Sunday Morning

[Serial_Apologist]

Are you referring to the Sunday Feature on Radio 3? It's on BBC Sounds (Requiems for the Firestorm).

That's the one. Thanks Smittims, I'll look it up there.

[smittims]

Are you referring to the Sunday Feature on Radio 3? It's on BBC Sounds (Requiems for the Firestorm).

[Serial_Apologist]

Why was Sunday's RT-billed programme The Split, a documentary on music immediately commemorating the aftermath of Dresden's destruction in WW2, cancelled in preference for another on Berlioz's overture The Corsair? Two works by composers I had not heard of were going to be mentioned. Looking ahead on the publicised schedule, it doesn't appear to be re-scheduled for next week, but there is no explanation or comment on the BBC website. Yes I know, this does fall somewhat outside the remit of this particular thread, but it seemed the most likely place to be noticed. Anyone know anything?

[LMcD]

Youtube if you want to: the gentleman's NOT for tubing!

I used to travel on the Tube between Ealing Broadway and Holborn 5 days a week for a number of years, and I guess I just can't get out of the habit.

[Serial_Apologist]

Nor even the only source from which one can cherry pick the works one would like to listen to.

Youtube if you want to: the gentleman's NOT for tubing!

[french frank]

You're correct, of course, in pointing out that it's not what we've always considered to be a radio station.

Nor even the only source from which one can cherry pick the works one would like to listen to.

[LMcD]

On a factual note most of it is served up as unenlightening presenter-led snippets. A single Schubert Impromptu followed by Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo... And in the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties the BBC had fewer 24-hour radio stations. I don't count presenter-led snippets as unadulterated classical music.



There you have it - an unsocial hours programme which you can access later on BBC Sounds. Not a radio station as it once was.



To repeat: it's not about one single programme about Julie Andrews. If that was all it was,, I predict there'd be little outcry. And you don't address the question of why it wasn't on Radio 2 in the first place rather than Radio 3.

I could, if I chose, also record it on my TV overnight, but it's easier to pick the cherries online via BBC Radio 3 Schedules (which I find more customer-friendly than Sounds).
You're correct, of course, in pointing out that it's not what we've always considered to be a radio station.

[LMcD]

...... birdsong, and equally chirpy presenters....

[smittims]

I'm afraid I could only listen to the symphony complete. An exception would be Furtwangler's studio recording of the adagio , his only gramophone recording of any Bruckner , made by request (not his) ,apparently .

[gradus]

A reminder of Bruckner's genius this morning with the inspired and inspiring Adagio from the seventh symphony in Barenboim's BPO recording, needless to say playing of the first order.

[cloughie]

... but why the fig should these things invade the tiny space available for classical music? Why the fig are they on radio 3 in the first place?? Why do we have to 'give way' to products for which there is apparently no room on their original, appropriate, channels - the Light Programme, Radio 2???



.

…and like R3 competing with CFM, the Beeb feel the need for R2 to compete with all the other pop providers. How many people actually tune in to R2 of an evening, unless they are on the move, compared to watching the diverse tv offerings, streaming films and boxed sets.

[french frank]

It was John Drummond I think who said that organ enthusiasts are only interested in that and even within jazz there was a divide between trad and bebop. It was impossible to please everyone.

Yes that was the bit I was reporting faithfully with total accuracy

Radio 3 now covers a vast range of music as did the Radio 3 of old.

More vast now. I doubt Drummond had more extensive evidence for what he asserted than a couple of green ink letters. Or fewer.

The big difference is the assumptions they make about the listeners knowledge perhaps reflecting the decline in music education and the almost complete absence of intelligent analysis outside Record Review, the Sunday Feature and the odd specialist programme like the Early Music show.

