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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2013 1:37:07 GMT -5
A date has not yet been set for the grand inauguration of the revived Third and associated gala night. We are as yet only experimental! The items which have to be attended to first are: 1) I am quite busy checking the Germans at the art-music forum, and this will continue for another ten days or so. 2) The forum headings should be improved in a number of ways. 3) The software which says "Hey, member name" should be eliminated; and indeed I have already attempted to do so, but without success thus far. 4) There is the familiar problem about Googol not picking anything up - we have to find out why. 5) An initial web-wireless "broadcast" should be put together and tested. 6) Further exploration of the features and facilities provided by the forum software should be undertaken. 7) Lowering as it may be, some thought must be given to the various ways of drawing the attention of prospective readers and listeners to our existence. Suggestions in relation to any of these points, or indeed to any points at all, are encouraged. -oOo-
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Post by neilmcgowan on Feb 7, 2013 7:52:16 GMT -5
I wonder whether we shouldn't have a 'catch-all' subject area which encourages postings on 'anything else of interest'? Something like "The Cafe"? Not a bin or exclusion zone, but something like 'Platform 3' on the For3 site - which is, ehem, their most popular section BTW, can I ask if the Moderator tools work on here? I would like to know if we can put unruly members 'in the cooler' for a short time, rather than the hanging-drawing-and-quartering practiced by our r3ok 'chums'? "Date this knee-jerk hissy fit is set to expire: Never"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2013 8:13:11 GMT -5
Good afternoon to you all! The idea of an online Café is a good one, Neil. My preference is always to link something virtual with something physical, so if I go to "The Café", it can both be online and offline, simultaneously. How about "Tom's Deli", for example? www.somersethouse.org.uk/plan-your-visit/eating-and-drinking/toms-deliAs for the idea of a cooler, I observe that I currently have the status of an Administrator, although I am, by nature, extremely liberal in my approach, so I would be more inclined not to intervene. My preference would be to limit someone's activity to one particular forum in preference to an outright ban. For example, members could be invited on to "Tom's Terrace" to cool off. www.somersethouse.org.uk/plan-your-visit/eating-and-drinking/toms-terraceIf I may also address all seven of your original points directly, Sydney Grew: 1) I am quite busy checking the Germans at the art-music forum, and this will continue for another ten days or so. In my opinion, the longer you take to develop your ideas, Sydney Grew, the better. There is no rush. You can change and add forum headings as you see fit. There is also no perfect structure, so it is always going to be work in progress. This is casual, perhaps even American English. I have no objection, in principle. Of course, a formal approach might suit The Third better. I suspect that The Third will eventually appear on Google, although you probably need both time and a little more web traffic. Yes. It is quite a technical challenge, so testing makes sense. I am quite impressed with the software. I might be able to offer some help here, as I obviously have more of a business background. The basis of marketing is that you meet the needs and/or wants of your (potential) customers, or in this case, users. For example, if you compare BBC Radio 3 with Classic FM, Classic FM has three times as many listeners as Radio 3, because it broadcasts what they want to hear. In the same way, Google is so successful on the world wide web because it meets the needs and wants of its users. My suggestion to Sydney Grew would therefore be to define and target precisely the users he wants to attract. I, for example, would probably target quite a few people closely associated with BBC Radio 3. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/posts/New-look-for-the-Radio-3-BlogAs for a Gala launch, I would recommend the beginning of March, possibly from 14:00 (GMT) on Sunday 3 March 2013. If you would like to invite everyone to a venue in central London, Seamen's Hall at Somerset House can work very well indeed. Somerset House has permanent WiFi, with roaming access for visitors to laptop communications throughout the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court, Seamen's Hall and River Terrace. www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/superactive-i2i-by-langlands-bellAny thoughts?
