Lyric FM (Nova)

MadsL

What the hell is RTÉ's problem with Bernard Clarke?

To my mind one of the most exciting shows broadcast on Lyric, first gets cut to one measly hour from three making Bernard Clarke's job 3 times more difficult (what to leave out)

Then when he picks up a Silver award at the PPI and gets nominated for the Prix Europa, they snub his show on the RTÉ Radio Player, showing up on the schedule with no 'listen again' GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! I know he has the feature on the Nova website but it is a piece of crap stream barely suitable for voice never mind contemporary classical.

Absolute disgrace the way a man with his talent is being treated by these clowns. I hope Radio 3 snap him up.

Dirigent

He refused to listen to MITM!

TimmyTarmac

Yeah, would agree with ya, MadsL. Bernard Clarke knows his onions on many things musical, but especially in the field of Contemporary Music - Irish and abroad.
He has picked up many awards and provides coverage of an area of music that just would not be featured anywhere else.
Also, Nova goes out on a Sunday night. It's not like there's great pressure to gain audience at that time in radio. They should have left Nova alone.
Sadly, it is yet more evidence of an abandonment of the core principles that underpinned the setting up of Lyric in the first place.
Let's hope for a change of heart.

HugoBradyBrown

Dirigent wrote: »

He refused to listen to MITM!

Bernard Clarke's is developing into a very fine radio voice. His 'Nova' programme is an addition to the high culture end of RTE Lyric FM, but the view is that it was too concentrated into one corner of the schedule, and that it was acting as a fire-break on audiences that would otherwise stick with the service until the start of The Blue. Sunday is a difficult day for schedulers at the best of times, and several trials have been undertaken. In any case, it is possible to provide the same level of public service in such minority interest subjects as contemporary art music in a shorter timeslot, notably by playing shorter extracts, or by directing listeners to other websites where the tunes can be heard. It will not have escaped listeners' attention that much contemporary music is repetitive, and so no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning. Listener responses to such music sometimes allude to the 'irritation of iteration', or words to that effect.

You can be assured that Mr Clarke's personal taste for MITM was immaterial in all decisions. It might also interest readers to know that in fact he has shown himself to be at home with the meat-and-drink of RTE Lyric FM, 'all kinds of music', and that he has proved capable of appealing to audiences throughout the schedule, whether in opera broadcasts, in 'rock-and-roll-type' music, in contemporary art music or in the genuinely popular classical / easy listening repertoire.

As with all the RTE Lyric FM presenters, because of his wide knowledge of music (expecially on the classical side of the house), there is the usual concern that Mr Clarke might be tempted over the water. For this reason, it is imperative that listeners and management ensure that his voice is out there in all strands of the output.


Hugo Brady Brown

TimmyTarmac

but the view is that it was too concentrated into one corner of the schedule, and that it was acting as a fire-break on audiences that would otherwise stick with the service until the start of The Blue.

Now, MadsL, there you go. Hugo seems to speak for the management of the station, so there's no need to complain to RTE. That's handy now, isn't it.

It will not have escaped listeners' attention that much contemporary music is repetitive, and so no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning.

And management thinks this that aul Contemporary stuff is crap anyway, so cut away!

Bernard Clarke's is developing into a very fine radio voice.

And management of Lyric, through their representative on Boards, sound like a right shower of patronising tools.

MadsL

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Bernard Clarke's is developing into a very fine radio voice. His 'Nova' programme is an addition to the high culture end of RTE Lyric FM, but the view is that it was too concentrated into one corner of the schedule, and that it was acting as a fire-break on audiences that would otherwise stick with the service until the start of The Blue. Sunday is a difficult day for schedulers at the best of times, and several trials have been undertaken. In any case, it is possible to provide the same level of public service in such minority interest subjects as contemporary art music in a shorter timeslot, notably by playing shorter extracts, or by directing listeners to other websites where the tunes can be heard. It will not have escaped listeners' attention that much contemporary music is repetitive, and so no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning. Listener responses to such music sometimes allude to the 'irritation of iteration', or words to that effect.

You can be assured that Mr Clarke's personal taste for MITM was immaterial in all decisions. It might also interest readers to know that in fact he has shown himself to be at home with the meat-and-drink of RTE Lyric FM, 'all kinds of music', and that he has proved capable of appealing to audiences throughout the schedule, whether in opera broadcasts, in 'rock-and-roll-type' music, in contemporary art music or in the genuinely popular classical / easy listening repertoire.

