Sic transit gloria Radio 3

[Albion]

To cross-fertilize from a post I sent to the BBC Radio 3 breakfast message board on Tuesday (having been 'treated' to their new chart count-down):

"I tuned in as usual this morning - and tuned out shortly thereafter. Chart shows are fine on Classic FM which clearly depends for it's existence on relationships based on commercial sponsorship ('Classic FM's Orchestra in the whatever'), and there is nothing inherently wrong with them, if you don't mind listening to exactly the same mainstream repertoire in so-so performances week on week.

Radio 3's remit is surely to entertain and educate, but how precisely is the stilted presentation of a tired format going to achieve the former aim (unless you liken it to car-crash radio), or the simple duplication of what is readily available elsewhere the latter. To say that Radio 3 has maintained anything like the standards it once had is a nonsense - can you imagine any commitment to studio recordings nowadays of Bantock's complete 'Omar Khayyam' (1979), Havergal Brian's 'The Tigers' (1983), six symphonies by Cipriani Potter (1989) or extracts from Holbrooke's 'Bronwen' and Cyril Scott's 'The Alchemist' ('Britannia at the Opera', 1995). And this is just British repertoire otherwise unavailable which Radio 3 in their wisdom thought was worth expending a bit of effort on.

The balance of Radio 3's output has steadily moved away from an informative role towards a mere reflection and commentary. What was aspirational and cultured now seems resigned to the status of just another populist station that you tune in to without any great expectations. The irony with this chart-show idea is that, at a time when the recording industry (that is the smaller independents such as CPO and Dutton) is awash with exploratory discs of obscure repertoire, Radio 3 has chosen a mainstream path which will do nothing to showcase these recordings or encourage further exploration."

I could have also mentioned any number of Havergal Brian Symphonies, an occasional chamber work by Holbrooke or group of Bantock songs, the Charles and Samuel Wesley series including the latter's Confitebor tibi, Domine (1989), various (still unrecorded) orchestral and choral works by Stanford and Mackenzie, Cyril Scott's La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1979), Parry's Prometheus Unbound (1980), Coleridge-Taylor's Five Choral Ballads (1984), etc., etc.....

Which other broadcasts (live or studio) of unsung repertoire from the (probably distant) past do members still treasure?

[Alan Howe]

I agree with all of this - but would add that the problem is actually far greater. The problem is not merely the neglect of a range of unsung British (or other) repertoire, but a wilful ignorance of truly great music now well documented on commercially available recordings. In fact, what the BBC is doing is actually perpetuating a false view of musical history.

Having said that, the past year has seen the broadcast of Cliffe's magnificent VC, and Through the Night has regularly broadcast (and re-broadcast) masterpieces such as Noskowski 3 in foreign-sourced recordings, so there is the occasional bright spot. But the light is rarely generated by the BBC themselves...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

That's a provocative comment, Alan! Could we draw you out (short of a dissertation!) on what precisely you mean by the "wilful ignorance of truly great music", and the evidence for it?

I think I agree with you. Maybe the problem is not so much what is broadcast, but the way it is presented? It will always be the case that there will be a discrepancy between what is broadcast and what one wants to be broadcast. However what dismays me is the facile nature of any discussion on the Beeb of what is involved in listening to music. They seem to imagine that the ideal listener is someone laid back on comfortable sofa, bottle close to hand, and who lets the music wash over their heads without actually listening to the stuff (oh, and who of course awards 3 or 4 stars to it when it stops). It is the world of that truly wretched and miserable BBC Music Magazine that, were it not printed on hard shiny paper, could have good employment in the bathroom. A world of mere 'opinions' without any room for analysis, reasoned judgment or real challenge to our minds and ears. It saddens (and infuriates) me much, for judged by what record companies release there are people out there who consider our beloved music the most noble thing and not at all a mere cosmetic trifle. When I was a wee lad hardly out of short pants I regularly listened to the Antony Hopkins 'Talking about Music' programmes. Wonderful stuff, illuminating without being unduly technical or erudite. But the current BBC would consider that sort of programme far too 'stuffy' and aimed solely at boring anoraks, and they would kid themselves that a public broadcasting service should far more 'inclusive' and not cater to minority tastes. Enough of the diatribe, I'm off to listen to some music!

Peter

[Alan Howe]

Briefly put, the problem is that the BBC merely reiterates and perpetuates the current majority consensus - which has set in stone the canon of 'great music' and therefore cannot even conceive of great music existing beyond its boundaries.

