Lyric fm's Breakfast show presenter - Marty Whelan.

TimmyTarmac

Well said Rebelheart!
I tuned into Mr. Whelan's show last Friday after 9 am having not listened in a number of months. To my dismay as well as all the jabbering and unbelieveable music sequences, we now must listen to Marty and celebrity chief, Neven Maguire talk cuisine.
Whatever about the quality of the conversation for about 10 minutes, once again Lyric goes after something which it has no business being involved. All that ****e is fine on afternoon TV or Radio 1, but not the Classical service of RTE Radio.
Things are gettin worse.

doomed

Rebelheart wrote: »

Just what, pray tell, is this? Really, I'm baffled. I haven't a note in my head and I'd obviously have no truck with undereducated anti-Irish peasants like the horrendous Marie-Louise O'Donnell who have notions about themselves and their knowledge of classical music. But really, what is this "golden circle of classical music"?

I love Lyric because it's different, different in the calming, soft, mellow sense with presenters who enlighten me about music, tell me about Bach cantatas on a Thursday night in St Ann's Church, about a harpist playing in Smarmore Castle, or about violinists playing in The Coach house, and so much more. It has nothing to do with paranoid concepts like "golden circles" but much to do with being tired of the sameness of commercial Irish radio stations and presenters who have an astounding misunderstanding of their own importance. Lyric offers difference on radio, but also opens me to a world of difference in many venues across Ireland.

Lyric, excluding the awfully talkative morning programme under discussion here and Gay Byrne's equally vacuous programme, is a break from everything else. The only station which provides a cultural alternative as "radical" (for want of a better word) is RnaG when it has discussion programmes, albeit in linguistic rather than musical terms.

Lyric may not be commercially popular but it has a huge value in Irish broadcasting terms. People of all ages and experiences can access it, and open their minds to rich cultural worlds at various times in their life. In its difference and depth, it has something real to give every Irish person at some stage in his or her life.

Great Post - I am not a music expert but I am open to learning and over the years Lyric FM and O'Brien on Song were the two sources of new music to me. I miss Jack O'Brien like a family member (dozens of great singers are now gone for ever) and now they are taking Lyric away by using it as a consolation prize for the B team and pub bores in search of an audience.

MadsL

+1 on that post.

There is an absolutely vibrant and incredibly exciting classical music scene in this country, I would love to see young musicians with the amazing energy and enthusiam of Clíodhna Ryan and Kate Ellis of www.kaleidoscopenight.com
given the opportunity to take MW's slot and really make it worth listening to.

Anyone who's ever been to a kaleidescope event knows how special they are - if they could transfer that energy to the radio, the show would win awards!

Move Marty back to Sunday's (only)

mbur

doomed wrote: »

Great Post - I am not a music expert but I am open to learning and over the years Lyric FM and O'Brien on Song were the two sources of new music to me. I miss Jack O'Brien like a family member (dozens of great singers are now gone for ever) and now they are taking Lyric away by using it as a consolation prize for the B team and pub bores in search of an audience.

Very well put, Lyric the last chance saloon. A friend of mine was commenting about how good Lyric was. She had it on all the time, except in the mornings, when it was 'rubbish'.

GSF

Based on the JNLR figures with Marty stuck at 21k, they should put Lorcan Murray on at breakfast as he has been getting 60k listeners on Weekend Drive

TimmyTarmac

He has actually added 2,000 listeners book-on-book, so maybe the show is gaining traction, as they might say.
It's still the least listened to daytime show on Lyric, as far as I can see.
While that fact should be noted, the listenership arguement is not the main one in my book.
It's about the reason for the very existence of Lyric - Arts and Music (mainly classical but with other specialist genres, Phil Collins not being one of them).

pugnax

For God's sake get rid of him! :eek: The man is an absolute jackanapes! I have to turn the feckin wireless off when I hear his voice. Give us more of the enchanting Cynthia Morahan!

pinkypinky

I hear there was no Marty this morning.
Does anyone know if this just a one off or is it worth retuning my radio for tomorrow?

johnnyk66

pinkypinky wrote: »

I hear there was no Marty this morning.
Does anyone know if this just a one off or is it worth retuning my radio for tomorrow?