As with all the RTE Lyric FM presenters, because of his wide knowledge of music (expecially on the classical side of the house), there is the usual concern that Mr Clarke might be tempted over the water. For this reason, it is imperative that listeners and management ensure that his voice is out there in all strands of the output.


Hugo Brady Brown

Hugo, many thanks for your reply. I have no idea if you are in any way connected with Lyric but if you are I would be deeply concerned at your use of the phrase 'minority interest' when it comes to 20th & 21st Century Composers and 'modern music'. I'm sure there would be uproar about other shows if, for example, MITM played just a snippet of Ravel's Boléro because it is, after all, "quite repetitive!". I also chuckled when John Kelly once said that "that's on one of the only three Mozart CD's you need!"

Your suggestion that "no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning" is absolutely abhorant, perhaps the smile is the only pertinant portion of the Mona Lisa and the painting should be "judiciously pruned" to save space.

In any case, it is possible to provide the same level of public service in such minority interest subjects as contemporary art music in a shorter timeslot

What logical nonsense is this? Could the fire brigade manage with fewer fire engines by telling callers where to find buckets?

BC does a fabulous job of 'pruning' because he now forced to. You say...

His 'Nova' programme is an addition to the high culture end of RTE Lyric FM, but the view is that it was too concentrated into one corner of the schedule, and that it was acting as a fire-break on audiences that would otherwise stick with the service until the start of The Blue.

I'd very much like to know where this 'high-culture' has been moved to...off the schedule it seems. RTÉ commissions are all well and good and a fantastic support for Irish Contemporary Composers - but they need a show to air them.

I'd love to see a show in the schedule for the likes of Kate and Clíona from Kaleidoscope Night, doing a fantastic job of curating everything from Early Music to World Premieres. Great charismas and both of them together on radio would be an amazing and entertaining show.

It speaks volumes about the management of the station that BC is now crammed into a mere hour on a Sunday lest we prevent the listener from drifting off to sleep with his fix of jazz standards and easy listening. I'd love to know who all of these avid Blue of the Night listeners are that are switching off in droves because of BC. If that is the case, then why not move BC to late night sunday and run his show at 10pm - 1am? Or early evening 6pm - 9pm? Doesn't Blue of the Night run 7 days? Why not sacrifice a Sunday slot to Nova?

As to MITM, I have to share an anecdote - the day after the Dublin floods, Marty waffled on about the flooding and then played, with an intro that somehow deemed it appropriate, Vivaldi's "Spring" - what planet is he on?

This, not for the first time, prompted me switching off.

HugoBradyBrown

MadsL wrote: »

Hugo, many thanks for your reply. I have no idea if you are in any way connected with Lyric but if you are I would be deeply concerned at your use of the phrase 'minority interest' when it comes to 20th & 21st Century Composers and 'modern music'. I'm sure there would be uproar about other shows if, for example, MITM played just a snippet of Ravel's Boléro because it is, after all, "quite repetitive!"

This is a personal aesthetic judgement, but while I turn the radio off to protect myself against very little music, I make it an absolute rule to do anything I can to avoid hearing that Boléro, which is such a vapid piece that I would have to be convinced that Ravel didn't write it as an Emperor's New Clothes taunt to the musical establishment, much like Shostakovich and his grotesque Tahiti Trot, or some of the joke operas of Gerald Barry, or the work of John Cage. (Musical 'trolling' is what I might call it.)

MadsL wrote: »

I also chuckled when John Kelly once said that "that's on one of the only three Mozart CD's you need!"

The logic of John's wise statement may be clearer than one thinks; not just because CDs are old technology, already being superseded, but, if we remember, say, Benjamin Britten, whose name would probably figure on any list of the 10 Greatest Composers of the 20th Century, we can sense the potentially baleful influence that an excess of recorded music can have on real talent. His mum refused to allow a gramophone into the house during his childhood, in case it might pollute his personal musical creativity. This apparent limitation forced mother and son into close companionship on the piano stool, playing through "pf 4-Hands" reductions of everything from Mozart and Haydn to Verdi and Wagner, with the notable omission of Brahms (with results that are clearly to be heard in his Britten's music to the end of his creative life, most particularly in his harmonic elaborations and in his sound world). The consequences of all this are clear: ideal parent-child bonding at the familial level, to be sure, but also, a flood of the finest creativity in fully fledged 20th Century compositional modes. In Britten's case, three childhood Mozart CD's might have turned out to have been too much, rather than just sufficient, had he been so misfortunate as to have had them.

