Latest news with #Radio3
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Radio 3 might be ‘dumbing down', but annoyingly it's working
Earlier this month, the BBC's veteran war correspondent Lyse Doucet said that she has been 'turning away from the news and listening to Radio 3 instead of Radio 4'. Doucet's reason was that the news has been so unremittingly depressing of late; Radio 3 was a sanctuary. She is far from alone – last week's Rajar figures showed that Radio 3 is on the up, with 2.15m tuning in, the station's best for many years. To add to the sense of achievement, almost every other BBC station had lost listeners in the same period. And before Radio 3 controller Sam Jackson could finish his first celebratory glass of fizz, someone was pouring him another, as Radio 3 won Station of the Year at the prestigious Audio and Radio Industry Awards (Arias). It is a vindication of sorts for Jackson, who has been fighting accusations of 'dumbing down' since he arrived two years ago. His predecessors would sympathise, going right back to George Barnes when he kicked off the Third Programme in 1946 and, two years later, was fighting accusations of 'vulgarisation' from EM Forster. The crime? Playing 'light' music concerts, including Bizet, Strauss and Mozart). Radio 3's gift and curse is that it emerged (or perhaps descended) from the Third Programme, which was set up to be strenuously high-minded, mixing classical music with poetry, philosophy and debate. Its mission wasn't simply to educate, inform and entertain, but to expand, refine and civilise. There are many Radio 3 listeners who still believe this is the station's mission – no wonder they bristle at the loss of Free Thinking and Drama on 3, at the perceived 'therapisation' of classical music, or at the existence of Jools Holland (the boogie-woogiefication of classical music). Those purists would suggest that Radio 3's recent resurgence isn't despite any 'dumbing down', but because of it – further evidence that it is slumping inexorably towards Classic FM territory. Is this fair? In response to the heartening Rajar figures, Radio 3's press release trumpeted their more highbrow content, from the Pierre Boulez centenary celebrations to 25 for 25: Sounds of a Century, 25 new commissions from contemporary composers. We don't know if it is this specific programming that is bringing the listeners in – specific figures were not provided – but it is encouraging to see the station take pride in its more challenging offerings. EM Forster may not agree, but when it comes to the music it's hard to make a strong case that Radio 3 has dumbed down. Classical Live, Radio 3 in Concert and Composer of the Week still offer a variety that the commercial stations wouldn't dare, while jazz, new music and opera are ring-fenced by dedicated programming. A push for 'diversity' (female composers!) has only broadened the station's offering. There is no doubt that in recent times the station has fallen into the trap of trying to attract listeners who like their classical music to be 'calm, soothing and mindful', and often accompanied by birdsong and lapping waves, but this is hopefully something that will be redressed by the launch of new 'mindful' digital station Radio 3 Unwind. However, it is in the spaces in between the music where Radio 3 has undoubtedly grown more populist, and this is something unlikely to be reversed. Listeners long ago got used to the audience interactivity that was once the preserve of Radio 5 Live, but it is the presenters who seem to stir up the most passion. The likes of Tom McKinney, Katie Derham, Jess Gillam and Linton Stephens lean more into being informally enthusiastic than tweedily knowledgeable, while the inclusion of Holland and newsreader Clive Myrie suggest a safety-first approach. 'Don't be scared! We love classical music and we're not going to be stuffy about it!' As someone who is a far-cry from being a classical music buff, I am a good test case – and I have found the station to be more approachable and accessible of late. That will likely send shudders down the spines of the purists. While Jackson did not begin the jettisoning of spoken word programming, it does seem he is keen to finish the job and create a purely classical music station. Some decisions are financial – on Radio 4's Feedback he said that budget cuts forced him to choose between live classical music and drama – but there is the sense of brand-building here too. Not Classic FM, but the anti-Classic FM. A classical music station with highbrow aspirations, but, crucially, a classical music station. If you want wider culture, off you go to Radio 4. It's understandable, but it's a pity – and I eye the superb Sunday Feature nervously. Yet, if the listener numbers are rising, then it can only be that Radio 3 is successfully bringing classical music to new audiences, dumbed down or not.