Please please please let it be so:D

pugnax

I suppose we're being unkind to poor Marty... after all, he's as God made him...the trouble is... an oak tree is a lovely thing in its proper place, but you don't want one growing in a bed of roses.... just as we don't want a Marty in a 'classical' music station... root him out!

TimmyTarmac

That's a very good and fair point, Pugnax.
If he sat down and played mostly Classical (and not just the 'lollipops'), I could live with that. Unfortunaltely, Marty doesnt seem to be interested in doing that and he's being indulged in the Crossover, American songbook, crooner crap with no-one saying stop.
There is also the worrying trend of plugs for events he seems to be associated with or at the very least, invited to.
Recently, I hear him going on about a new Newbridge Silverware exhibition and what a great night the launch was. Between music and 2 mentions, the infomercial was about 5 minutes long.
Then, more recently, he played not one but THREE songs from the new musical about George Best, 'Dancing Feet' - running at the Grand Canal Theatre.
Those and weekly plugs for Chef Neven Maguire's place in Blacklion, Co. Cavan adds further murkiness to the Whelan incumbency on Lyric.
Bottom line: somebody or bodies are allowing this to continue every day.

HugoBradyBrown

I think that Marty is an excellent addition and leavening in Lyric FM, giving people a real and substantial alternative to Scary Radio One, and bringing an intelligent, compassionate and witty eye to bear on the issues that really matter to people. He combines his easy competence in the studio with a deep and comprehensive understanding of the music that people actually like to hear at the start of their day. The days he is away from his show, one might imagine that a coup d'etat had taken place, to hear the lugubrious and dreary heavy classical music that they mistakenly put on; Wagner and Brahms at 7.30 in the morning are too much for anyone in this timezone. It's more of John Barry's music, and of Rod Stewart's singing, and of young Neven Maguire's inspiring recipes that the nation needs. And what other presenter would be able to secure the generosity of Neven going on to an audio feed each and every Friday from wherever he is around the globe, or to get the young soprano Renee Fleming to expose herself to his gentle but searching questioning, or to have the superstar Martin Hayes drive from Feakle to Limerick to be interviewed on a wet Wednesday morning? The worry for the listenership, of course, is that Marty will be snapped up by another station, or rescheduled to a time of day when we cannot devote three hours to our listening pleasure. I think Marty has his hand on the carotid pulse of Ireland, and that 'no change' is the message that should be sent out loudly to the Head of Light Entertainment in Montrose.

Coriolanus

doomed

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I think that Marty is an excellent addition and leavening in Lyric FM, giving people a real and substantial alternative to Scary Radio One, and bringing an intelligent, compassionate and witty eye to bear on the issues that really matter to people. He combines his easy competence in the studio with a deep and comprehensive understanding of the music that people actually like to hear at the start of their day. The days he is away from his show, one might imagine that a coup d'etat had taken place, to hear the lugubrious and dreary heavy classical music that they mistakenly put on; Wagner and Brahms at 7.30 in the morning are too much for anyone in this timezone. It's more of John Barry's music, and of Rod Stewart's singing, and of young Neven Maguire's inspiring recipes that the nation needs. And what other presenter would be able to secure the generosity of Neven going on to an audio feed each and every Friday from wherever he is around the globe, or to get the young soprano Renee Fleming to expose herself to his gentle but searching questioning, or to have the superstar Martin Hayes drive from Feakle to Limerick to be interviewed on a wet Wednesday morning? The worry for the listenership, of course, is that Marty will be snapped up by another station, or rescheduled to a time of day when we cannot devote three hours to our listening pleasure. I think Marty has his hand on the carotid pulse of Ireland, and that 'no change' is the message that should be sent out loudly to the Head of Light Entertainment in Montrose.

You nearly had me there. You have to be careful with sarcasm though, too subtle and people might think you are serious. Fortunately the reference to "intelligent" saved the day.