MadsL wrote: »

Your suggestion that "no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning" is absolutely abhorant, perhaps the smile is the only pertinant portion of the Mona Lisa and the painting should be "judiciously pruned" to save space.

What logical nonsense is this? Could the fire brigade manage with fewer fire engines by telling callers where to find buckets?

BC does a fabulous job of 'pruning' because he now forced to. You say...

Analogical reasoning of this kind doesn't get us very far. Who could compare a finished work of the highest artistic quality with the squeaks, scrapes and shakes of so much 21st century music? Indeed, such music attempts to make a virtue of its 'sampling' of the rich deposit of pre-existing music, so it must itself be in principle rather fractured, rather fragmentary, rather collage-like stuff, readily boiled down or excerpted without losing any of the sense or structure of the whole. As one woman said to me once in the Hugh Lane Gallery, one knows that most modern compositions are finished only by the sight of the musicians putting down their instruments. In other words, contemporary music is long on sound effects and weak on evident structure, tonality and cadence.

MadsL wrote: »

I'd very much like to know where this 'high-culture' has been moved to...off the schedule it seems. RTÉ commissions are all well and good and a fantastic support for Irish Contemporary Composers - but they need a show to air them.

I'd love to see a show in the schedule for the likes of Kate and Clíona from Kaleidoscope Night, doing a fantastic job of curating everything from Early Music to World Premieres. Great charismas and both of them together on radio would be an amazing and entertaining show.

It speaks volumes about the management of the station that BC is now crammed into a mere hour on a Sunday lest we prevent the listener from drifting off to sleep with his fix of jazz standards and easy listening. I'd love to know who all of these avid Blue of the Night listeners are that are switching off in droves because of BC. If that is the case, then why not move BC to late night sunday and run his show at 10pm - 1am? Or early evening 6pm - 9pm? Doesn't Blue of the Night run 7 days? Why not sacrifice a Sunday slot to Nova?

There is an evident difficulty with 'placing' something like Nova in the schedule; it is something like Gloria in this regard, loved by those who like it but strong meat for the majority who don't. (What is it Muriel Spark's Jean Brodie says? "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.") Even so delightful a programme as Gloria has regressed into the early hours on Sundays, since it had proved to be rebarbative to the mass of the listeners and advertisers.

Normal listeners will never come to terms with programmes which appeal primarily to musical practitioners and to music lecturers. We cannot afford to devote scarce resources in easy listening time slots to an audience that could be measured realistically in the hundreds, if even that high. This kind of music is akin to research work, not to enjoyment. Those with recherché interests would probably recognise the equity in requiring them to go an extra mile in pursuit of their interests. Some thought has been given to scheduling Nova or its successor during the night, and thus appealing either to out-and-out night owls, or to those who would be prepared to go to the bother of listening to it by time-shifting online. This would tick the box of providing an outlet to modern music that nobody much listens to anyway, while also not affronting the payers of the TV tax.

Given that all those who appreciate either esoteric or barbarous 21st century music (most of it destined to be forgotten after its first performance, let us not forget) possess high-end audio equipment, it will be no particular burden to them to listen online. It is the ordinary listener, depending on the tranny in the kitchen, or the i-walkman on the bus, who deserves to have her or his evening spent without its being spoiled by dissonance and clatter. On a Sunday evening, the mind's ear turns in memory to Your Choice & Mine, to O'Brien On Song and to Music for Middlebrows, and expects similar service even today.

MadsL wrote: »

As to MITM, I have to share an anecdote - the day after the Dublin floods, Marty waffled on about the flooding and then played, with an intro that somehow deemed it appropriate, Vivaldi's "Spring" - what planet is he on?

This, not for the first time, prompted me switching off.

I am always chary of mentioning MITM, but since you take the point up, I have to say that Marty's logic will have been along the lines of Shelley's "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" A beaming expression of hope, that piece by Vivaldi, the Red Priest, as Marty calls him sometimes.

And, incidentally, Marty soothed the dampened nation throughout the programme - and it was a credit to him and to the whole team to have waded in as far as the studio in the aftermath of a monsoon - and, amongst other things, he very sensibly warned listeners to beware of situations where they might be driving along happily and dry, only to turn a corner and face a flood. It reminded me, in fact, of Gay's public service messages about safe and considerate road use, sentiments that stand out like pearls in the smooth velvet texture of his lovely, lovely Sunday broadcasts.