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Post by neilmcgowan on Feb 12, 2013 9:19:02 GMT -5
The new appearance is a great improvement
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2013 11:34:38 GMT -5
In the header above, Sydney Grew, you have written the following:
"Guiding the B.B.C. back to the Days of Splendour", "THE THIRD PROGRAMME" and "For the Alert and Receptive Listener"
I quite like the concept, but one criticism which could be made is that 'The Third' is looking only back to the past splendour of the BBC Third Programme and not forwards to future potential.
I should perhaps confess that I am personally too young to remember 'The Third', but I realise that broadcasting is ultimately an ongoing technology-driven experiment.
So as well as guiding the BBC back to its former days of splendour, it may be necessary to help guide the BBC forwards to even greater triumphs in the digital age. Perhaps this is something which needs to be discussed?
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Post by neilmcgowan on Feb 13, 2013 2:04:41 GMT -5
it may be necessary to help guide the BBC forwards to even greater triumphs in the digital age. Perhaps this is something which needs to be discussed? No greater proof of the need to haul the BBC out of coffee-table crapulence could be found than this odious twaddle: Howard Goodall Presents The 10 Best Bits Of Classical Music[Goodall is interviewed in the Torygraph] The idea of a 'top ten' is, in itself, attractive only to butterfly minds and those anxious to affect knowledge without having any. But the choices made within this list are extraordinary, parochial, and calculated to please the chattering classes 1: Hildegard von Bingen: Ave, Generosa
2: John Dowland: Flow my tears (pub. 1600)
3: JS Bach: St Matthew Passion (1727)
4: Mozart Serenade ‘Gran Partita’, iii Adagio (1781)
5: Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 Eroica, funeral march (1805)
6: Schumann: Kreisleriana (1838)
7: Verdi: La Traviata, Addio del passato (1853)
8: Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (1847)
9: Stravinsky: Les Noces (1923) excerpt
10: Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (1974-6)
The word "excerpt" is especially damning - apparently the butterfly minds of viewers can't cope with a half-hour work by Stravinsky - but the entire four hours of the St Matthew Passion is no barrier to listeners? The entire genre of German opera has been chopped out - to make way for the oh-so-fashionable speculative reconstructions of the wailings of Hildegard von Bingen? But of course... anything Christian gets the thumbs-up from the Beeb...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2013 3:04:03 GMT -5
In all fairness, this is ' The Telegraph' (Torygraph) rather than the BBC, Neil McGowan. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qgcqbAs it happens, I caught Howard Goodall's latest episode: ' The Age of Elegance & Sensibility' (1750-1850). www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qrnkhI should perhaps confess that I not only liked it; I also learnt something from it. As a scientist, you might also have realised that I quite like attaching numbers to things, so top tens are fine by me. Of course, your top ten is unlikely to be my top ten, unless we can agree on an objective means of selection. Pop music, for example, is measured by the charts, and you can measure precisely what music people are buying and listening to, although there are other, potentially more useful ways of measuring the quality of art. One of the most important, in my opinion, is the test of time. If something is valued five hundred years after its creation, the odds are that it has some value which has been retained by succeeding generations. Thus, we have invented the concept of the classical canon. In particular, I commend ' The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Music' to everyone reading The Third today. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qqrqmThe first of three episodes looks at the shift in the language and sound of music from the beautiful melodies and harmonies of the giants of classical music such as Mozart, Haydn and Brahms into the fragmented, abstract, discordant sound of the most radical composers of the new century - Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky and beyond. ' Wrecking Ball' examines how this new music, which can perplex and upset even the most contemporary of audiences, was a response to the huge upheaval in the world at the start of the 20th century - with its developments in technology, science, modern art and the tumult of the First World War. Featuring specially-shot performances of some of the key works of the period, performed by the London Sinfonietta, members of the Aurora Orchestra and the American composer and pianist Timothy Andres, the story of this radical episode in music history is brought to life through the contributions of some of the biggest names in modern classical music, among them Steve Reich, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin and Alex Ross, music critic of the New Yorker. From the atonal experiments of Vienna to the jazz-infused sounds coming from New York in the 1920s, the film travels the world to place this music in context and to uncover the incredible personalities and lives of the composers whose single-minded visions changed the course of classical music for ever. Any thoughts? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qnp5f
