating Sean’s largely pointless 15-minute item of the previous night (perhaps Robert Hollingworth should be let loose on it to liven things up?). At least the Breakfast choice didn’t include either of the current top two, though Sean is saddled with playing the Number 1 each week – let’s hope there’s a new one soon.

Meanwhile – come back Rob, come back CD Masters.