And, as those who heard it will recall, this morning Marty was so very complimentary to the staff of the shopping centre, who had managed to open up almost the entirety of the retail experience by today, and who had banded together to provide a voucher for What Are We Talking About. Stout fellows!

Hugo Brady Brown

MadsL

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

This is a personal aesthetic judgement, but while I turn the radio off to protect myself against very little music, I make it an absolute rule to do anything I can to avoid hearing that Boléro,

Ironic that the Lyric show most likely to play it is MITM

which is such a vapid piece that I would have to be convinced that Ravel didn't write it as an Emperor's New Clothes taunt to the musical extablishment, much like Shostakovich and his grotesque Tahiti Trot, or some of the joke operas of Gerald Barry, or the work of John Cage. (Musical 'trolling' is what I might call it.)

You are aware it was written as a ballet piece? I have never seen the ballet perfomed but would be very interested to do so. As regards to vapid, I would agree, were it not for the E Major key change which elevates it hugely in my regard. As a ballet piece it is as 'vapid' the Nutcracker, no? Or overexposure fades even the greatest works perhaps...?

The logic of John's wise statement may be clearer than one thinks; not just because CDs are old technology, already being superseded, but, if we remember, say, Benjamin Britten, whose name would probably figure on any list of the 10 Greatest Composers of the 20th Century, we can sense the potentially baleful influence that an excess of recorded music can have on real talent. His mum refused to allow a gramophone into the house during his childhood, in case it might pollute his personal musical creativity. This apparent limitation forced mother and son into close companionship on the piano stool, playing through "pf 4-Hands" reductions of everything from Mozart and Haydn to Verdi and Wagner, with the notable omission of Brahms (with results that are clearly to be heard in his Britten's music to the end of his creative life, most particularly in his harmonic elaborations and in his sound world). The consequences of all this are clear: ideal parent-child bonding at the familial level, to be sure, but also, a flood of the finest creativity in fully fledged 20th Century compositional modes. In Britten's case, three childhood Mozart CD's might have turned out to have been too much, rather than just sufficient, had he been so misfortunate as to have had them.

Having grown up in a household of Mozart, Verdi and Vivaldi I'm sorry my parents didn't have a similar view as Britten's mum.

Analogical reasoning of this kind doesn't get us very far. Who could compare a finished work of the highest artistic quality with the squeaks, scrapes and shakes of so much 21st century music.

Now you are being cartoonish, even leaving aside the movie soundtrack merchants, there is a strongly lyrical quality to much of the output from the likes of John Adams, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, and Arvo Pärt. To childishly characterise all modern music as Stockhausen-esque is rather suprising from someone of your intellectual calibre. As a side note I do however chuckle at the attributed quote from Sir Thomas Beeham.

"Have you ever conducted any Stockhausen, Sir Thomas?"
"No, but I once trod in some."

Indeed, such music attempts to make a virtue of its 'sampling' of the rich deposit of pre-existing music,.

And the canon of classical music was never self-referential and 'sampling' over the 18th & 19th centuries. Oh, do me a favour.

so it must itself be in principle rather fractured, rather fragmentary, rather collage-like stuff, readily boiled down or excerpted without losing any of the sense or structure of the whole.

You have listened to works by John Adams haven't you? Just checking.

As one woman said to me once in the Hugh Lane Gallery, one knows that most modern compositions are finished only by the sight of the musicians putting down their instruments.

Yes, one must ask these modern artists to hang their work on the damn walls where they belong as well.

In other words, contemporary music is long on sound effects and weak on evident structure, tonality and cadence.

Sorry, I don't know where to begin with this; are you "musically trolling". To draw another visual arts analogy that is akin to saying Jackson Pollack drew trees badly...:rolleyes: I'm sorry, but at the risk of offending you, you don't know what you are talking about.

There is an evident difficulty with 'placing' something like Nova in the schedule; it is something like Gloria in this regard, loved by those who like it but strong meat for the majority who don't. (What is it Muriel Spark's Jean Brodie says? "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.") Even so delightful a programme as Gloria has regressed into the early hours on Sundays, since it had proved to be rebarbative to the mass of the listeners and advertisers.