I think this embodies the whole concept of the controversial 'dumbing down' accusation. It conflates ignorance and what I will term a lack of intellectual alertness rather than stupidity. I was (and still am) ignorant when it comes to the depths of classical music but I found the old Radio 3 very rewarding and enlightening as a consequence. I think R3 now serves not merely the ignorant but also the intellectually lazy - listeners who don't want to be stretched, even though they very well might have the mental capacity. That's not considered entertaining.

The managers you castigate are neither fools nor knaves but are dealing with a dumbed down culture - some embrace it , some hold their nose and get on with the job,

The fools and knaves opposition is cliché. You say they embrace it (dumbed-down culture) or hold their noses. Our two depictions overlap, I think.

[LMcD]

Point one - sentence one of yours is an opinion not a fact as is sentence 4.
Point two - nothing is at it once was - that is the nature of life and broadcasting.
Pont three - there is no “outcry” other than a couple of people on this forum. Those who don’t object might just not want to engage given the response we get .
I don’t address the question because I’m not the controller of either station and don’t know the answer.My guess is that Radio 2 doesn’t do light music much any more at all - see point two.

If it stlll does, I'm blowed if I can find it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I thinkit was John Drummond who said when he was controller that Radio 3 had 'n' (don't remember the number - Aunt Daisy will know) different audiences who - I think he suggested - wanted Radio 3 to broadcast all the things that they liked and none of the things they hated and were generally unreasonable, not that intelligent and would never be satisfied. I may have paraphrased a bit but if he didn't say it - he jolly well thought it!

It seems possible that what goes under a general heading of 'new music' has increased so enormously that even the vast expansion of BBC radio (let's leave television out of it) from the original three stations has failed to keep up with that increase so that there is not enough airtime for an arts and culture station as it was originally conceived by Haley. What gets pushed out is drama (too expensive), speech programmes (too dry) and still classical music, jazz and world get watered down to meet lower expectations. The 'broader audience' is just a cynical way of saying 'bigger audiences' for the BBC. I'm not completely oblivious of the problems faced by BBC managers. I don't know whether they buy into the ideas because they know no better (fools) or know better but have self-interested agendas (knaves).

On the whole I recognise the ideas (and mourn) behind the Guardian's piece: Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?

It was John Drummond I think who said that organ enthusiasts are only interested in that and even within jazz there was a divide between trad and bebop. It was impossible to please everyone. Radio 3 now covers a vast range of music as did the Radio 3 of old. The big difference is the assumptions they make about the listeners knowledge perhaps reflecting the decline in music education; and the almost complete absence of intelligent analysis outside Record Review, the Sunday Feature and the odd specialist programme like the Early Music show. The managers you castigate are neither fools nor knaves but are dealing with a dumbed down culture - some embrace it , some hold their nose and get on with the job,

Reading Sumptions History of the 100 years War - now that’s what I call a Golden Age (of stupidity )

[french frank]

and even within classical music there are those who love it but who hate opera , vocal music, the flute etc …

I thinkit was John Drummond who said when he was controller that Radio 3 had 'n' (don't remember the number - Aunt Daisy will know) different audiences who - I think he suggested - wanted Radio 3 to broadcast all the things that they liked and none of the things they hated and were generally unreasonable, not that intelligent and would never be satisfied. I may have paraphrased a bit but if he didn't say it - he jolly well thought it!

It seems possible that what goes under a general heading of 'new music' has increased so enormously that even the vast expansion of BBC radio (let's leave television out of it) from the original three stations has failed to keep up with that increase so that there is not enough airtime for an arts and culture station as it was originally conceived by Haley. What gets pushed out is drama (too expensive), speech programmes (too dry) and still classical music, jazz and world get watered down to meet lower expectations. The 'broader audience' is just a cynical way of saying 'bigger audiences' for the BBC. I'm not completely oblivious of the problems faced by BBC managers. I don't know whether they buy into the ideas because they know no better (fools) or know better but have self-interested agendas (knaves).

On the whole I recognise the ideas (and mourn) behind the Guardian's piece: Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?