Tzetze

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I think that Marty is an excellent addition and leavening in Lyric FM, giving people a real and substantial alternative to Scary Radio One, and bringing an intelligent, compassionate and witty eye to bear on the issues that really matter to people. He combines his easy competence in the studio with a deep and comprehensive understanding of the music that people actually like to hear at the start of their day. The days he is away from his show, one might imagine that a coup d'etat had taken place, to hear the lugubrious and dreary heavy classical music that they mistakenly put on; Wagner and Brahms at 7.30 in the morning are too much for anyone in this timezone. It's more of John Barry's music, and of Rod Stewart's singing, and of young Neven Maguire's inspiring recipes that the nation needs. And what other presenter would be able to secure the generosity of Neven going on to an audio feed each and every Friday from wherever he is around the globe, or to get the young soprano Renee Fleming to expose herself to his gentle but searching questioning, or to have the superstar Martin Hayes drive from Feakle to Limerick to be interviewed on a wet Wednesday morning? The worry for the listenership, of course, is that Marty will be snapped up by another station, or rescheduled to a time of day when we cannot devote three hours to our listening pleasure. I think Marty has his hand on the carotid pulse of Ireland, and that 'no change' is the message that should be sent out loudly to the Head of Light Entertainment in Montrose.

Welcome to boards, Marty.

HugoBradyBrown

And, indeed, only belatedly my attention was drawn to an extraordinary paragraph in the Irish Times a few weeks ago, where the radio critic took a swipe at the programme. What, I wonder do these people expect at this hour of the morning: the soporific conversation of the High Table in Trinity College Dublin? Here we all are, depending on Marty to lubricate our psyches as we try to come to grips with the day ahead, and we have intellectuals throwing stones at us. I think the nation would do much better by Marty Whelan in the morning than they might from a recitation of the table talk of, say, the late Professor Isaiah Berlin, and I know I speak for up to a million listeners in that. Those who still feel the need to have scary radio have Morning Ireland there for them at the touch of a button.

The infinitesimally small minority who crave Bartok or the Second Viennese School as dawn breaks may well be the people who have the leisured life that would allow them to put on a CD. We the common people will stick in our hordes with our tried and tested programme of Mantovani, Morricone, Einaudi, John Barry, Ó Súilleabháin and the Great American Songbook. And I think we can be recognised because we tend to have smiles on our faces and a song in our hearts!

johnnyk66

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

And, indeed, only belatedly my attention was drawn to an extraordinary paragraph in the Irish Times a few weeks ago, where the radio critic took a swipe at the programme. What, I wonder do these people expect at this hour of the morning: the soporific conversation of the High Table in Trinity College Dublin? Here we all are, depending on Marty to lubricate our psyches as we try to come to grips with the day ahead, and we have intellectuals throwing stones at us. I think the nation would do much better by Marty Whelan in the morning than they might from a recitation of the table talk of, say, the late Professor Isaiah Berlin, and I know I speak for up to a million listeners in that. Those who still feel the need to have scary radio have Morning Ireland there for them at the touch of a button.

The infinitesimally small minority who crave Bartok or the Second Viennese School as dawn breaks may well be the people who have the leisured life that would allow them to put on a CD. We the common people will stick in our hordes with our tried and tested programme of Mantovani, Morricone, Einaudi, John Barry, Ó Súilleabháin and the Great American Songbook. And I think we can be recognised because we tend to have smiles on our faces and a song in our hearts!

Pass the sick bag

TimmyTarmac

When he played Buddy Holly one morning this week, I was, of course, outraged (that's mostly why I listen these days!).
Then the wife says: "That's lovely, turn it up" and off she went to work with a smile on her face and a (Buddy Holly) song in her heart.
I was devastated.
Maybe Hugo is right, maybe he does speak for a million listeners and they want only this instant self-gratification.
Move over Bartok and make way for The Big Bopper!

mbur

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I think Marty has his hand on the carotid pulse of Ireland, and that 'no change' is the message that should be sent out loudly to the Head of Light Entertainment in Montrose.

Hugo! Do you know something? Who was talking about change?

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

We the common people will stick in our hordes with our tried and tested programme of Mantovani, Morricone, Einaudi, John Barry, Ó Súilleabháin and the Great American Songbook. And I think we can be recognised because we tend to have smiles on our faces and a song in our hearts!

You sound like a BBC world service type to me. Maybe the sort of listener that radio two should be courting. I would fully support Martie Getting Ryan Tubo's slot when it comes up. (Soon)

pugnax

"I think Marty has his hand on the carotid pulse of Ireland, and that 'no change' is the message that should be sent out loudly to the Head of Light Entertainment in Montrose."