Again with the voice of the majority. The RTÉ Living Music festival in 2008 was a complete sellout, and previous years festivals also completely sold out - The Reich festival for instance. Crash Ensemble shows regularly sell out, got a great response at the Electric Picnic in 2010 and there is a strong youth audience for the NCH whenever contemporary programmes are scheduled. Ireland has a fantastically strong contemporary music scene. Look at Louth Contemporary Music Society, getting audiences in Dundalk for world-class composers and musicians: Glass, Tavener, Riley, Pärt, Knaifel etc. Extraordinary responses for a provincial music society.

I'm sure NCH audience numbers would be significantly greater if the 'Brahms and Beethoven only' blue-rinse brigade were less obviously 'I know what I like' about it all. John Kelly serves a valuable service in that regard as a 'cross-over' broadcaster.

Normal listeners will never come to terms with programmes which appeal primarily to musical practitioners and to music lecturers.

That is absolute tosh. I am neither a practitioner nor a lecturer. BC and Lyric have opened up for me a whole world of contemporary music - I'm hugely grateful for that and Lyric would be absolutely failing in its remit by cutting off the playlist anything after (or including?) Stravinsky.

We cannot afford to devote scarce resources in easy listening time slots to an audience that could be measured realistically in the hundreds, if even that high.

Do you have a source for those listenership figures by show? Or is that just your biased estimation?

This kind of music is akin to research work, not to enjoyment.

:rolleyes:

Those with recherché interests would probably recognise the equity in requiring them to go an extra mile in pursuit of their interests. Some thought has been given to scheduling Nova or its successor during the night, and thus appealing either to out-and-out night owls, or to those who would be prepared to go to the bother of listening to it by time-shifting online. This would tick the box of providing an outlet to modern music that nobody much listens to anyway, while also not affronting the payers of the TV tax.

Excuse me. I pay a licence fee. At the moment that fee is going towards paying absurd salaries including your beloved MW who gets 15 hours of airtime a week. At the moment, those who appreciate something a little more stimulating than Matt Munro should at least get more than the scraps from the table.

Given that all those who appreciate either esoteric or barbarous 21st century music

Hmm, esoteric or barbarous, esoteric or barbarous...I think I mostly like esoteric, but with a side of barbarous. No other choices in there...

(most of it destined to be forgotten after its first performance, let us not forget)

You mean like Gustav Holst's Nunc Dimittis (not performed for 40 years) or Respighi's Fountains of Rome.

possess high-end audio equipment, it will be no particular burden to them to listen online.

Go and look at the bitrate that Nova is broadcast in, barely suitable for speech - all the high-end audio equipment in the world won't save that stream. It has also been overlooked in the new player..although the Head of Lyric assures me it is on the way.

It is the ordinary listener, depending on the tranny in the kitchen, or the i-walkman on the bus, who deserves to have her or his evening spent without its being spoiled by dissonance and clatter.

Whereas the morning listener is spoiled by insipidness and chatter??

On a Sunday evening, the mind's ear turns in memory to Your Choice & Mine, to O'Brien On Song and to Music for Middlebrows, and expects similar service even today.

When did Sunday become a compulsory throwback to the 1950s?

I am always chary of mentioning MITM, but since you take the point up, I have to say that Marty's logic will have been along the lines of Shelley's "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" A beaming expression of hope, that piece by Vivaldi, the Red Priest, as Marty calls him sometimes
And, incidentally, Marty soothed the dampened nation throughout the programme - and it was a credit to him and to the whole team to have waded in as far as the studio in the aftermath of a monsoon - and, amongst other things, he very sensibly warned listeners to beware of situations where they might be driving along happily and dry, only to turn a corner and face a flood..

Hence playing "The Limpid Stream", Stormy Weather, Thunder and Lightning Polka, Moon River, Wooden Ships II, Don't Get Around Much Anymore.

Rather rubbed it in don't you think?

It reminded me, in fact, of Gay's public service messages about safe and considerate road use, sentiments that stand out like pearls in the smooth velvet texture of his lovely, lovely Sunday broadcasts.

Don't get me started on that particular show.