Times
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
I spent three weeks with the new Radio 3 — and I'm smitten
My guess is Radio 3 bosses returned to work on Tuesday feeling rested but invigorated ahead of announcing the 2025 Proms programme. The station had a successful month. Its most popular presenter, Petroc Trelawny, made a seamless transition from Breakfast to the In Tune drivetime slot. The sunny Tom McKinney took over the day's start. Then the BBC heard that Radio 3 Unwind, the station's classical chillout offshoot, has been given the go-ahead by the media regulator Ofcom. Alongside these schedule changes there has been some strong holiday programming: a day-long celebration of 30 years of Private Passions, the composer-presenter Michael Berkeley's revealing interview show in which well-known guests (including King Charles in 2018) share the classical music that inspired them. Fascinating interview excerpts
The Herald Scotland
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Drama and excitement as guest conductor takes up the baton at BBC SSO
City Halls, Glasgow Keith Bruce four stars The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra marketed this live broadcast performance on the box office potential of Spanish pianist Javier Perianes playing Mozart's perennially-popular concerto No 17, and there was nothing wrong with that part of the programme, even if did seem a little strange that the soloist was relying on a score for a work he must have played many times. But for many in the hall, and listening on Radio 3, the real interest lay in the works on either side of the Mozart and in the conductor on the podium. Anja Bihlmaier is Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester and earlier in the day the announcement of the BBC Proms programme had included the news that she will premiere a new electric guitar concerto by Mark Simpson with Scotland's Sean Shibe on July 22 in the Royal Albert Hall. The work that filled the second half of this concert was also fairly new, the 2016 'symphonic suite' created by Manfred Honeck and Tomas Ille from Richard Strauss's opera Elektra. If the composer himself had crafted such an orchestral concert piece it would surely have sounded much along these lines, incorporating all the most compelling music in the score, culminating in an instrumental performance of the final scene. Read more Keith Bruce Bihlmaier gloried in the huge forces under her baton but was equally attentive to the moments that featured just front desk strings and wind soloists – much of the delight in this half hour of music came from her precision control of the dynamics. The orchestral Elektra may lack the sense of humour in Strauss's tone poems, but in all other respects can sit alongside them as a repertoire piece. The conductor began the concert with another new/old work celebrating females from dramatic tragedy. Melanie Bonis was taught by Cesar Franck and her Trois femmes de legende: Salome; Ophelia; The Dream of Cleopatra share elements of their orchestration with Ravel and Debussy. Composed in the first decade of the 20th century, they were only assembled as a suite a decade ago, which the RSNO and Thomas Sondergard played last Spring. If not quite as epic as the Strauss, it is also assured regular performances by the range of orchestral colour it contains, with terrific opportunities for the wind soloists – and Bihlmaier found all the drama in the lyrically-expressed fate of the Egyptian queen.
