Credit where it's due

[Guest]

A Rainy Bank Holiday Monday morning in the car and I tuned into Essential Classics more in hope than expectation but was very pleasantly surprised to hear Berg's Violin Concerto and not Dvorak's Hovis symphony or Khachaturian's Onedin Line etc. Now It's not that I'm a Berg "enthusiast" but his music challenges me to listen, to understand and to appreciate- exactly as Radio 3's output once did regularly and I was glad of it.
The reason for this piece was unsurprisingly yet another "theme" programme so beloved of producers - and the theme was portraits for some daft reason I can't bothered to investigate, but maybe Radio 3's redemption lies in these special programmes so I'd like to offer two points for discussion:-
1) Themes, one-offs and specials may be puerile in concept but they force programme planners away from the usual playlists as they try and fill the alotted time, and this produces a more varied programme content, so even if the theme is silly or desperate, the outcome is often serendipitous for dedicated listeners
2) It occurred to me to email the programme praising the selections. Maybe as a campaigning technique the idea of accentuating the positive when we do enjoy something has far more power than our carping and moaning when we don't. I suspect my criticisms now evoke nothing more than an amused chuckle but everyone loves flattery and praise, so instead of lambasting Breakfast when I hear Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, perhaps I should instead praise them fulsomely for some unusual and obscure offering whenever it occurs
Worth a try anyway!

[Serial_Apologist]

A Rainy Bank Holiday Monday morning in the car and I tuned into Essential Classics more in hope than expectation but was very pleasantly surprised to hear Berg's Violin Concerto and not Dvorak's Hovis symphony or Khachaturian's Onedin Line etc. Now It's not that I'm a Berg "enthusiast" but his music challenges me to listen, to understand and to appreciate- exactly as Radio 3's output once did regularly and I was glad of it.
The reason for this piece was unsurprisingly yet another "theme" programme so beloved of producers - and the theme was portraits for some daft reason I can't bothered to investigate, but maybe Radio 3's redemption lies in these special programmes so I'd like to offer two points for discussion:-
1) Themes, one-offs and specials may be puerile in concept but they force programme planners away from the usual playlists as they try and fill the alotted time, and this produces a more varied programme content, so even if the theme is silly or desperate, the outcome is often serendipitous for dedicated listeners
2) It occurred to me to email the programme praising the selections. Maybe as a campaigning technique the idea of accentuating the positive when we do enjoy something has far more power than our carping and moaning when we don't. I suspect my criticisms now evoke nothing more than an amused chuckle but everyone loves flattery and praise, so instead of lambasting Breakfast when I hear Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, perhaps I should instead praise them fulsomely for some unusual and obscure offering whenever it occurs
Worth a try anyway!

Wel, I wonder... Many of us listeners to R3's jazz output have frequently and indeed fulsomely praised the presenter Alyn Shipton, who has the good grace to reply on this forum, for the excellence of his Jazz Library. We have also made positive observations on Jazz on 3 when credit has been felt to be due. This however has not, as you suggest, prevented the Radio 3 schedulers from messing about with the timings of jazz programmes, their being shunted to graveyard slots, or, in the case of Jazz Library, the programme's tragic demise.

S-A

[Ferretfancy]

I'm all for a few more challenges on Essential Classics, but it's also worth remembering that there are many extremely popular pieces that appear quite rarely in the schedules. This morning we heard rather a nice performance of Peter and the Wolf with Sting and Abbado, and I think it's been quite a while since that popped up.
I can never hear it without being reminded of studio testing in Broadcasting House in the small hours back in the 1950s. We used two discs to make sure that all the turntables worked properly. The LP was Peter and the Wolf with the dull but familiar voice of Frank Philips, the 78 was another vintage disc of the Teddy Bears Picnic. I wonder, is there a CD used for a similar purpose? Actually I'd quite like to know what equipment they play them on, can anybody tell us?