HugoBradyBrown

You're joking, of course? You mean the truck driver's modulation towards the end? (A stretch of that epic in monotony I rarely have to endure, happily. Prevention is better than cure in the case of Ravel's Bolero. )

Hugo Brady Brown

MadsL wrote: »

Ironic that the Lyric show most likely to play it is MITM


You are aware it was written as a ballet piece? I have never seen the ballet perfomed but would be very interested to do so. As regards to vapid, I would agree, were it not for the E Major key change which elevates it hugely in my regard. As a ballet piece it is as 'vapid' the Nutcracker, no? Or overexposure fades even the greatest works perhaps...?

MadsL

Hugo, is that you?? A short pithy response?

(feints)

HugoBradyBrown

MadsL wrote: »

Hugo, is that you?? A short pithy response?

(feints)

Indeed, MadsL, it is I: be not afraid!

Pithy, perhaps, but once I get back to the iMac and away from this iPad, I shall take the pith from the rest of the previous post, in the most kindly spirit, and in the best possible taste!:)

All the best,

Hugo

Hugo Brady Brown

MadsL

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Indeed, MadsL, it is I: be not afraid!

Pithy, perhaps, but once I get back to the iMac and away from this iPad, I shall take the pith from the rest of the previous post, in the most kindly spirit, and in the best possible taste!:)
All the best,

Hugo

Hugo Brady Brown

Thank you... (conjures image of Kenny Everett) (feints once more)

HugoBradyBrown

MadsL wrote: »

Thank you... (conjures image of Kenny Everett) (feints once more)

"Collapse of Stout Party", perhaps, MadsL?

Hugo



Hugo Brady Brown

MadsL

Cryptic? How many letters?

Edit: Ah! - anagram...topical too.

Party Touts is it not?

Edit2: Actually looks up "Collapse of Stout Party".

...No fear of that..

Bernard Clarke

...the view is that it was too concentrated into one corner of the schedule, and that it was acting as a fire-break on audiences that would otherwise stick with the service until the start of The Blue


Is that so? And whose view exactly was that? It was the exact opposite.

In any case, it is possible to provide the same level of public service in such minority interest subjects as contemporary art music in a shorter timeslot, notably by playing shorter extracts, or by directing listeners to other websites where the tunes can be heard.

Nonsense

It will not have escaped listeners' attention that much contemporary music is repetitive, and so no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning. Listener responses to such music sometimes allude to the 'irritation of iteration', or words to that effect.

Judicious pruning? I suggest you get on to the CMC website and contact just the composers represented there and posit judicious pruning to them.
Two programmes attracted a consistent audience, one that actually grew in listenership size while the programme was being broadcast: Lorcan Murray's Weekend Drive, and Nova

HugoBradyBrown

Bernard Clarke wrote: »

...the view is that it was too concentrated into one corner of the schedule, and that it was acting as a fire-break on audiences that would otherwise stick with the service until the start of The Blue


Is that so? And whose view exactly was that? It was the exact opposite.

In any case, it is possible to provide the same level of public service in such minority interest subjects as contemporary art music in a shorter timeslot, notably by playing shorter extracts, or by directing listeners to other websites where the tunes can be heard.

Nonsense

It will not have escaped listeners' attention that much contemporary music is repetitive, and so no violence is done to it by some judicious pruning. Listener responses to such music sometimes allude to the 'irritation of iteration', or words to that effect.

Judicious pruning? I suggest you get on to the CMC website and contact just the composers represented there and posit judicious pruning to them.
Two programmes attracted a consistent audience, one that actually grew in listenership size while the programme was being broadcast: Lorcan Murray's Weekend Drive, and Nova

Bernard, nice to hear from the talent themselves, I must say!

An hour of Nova will give as much substance as two hours, with sensitive editing, and, indeed, will be more likely to get a foot in the door of the audience's attention. All music can do with pruning: consider, for example, in the case of great composers, how much Bruckner was improved by editing; think of what Brahms gained; imagine what might have been made of Liszt if he had only had had the attention of a blue pencil; think of how Schumann might have been edited into some form of symphonic structure by some sure hand on his tiller; conjure up for yourself a Debussy with the corners knocked off him; imagine Ravel if he had kepy the joke short in his banal Bolero; think of Havergal Brian. In the case of lesser figures, the rule applies a fortiori: think of Glass, where one quarter hour is much like another. And as we decline down the scale of the up-and-coming figures of today, a simple temporal sample of their sedulously repetitive work is generally all that can be borne, by even the most sensitive, cultivated and well-intentioned listener.