I wish someone would get their hands on Marty's carotid.

Marty...er I mean Hugo... if you're not Marty, you're his brother..... or else he's paying you. Whoever you are, you obviously have a penchant for excrement.

Coleyoscar

I'm sure there's a place for Marty but it's not on Lyric. I've given up on the morning show unless he's on a break. Unfortunately he's the only genius in Montrose who doesn't seem to take three months off in the Summer.

doomed

I would be genuinely delighted to see Marty getting a daily slot on 2FM or Radio 1. However the RTE managers do not see him as good enough for their main shows. The see him as a lightweight bingo caller and while they like him they don't really respect him. He's like a cocker spaniel - you want to hug it and tickle its tummy but you wouldn't dream of letting it drive the car (a collie on the other hand will change the oil and plan your route).

But he's a nice guy and a pal so they fix him up with a gig on Lyric for which he is the least suitable person in the entire RTE stable. If RTE don't want to do a specialist music station then they should be honest and say so and not pretend to support it ("oh Lyric is a gem") while crapping all over it by giving airtime to people like Marty. While Gay Buyrne is such a windbag he should be reclassified as a musical instrument, he at least knows his old time jazz and swing.

Aglomerado

@doomed: While Gay Buyrne is such a windbag he should be reclassified as a musical instrument.
I had to thank your post for this comment alone. Bravo!

Rebelheart

TimmyTarmac wrote: »

If he sat down and played mostly Classical (and not just the 'lollipops'), I could live with that. Unfortunaltely, Marty doesnt seem to be interested in doing that and he's being indulged in the Crossover, American songbook, crooner crap with no-one saying stop.
There is also the worrying trend of plugs for events he seems to be associated with or at the very least, invited to.

Very well put, Timmy. If Marty must stay, can he not get a mood, a style, a feeling to the music he plays? The man is all over the shop - really, really spiritually and musically lost like a child experimenting with music for the first time with a "let's try this" approach to each song. There seems to be so, so little thought put into his choices, and absolutely no unifying strand in all this music.

This morning on the drive to work, for instance, I switched over and he was blaring out Holst. I gave it a miss but drifted back to Lyric when the usual "sport" dross on RTÉ Radio 1 and Newstalk came on at 8.35. Whelan was not talking - a rare experience in itself. He was, even more surprising, playing an extraordinary voice, a total contrast to Holst. It was this, a Maltese tenor whom I had never heard of by the name of Joseph Calleja. I felt elevated, like somebody who had just escaped into a world of bliss before the drudgery of a hard day's work. Then this glorious voice- this diamond in the rough of Lyric in the morning - stopped and the fucker started shíteing on like there was no tomorrow. It was a ferocious onslaught. He just went on, and on, and on - like all those Duracell Bunnies at once. With each syllable he demeaned those seraphic few minutes. I had to change the station as soon as it dawned on me that the more he talked the less I could hold that singing in my mind and remember that feeling. What he gave me with that song, he stole back with all his utterly superfluous, insensitive words. He seems to be wholly incapable of appreciating and being sensitive to beauty with silence or/and an appropriate, mellow mood.

Marty seems like a nice, decent, good man. Most people here seem to agree on that. However, there's an enormous mismatch in his radio persona as it currently stands and this slot on Lyric FM. I like him, but just not here at this time. Why does he talk so much? It's morning time, not carnival time. Why can't he listen to the music, feel it, be moved by it and be inspired by it in choosing the music that follows? Some semblance of a mood, a theme could then build up around his own distinctive classical music choices. As it stands the man - like Gay Byrne on Sundays - seems far too concerned with being the centre of his "show", with being a "personality", than being the mere conduit of great, inspiring, comforting music to us. There's far too much ego going on and far too little empathy with the music and with his audience (which is not, or at least was not, the same audience as enjoys the waffle on Joe Duffy or Derek Mooney).

Lyric used to have a sublime sense of grace - and that is precisely the word - in the morning. Waking up on a winter morning, feeling the crisp air and knowing I was going to get music in keeping with that was one of the nicest parts of the day. That morning synchronicity is no more, and Lyric and Irish radio has lost something ineffably precious in the process.