An interesting recent example is the inclusion in CD Review's 'Building a Library' of Suk's Asrael Symphony, a piece which was pretty well unknown 30 years ago (I remember attending a performance at Kings' College Cambridge as a student in the mid-seventies and wondering whether it would ever receive a modern recording). Now, I'm glad to see the admission of Suk's great work into this long-running series, but it is clear that the BBC has merely acknowledged a change of opinion with regard to a piece of music rather than having played any particular role in creating that change....

The really interesting question with regard to the Asrael Symphony is how this particular change has come about. Its reception (more or less) into the mainstream would make a fascinating case-study. Discuss...

[Jonathan]

I would agree that the BBC continues to perpetuate the better known works at the expense of other great unknown works.  The touble I think is that they think they know what we would like hear.  I've posted many times on the BBC messageboards myself (although it seems to have become a much more toxic environment these days) often to mention something obscure.  There are one or two people there who agree but many of them seem to enjoy discussing numerous recordings of already well estabilshed works or of new music.
I agree TTN is excellent, in places, but I am aware that much of the material is generated in Europe in collaberation with other European stations.  I used to enjoy In Tune when it had different presenters and also one off series such as "The Piano" which was excellent and included many obscure things I wanted to hear.  I feel the current regieme does not cater well for us obscure composer fans and seems intent on playing the same things over and over again.  In an effort to make my voice heard, I joined For3.

I am very disappointed with this years Proms schedule as well.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

One shouldn't, of course, anchor a general claim on a single phenomenon - but, yes, Alan, I agree with you fully. Sadly, the BBC can't be said to much progress our musical knowledge (or shake us out of complacency): it rather reflects what is fashionable and thereby, I suppose, pats itself on the back for delivering what the public wants. And that is surely not what the BBC should be doing.

And that great Suk masterpiece is an apt case in point. It was composed in 1905 (I believe, without having checked!), but then didn't really emerge into the English musical consciousness until about the early 1980s. And as far as I recall it wasn't the BBC that pushed into that status, but a series of distinguished recordings that have continued ever since (several are on my shelves, and each one is a stunner). So three cheers for the private record companies and nil praise for the BBC here.

But I'm going to stay on the lower slopes and not climb up higher and attempt an explanation of its reception from the 1980s onwards. But - and I don't intend to be trivial - the following comes to mind. First, 'Suk' unlike e.g. 'Stojowski' is an easy name to drop (and to spell); second, the symphony has a title (and cf the named symphonies of Haydn are, for good or ill, more memorable than 'Symphony No. 7 in E flat major'); third, and most important here, the work is always associated with the biographical circumstances of its composition and as, Schopenhauer pointed out, it is the dreadful and the tragic that fully impress themselves on the human mind and not the happy or joyful. In other words the PR departments of record companies have had a fairly easy time in selling records of the Asrael Symphony. I've never seen liner notes accompanying recordings of the work that don't tell us about the deaths of those close to Suk. And Mr Public thrives on it. Would the Symphony have achieved its present status had these three factors not been the case? I somehow doubt it, and the work would have continued its pre-1980 status and the BBC would have received a few postings from the enlightened pleading for a broadcast.

So Aunty Beeb has received quite a pasting in this thread. Anyone like to defend it?

Peter

[Pengelli]

No!

[eschiss1]

The imminent death (or deserved death) of Radio 3 has been declared repeatedly since late in the years of the Third Programme, I think, or at least early in the days of its transformation _into_ Radio 3. And that the early Radio 3 was a decline in interest and quality from the Third Programme seems borne out from radio schedules I've perused, if I'm not mistaken. It does keep getting marginally worse, unfortunately, from the POV of a specialist like me anyway... with each makeover and change. And yet: it's still better, for what little this says about it, than the majority of classical US stations I know of (though not better now, I think, than Concertzender Hilversum and some other stations in Europe.)
Eric

[giles.enders]

Don't get me started about the BBC and radio 3.  It has been run by trumped up petty H's since William Glock had control. On a number of occasions during his dictatorship I tried to get the audience figures at the proms for individual concerts for both paid tickets and listening figures.  I was always refused and the farce was that over the years the excuses changed.

I would also like to know how much is spent each year on commissioning new music and what the audience figures are for it.  I can say with certainty that the BBC has a very poor track record with spotting quality.  The challenge to them is this.  If the music commissioned from Glock's time onwards is so good let them dedicate peak airtime, two hours a week to hear it all again.

[John H White]

I remember in the "Good Old Days", when  the BBC Third program was still quite young, they were more inclined to introduce listeners to previously "unsung" composers from the past. Thus around 1948 they put on a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies. In response  to a letter from a lady printed in the Radio Times they then went on to do the same for the then equally unknown Bruckner.