But, of course, as was the case in the 18th and 19th century as well, there will continue to be the useful needle in the haystack of contemporary music, the glitter of the flecks of gold in the pan of mud and sand, the occasional nightingale in the cacophony of meretricious mundanity. We, the earnest but simple listeners, depend on the presenters and producers of high quality radio, such as RTE Lyric FM, to sift for us, to point up the wheat, but also to give us some extracts from the chaff, to show what we ought to be happy to avoid.




Hugo Brady Brown

MadsL

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Bernard, nice to hear from the talent themselves, I must say!

An hour of Nova will give as much substance as two hours, with sensitive editing,

Hugo, I'd like to know how you survive on what you eat? - By your spartan philosophy surely eating a small biscuit provides as much sustenance as a large meal...or does that philosophy only extend to things you dislike?

...and, indeed, will be more likely to get a foot in the door of the audience's attention.

As part of Bernard's audience may I say quite clearly and loudly that he already HAD my attention; what I would like to be returned from Lyric's 'judicious pruning' is the additional 2 hours that until recently Bernard and his audience enjoyed.

All music can do with pruning: consider, for example, in the case of great composers, how much Bruckner was improved by editing; think of what Brahms gained; imagine what might have been made of Liszt if he had only had had the attention of a blue pencil; think of how Schumann might have been edited into some form of symphonic structure by some sure hand on his tiller; conjure up for yourself a Debussy with the corners knocked off him; imagine Ravel if he had kepy the joke short in his banal Bolero; think of Havergal Brian. In the case of lesser figures, the rule applies a fortiori: think of Glass, where one quarter hour is much like another. And as we decline down the scale of the up-and-coming figures of today, a simple temporal sample of their sedulously repetitive work is generally all that can be borne, by even the most sensitive, cultivated and well-intentioned listener.

But, of course, as was the case in the 18th and 19th century as well, there will continue to be the useful needle in the haystack of contemporary music, the glitter of the flecks of gold in the pan of mud and sand, the occasional nightingale in the cacophony of meretricious mundanity. We, the earnest but simple listeners, depend on the presenters and producers of high quality radio, such as RTE Lyric FM, to sift for us, to point up the wheat, but also to give us some extracts from the chaff, to show what we ought to be happy to avoid.

As far as this goes....I'm not going to bother; I wouldn't know where to begin, much less finish, arguing this point with you. However, if you are an avid reader I have some suggestions for bedtime reading where the editor follows your line of thinking...they used to be popular, not so much now for some reason..can't think why..

HugoBradyBrown

MadsL wrote: »

Hugo, I'd like to know how you survive on what you eat? - By your spartan philosophy surely eating a small biscuit provides as much sustenance as a large meal...or does that philosophy only extend to things you dislike?



As part of Bernard's audience may I say quite clearly and loudly that he already HAD my attention; what I would like to be returned from Lyric's 'judicious pruning' is the additional 2 hours that until recently Bernard and his audience enjoyed.






As far as this goes....I'm not going to bother; I wouldn't know where to begin, much less finish, arguing this point with you. However, if you are an avid reader I have some suggestions for bedtime reading where the editor follows your line of thinking...they used to be popular, not so much now for some reason..can't think why..

I would in fact amplify my earlier point about editing. That rabidly reactionary American publication you have commended is, with the greatest possible respect and without putting too fine a point on it, not in the same domain of critical and editing practice as I was suggesting. It was a mere condenser of books into a 'long summary' of their plots, where people wished to imagine themselves to be 'readers', but who found the activity tiresome. (Seeing so many people sleeping in concert halls often makes me suspect that an analogous self-delusion reigns in relation to the consumption of 'classical music', but that is by the way.)

My suggestion is similar to what was done with the literary work of Raymond Carver. An editor silently brought the mass of draft material produced by the writer under control, through structuring, rewriting, varying the text and so forth. Exactly the same procedure could have been applied to gifted composers who lacked the one last creative talent - to be effective, ruthless editors of their own work.

Conductors have stepped into the breach at times, in operatic and symphonic works, in particular, and have excised material to bring works down to a reasonable duration, or to tighten (or even impose for the first time some structural integrity on) a flabby work. In other cases, conductors or musical performers have emended existing works, to enhance them, or to repress obvious defects. Bernstein writes powerfully of work he did on the post-deafness Beethoven orchestral works, where, for want of a reliable memory of the volume, timbre and other qualities of instruments, Beethoven made choices which could not be accomodated in performance. For example, Bernstein writes of occasions where Beethoven wrongly chose brass over bassoons for certain lines within the texture. Or, perhaps, consider Mozart's editing of Handel's works for performance. (And just think what could have been done to improve and lighten the treacly and clotted texture of Brahms orchestral works, if he had employed an editor; the benefits of Joachim's influence can sometime be seen in solo lines, but overall a certain murkiness of texture survives the efforts of even the greatest conductors.)