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Post by neilmcgowan on Feb 13, 2013 7:36:20 GMT -5
In all fairness, this is 'The Telegraph' (Torygraph) rather than the BBC, Neil McGowan. It's a Telegraph interview with the people behind the BBC program concerned Thus, we have invented the concept of the classical canon I'm not sure we actually 'invented' it. Tired and uninventive thinking, allied to political support for all things Germanic and all things Catholic have largely landed us with this so-called 'canon' without a whisper of opposition. Yet such a canon never existed before. Neither of this year's birthday boys, Verdi or Wagner, outsold the now-forgotten kings of C19th opera in their own era - Gounod, Halevy, Massenet, Meyerbeer, and Bizet. Look at the roles popularised by the highest-paid divas of their day - Grisi, Malibran, Sontag, Pasta, Lind... almost no Wagner at all, and only the lighter end of the Verdian output. Step back 150 years, and the same applies.. the principle composers of the era intheir own time were not Handel and Bach, but Graun, Hasse, Porpora, Caldara, and A Scarlatti. This isn't just opinion - you can check it by looking at the performance schedules. The works of these composers outperform Handel's by a factor of nearly four times. Other factors (nationality, political inclination, religion) have formed the canon we have now. It's not based on the music alone
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Post by neilmcgowan on Feb 13, 2013 8:08:31 GMT -5
some of the biggest names in modern classical music, among them Steve Reich, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin and Alex Ross, music critic of the New Yorker. Biggest names where? Boulez is almost unplayed outside Britain/France/Germany. Adams is not even played outside the USA. George Benjamin? Really? I like George, but he is not a 'name' even in his own country. Classical music is a sad little parochial world. The idea that Hildegard von Bingen, or J Dowland (for all my personal inclination to their music), or Steve Reich or George Benjamin are 'major names' is a delusion. How often are they performed in Hungary? In Japan? In Chile? I can tell you how often they're performed in Russia - hardly a musical backwater - and that's not at all. Not because they are not valuable or accomplished composers (well, I'd exclude Boulez, who is just The King's New Clothes). But because most countries have their own canon, shaped more around the musical life of that country. When I programmed a British C20th music festival in Moscow four years ago, my muso friends in London were slapping their thighs to hear I'd included The Lark Ascending. But this supposed pot-boiler of Classic-FM notoriety was last previously performed at a professional concert in Moscow (ie one for which records exist) in 1974. Sinfonia Antarctica had never been done, ever. I am hardly a fan of RVW, but it would have been deeply misleading to omit them from the program. Even if we had PMD, Richard R-B, Tippett, and two new commissions in the festival too
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2013 8:21:17 GMT -5
"The Splendour Returns"
I like the new header very much indeed, Sydney Grew. We shall therefore attempt to return in splendour on the Launch date. If you would like kleines c to do something physical in London to mark the Launch, please do not hesitate to let me know.
As for canons, Neil McGowan, I suppose that I do tend to think of the arts in terms of canons.
For example, Shakespeare wrote a canon of thirty-seven plays, Beethoven wrote a canon of nine symphonies and you can compile any number of different canons of great works of genius, whether in the arts, the sciences or elsewhere.
Of course, what is off the canon can often be far more interesting than what is on the canon. More later ...
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Post by neilmcgowan on Feb 13, 2013 11:34:59 GMT -5
For example, Shakespeare wrote a canon of thirty-seven plays, Did he? You mean that he wrote them in an intentional order, and they are intended to be considered as a holistic body of work? Someone had better tell Rowley, Betterton, and his other collaborators!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2013 12:18:55 GMT -5
If I may address all three of your questions directly, Neil McGowan: William Shakespeare certainly did not think so. I should perhaps confess that I have not quite seen (nor read) Shakespeare's complete canon of plays. No. It may already be too late!
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