HugoBradyBrown

I would not wish to intrude excessively on the time or attention of the readers of this thread, but I feel that some things are being overlooked in a discussion that occasionally teeters on the brink of choleric excess.

Lyric FM is a service to the entire people of Ireland. It was not established as an exclusively classical music station; the size of the population of the country simply couldn't justify that. It must serve the tastes and needs of a diverse population, and it must respond dynamically and appropriately to changes in the wider audience. There is in this country at present a high incidence of severe and chronic depression, as the consequences of the insane economic policies pursued for a decade now have to be endured by the people. In a society where huge numbers of people are irredeemably ruined financially, anything of a cultural nature that can alleviate the symptoms of their loss should be welcomed. 'Marty in the Morning' has not emerged from a vacuum, but it must be a reasoned and intended response by RTE to an evident social need. Many tens of thousands of people have already turned away from news radio and talk radio, yet they are too old to listen to pop stations, and they find intense and serious classical music too much to cope with in the morning. Many of them may well be listeners to Nova on a Sunday evening, or to the evening concert broadcasts; but mornings are frequently the worst times for people.

Marty and his team are therefore like a dose of some palatable psychological medicine for such people. The music is varied and has a bias towards the cheerful. Marty's persona is one of energy and optimism, and it comes across to the listener as genuine, rather than contrived. He therefore is capable of engaging meaningfully with a cross-section of the radio audience in a way that would elude other presenters. The early hours of the day are, I believe, frequently when life is particularly difficult for people who have suffered psychological calamities, whether caused by financial disaster or medical problems or for other reasons. If Marty and his colleagues are able to put a smile on the faces of listeners, they are using radio well in the current circumstances. If they do this without having to resort to the mental roughage and austerity of 'serious classical music', there is no harm in this. And in any case, I would go so far as to say that, for linguistic virtuosity and for musical inventiveness, many of the disparaged composers of the Great American Songbook outweigh in their achievements those of many better-regarded composers, by certain yardsticks.

In summary, Marty is doing a fine job on behalf of the listenership, broadly considered, and, if, by doing so, he extends the audience for Lyric FM, this further validates RTE's expenditure of taxpayers' money on a minority service. It should have windows in its schedule to allow everyone to look at the full splendour of the recorded music of mankind. Doing this with a witty and highly engaging presenter is a bonus to us. If people were to find Lyric too elevated and unwelcoming for them, this would leave the station open to charges of elitism, and to being assailed by the 'cutters and slashers', who would leave nothing but mindless commercial pop music to dominate the airwaves. In short, Marty's work helps to justify what might seem to the paymasters of this world to be an unaffordable extravagance; in the long run, even those whose hearts lie with Beethoven's string quartets should be thankful that he is on the air.

doomed

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I would not wish to intrude excessively on the time or attention of the readers of this thread, but I feel that some things are being overlooked in a discussion that occasionally teeters on the brink of choleric excess.

Lyric FM is a service to the entire people of Ireland. It was not established as an exclusively classical music station; the size of the population of the country simply couldn't justify that. It must serve the tastes and needs of a diverse population, and it must respond dynamically and appropriately to changes in the wider audience. There is in this country at present a high incidence of severe and chronic depression, as the consequences of the insane economic policies pursued for a decade now have to be endured by the people. In a society where huge numbers of people are irredeemably ruined financially, anything of a cultural nature that can alleviate the symptoms of their loss should be welcomed. 'Marty in the Morning' has not emerged from a vacuum, but it must be a reasoned and intended response by RTE to an evident social need. Many tens of thousands of people have already turned away from news radio and talk radio, yet they are too old to listen to pop stations, and they find intense and serious classical music too much to cope with in the morning. Many of them may well be listeners to Nova on a Sunday evening, or to the evening concert broadcasts; but mornings are frequently the worst times for people.