If works by such figures can be edited, if works can be editied by such other artistic geniuses, it is as plain as the nose on the face that the general run of contemporary music is at least as likely to benefit from editing, shaping, cutting and, in general, fitting it into the unforgiving clock time of a Procrustean radio schedule.


Hugo Brady Brown

"What I tell you three times is true", Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

HugoBradyBrown

As an interim response, I leave the following link for the information of readers of this board.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75271571


Hugo Brady Brown

HugoBradyBrown

(This is an appropriately cut-down version of some quick thoughts I sketched out for the other thread (on Marty in the Morning), setting out the factual position in relation to Nova, and the actually existing conditions in which it finds itself. Interested readers will find the more ample version of this post on the MITM thread.)



The issue of the relative weight given to MITM and to Nova in the schedule is interesting, in one sense. But I think that there will be a considerable cross-over between the Nova listenership and the MITM listeners, since Nova is devoted to advancing music as a research tool into exploratory areas - boldly going where no man has gone before, for one reason or another - while MITM is going down well-trodden paths, and appealing to everyone right across the board - or Boards. And nocturnal concentrated listening with a glass of sherry in hand, the hound at one's feet and the crackling of thorns under the pot in the fireplace is a different kettle of fish altogether from the experience of listening to MITM while trying to get the Gaggia to surrender just one cup of cappuccino in the busy morning before we head to our honest labours.

MITM runs for three hours, but I know many people enjoy less than one third of the entire segment, due to other cares and concerns at the time of broadcast. (I believe it is possible to listen back if one has missed part of it, but it has always defeated me on the iMac, for some reason; perhaps it's for Windows only.) Nova, by contrast, will expect at least to hold its initial listenership throughout the segment (and fingers crossed in The Blue studio that it does!). Bernard has reported that the number of listeners to Nova actually climbs during its broadcast (perhaps as the starting time of The Blue approaches).

I believe that the audience for Nova in a country like Ireland is bound to be modest, and incapable of significant growth, at least until Music is introduced into schools as a serious subject. I believe that impending changes in the organisation of the secondary school curriculum are likely to impel even more students to undertake other easier or more obviously vocational subjects: business, science or home economics. Moreover, the economic collapse will also have disinclined parents from tolerating their offspring undertaking airy-fairy courses that, they might imagine, would fit their darlings for little more than busking in Leicester Square, or worse. Until the audience is educated first, it is hard to see how it can be built.

Now, of course, if contemporary composers give up their artistic probity and begin to blur the distinction between art music and the commercial music of the Consciousness Industry(1), there is a possibility that a young audience may be prepared to take an interest in such cross-over material. However, I think that we could not see that as being in the line of succession from Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Stockhausen and Bartok, or even from Bernstein and Sondheim; it will be more in the lineage of Lloyd Webber, of lounge music or of 'Beautiful Music'. 'Fair dinkum', as our Australian friends say. But while all these genres and inter-genres clearly have their honoured place in our affections, I think it is excessive to expect RTE Lyric FM to be a cultural shaper of its audience by guiding them towards what the market is going to seduce them into paying for in any case.

A spontaneous interest in the austerity of seriously intended modern music is always going to be modest in distribution in the population; in truth, it is generally only the superficial tunefulness and familiarity of most popular classical music that gains it a hearing from anyone but those deeply immersed in the study of music. The popularity of single movements over complete works shows us that the appetite for pugnacious, ardent engagement with serious classical music of any age is spread quite thinly across the population.

In, as always, the most constructive and cooperative spirit,


Hugo Brady Brown


1. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus (1974) The Consciousness Industry; On Literature, Politics and the Media, New York: Seabury Press.

MadsL

Ignoring the nonsense above - in confident knowledge that HBH is no more..at least in his boards identity.

I may be a little slow; but RTE have finally (a couple of months now) put the listen again stream for Nova up as a high-quality bitrate stream:

Do give it a go, one of the most 'out-there' yet informative shows on RTE by far.

http://bit.ly/Hch0fu - Latest show...