Marty and his team are therefore like a dose of some palatable psychological medicine for such people. The music is varied and has a bias towards the cheerful. Marty's persona is one of energy and optimism, and it comes across to the listener as genuine, rather than contrived. He therefore is capable of engaging meaningfully with a cross-section of the radio audience in a way that would elude other presenters. The early hours of the day are, I believe, frequently when life is particularly difficult for people who have suffered psychological calamities, whether caused by financial disaster or medical problems or for other reasons. If Marty and his colleagues are able to put a smile on the faces of listeners, they are using radio well in the current circumstances. If they do this without having to resort to the mental roughage and austerity of 'serious classical music', there is no harm in this. And in any case, I would go so far as to say that, for linguistic virtuosity and for musical inventiveness, many of the disparaged composers of the Great American Songbook outweigh in their achievements those of many better-regarded composers, by certain yardsticks.

In summary, Marty is doing a fine job on behalf of the listenership, broadly considered, and, if, by doing so, he extends the audience for Lyric FM, this further validates RTE's expenditure of taxpayers' money on a minority service. It should have windows in its schedule to allow everyone to look at the full splendour of the recorded music of mankind. Doing this with a witty and highly engaging presenter is a bonus to us. If people were to find Lyric too elevated and unwelcoming for them, this would leave the station open to charges of elitism, and to being assailed by the 'cutters and slashers', who would leave nothing but mindless commercial pop music to dominate the airwaves. In short, Marty's work helps to justify what might seem to the paymasters of this world to be an unaffordable extravagance; in the long run, even those whose hearts lie with Beethoven's string quartets should be thankful that he is on the air.

Oh God. I know I shouldn't.
Originally I thought you were extracting the urine, and in fairness to your literate posts you may still be, but just in case you are not and really agree with what is being posted in your name:-

Lyric is a small, peaceful, predominantly classical station and for each of your fellow patients who finds solace in Mantovani or the "great" american songbook there is another poor creature whose morning oasis of calm is being destroyed by a human chainsaw.

I have a compromise. Like that annoying relative for whom we all feel responsible, lets share him. Lyric had done its two years. Give him a slot on Radio 1 next year followed by 2fm and then Radio na gaeltachta (Mairtí ar maidin). Even if you are a fan you have to admit that it is selfish of Lyric to keep this giant of the airwaves to itself. You have referred to him as a dose (we agree on something). Surely a dose is for sharing or otherwise the whole field of epidemiology is wasted.

Take him home Hugo.

TimmyTarmac

Couple of things re:Hugo. Firstly, I believe I recognise Hugo's name as a regular contributor of 'witty' correspondance which Marty reads out in his faux Terry Wogan style on the Lyric breakfast show. If I'm wrong, okay, but I strongly believe I'm right.
So you have something invested in this musical train-wreck, Hugo. Good for you if you think Marty and yourself should be given one minute of State sponsored time on the national music and arts service for your or his indulgence - but I don't. That's not what Lyric is for.
In 4 years, as for as I can see, Marty Whelan's programmes have not added any new volume of listeners to Lyric, so if listeners are turning away from talk and speech programmes to the likes of Marty, the evidence is simply not there in the JNLR listeners numbers. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.
As for having windows in it's schedule for the full splendour of recorded music etc. - Jazz Alley, Reels to Ragas, John Kelly, and Blue of the Night come from the top of my head. All more knowledgable presenters than the bould Marty. As for Marty being highly engaging, well, that's a matter of opinion.

Glen Campbell, The Beatles, Harry Connick Jnr et al and indeed 'funny' correspondance can be found on the likes of 4 FM and 2Fm and at times on Radio One. That's where Marty belongs. In my view this messing weakens, rather than strenghtens, Lyric's claim for public funding.

HoseaGray2011

I hear there was no Marty this morning.

Almaviva

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I would not wish to intrude excessively on the time or attention of the readers of this thread.......even those whose hearts lie with Beethoven's string quartets should be thankful that he is on the air.

Hugo, your post strikes me as too bizarre to be made by someone without an interest or link to M Whelan and/or Lyric, and not simply a disinterrested audience member.

Please declare any relationships.

doomed

Almaviva wrote: »

Hugo, your post strikes me as too bizarre to be made by someone without an interest or link to M Whelan and/or Lyric, and not simply a disinterrested audience member.

Please declare any relationships.

Thanks Almaviva. I initially thought these flowery posts were a pisstake on the basis that it was difficult to imagine somebody not on medication thinking Marty was a wit or that classical music stations should not play classical music.