Times
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The best Proms to book for summer 2025
Your cultural summer begins here. The BBC Proms has announced its season of concerts: 86 performances, with stars ranging from Simon Rattle to Alison Balsom, Klaus Makela to Yunchan Lim. The season begins on July 18 at the Royal Albert Hall, but there are 14 concerts taking place outside London this year, including in Bradford (this year's UK City of Culture), Bristol and Gateshead. This is the first year in which Radio 3 controller Sam Jackson takes direct control of running the festival. If he is seen as a crowdpleaser, there is still plenty of chewy fare in the lineup, including seminal works by anniversary composers Berio and Boulez. Shostakovich and Ravel anniversaries are also being marked with generous helpings of works — don't
The Guardian
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Proms 2025 season offers plenty both to cherish and challenge
Even if it doesn't really seem like one, this year's Proms marks the beginning of a new era for what styles itself as the world's biggest classical music festival. Though Sam Jackson took over as controller of BBC Radio 3 and director of the Proms two years ago, the 2023 and 2024 programmes were essentially planned under the aegis of his predecessor as Proms supremo David Pickard. So the coming season is the first for which Jackson has been responsible, though he is keen to emphasise that organising a festival on the scale of the Proms is a team effort, and that though his name is the one that appears on the introduction to the printed guide, he is just one among several who have put the season together – a season of 72 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, together with weekend residencies and concerts in Belfast, Bradford, Bristol, Gateshead and Sunderland. Certainly the alterations that have been made to the eight weeks of concerts so far seem more matters of subtle degree than radical shifts in emphasis. There have been fears that the changes that have already been inflicted on Radio 3 during Jackson's tenure might be mirrored in his first Proms. These include the tendency to play single movements rather than complete works, while avoiding any details such as opus and catalogue numbers that might be construed as off-puttingly musicological, as well as the launch of Radio 3 Unwind, devoted to music to 'restore calm'. Such worries are quickly allayed though by a glance at the programmes, which contain as much serious, challenging music, both old and new, as ever. And whether deliberate or not, the choice of repertoire and the artists performing it this year suggest that attempts to ensure that every politically correct box has been ticked seem far less strenuous and contrived than they sometimes have in previous years. Though there is no over-arching theme to the season, significant musical anniversaries are appropriately marked, with the exception perhaps of the 500th anniversary of Palestrina's birth. There's Arvo Pärt's 90th birthday, the 150th anniversaries of the births of Ravel and Samuel Coleridge Taylor, and the 50ths of the deaths of Bernard Herrmann and Shostakovich, while this year's two great centenarians, Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio, are celebrated in a late-night visit by Ensemble intercontemporain, as well as in orchestral concerts. Though performances of Berio's famous Sinfonia, his Schubert-based Rendering, and the music-theatre piece Recital I (For Cathy) are welcome inclusions, it's a shame that a concert performance of one of his operas that has yet to be heard in Britain could not have been organised, and that one of Boulez's rarely heard early choral works could not be revived, especially in the wake of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's outstanding performance of Pli Selon Pli in the Barbican's Boulez day last month. As usual too the new works, the world or British premieres, vary from the genuinely intriguing to the seemingly dutiful. Tom Coult's Monologues for the Curious, inspired by the ghost stories of MR James and composed for tenor Allan Clayton, and Mark Simpson's ZEBRA, a guitar concerto for Sean Shibe, after the sci-fi of Philip K Dick, belong in the first category, as does Anna Thorvaldsdottir's cello concerto, Before We Fall, and Gabriella Smith's organ concerto, Breathing Forests. And while there aren't any standout special events – performances of works that only an organisation such as the BBC would have the financial and musical muscle to put on – it will good to hear Birtwistle's Earth Dances and Steve Reich's The Desert Music played live again, while British music aficionados won't want to miss three choral rarities, Vaughan Williams's Sancta Civitas, Arthur Bliss's Morning Heroes and Delius's Mass of Life. Transatlantic orchestras, however, are still conspicuous by their absence. The regular stream of visiting ensembles in previous years that represented the cream of the orchestral world in the final weeks of the season now seems very much a thing of the past. There are two concerts each from the Royal Concertgebouw under Klaus Mäkelä and the Vienna Philharmonic with Franz Welser-Möst, who is rarely seen in London these days, as well as a one-off appearance from the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Andris Nelsons. Other visitors include the Danish National Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony and the Budapest Festival orchestras, but as usual the majority of the concerts are sourced from the BBC's 'house' orchestras, and the independent home-based ones, some with their regular conductors and some with guests. As ever, tickets to stand, either in the arena or in the gallery under the dome of the RAH and which are only made available on the day of each concert remain a bargain, priced at £8 throughout the season. But elsewhere in the hall prices vary widely from evening to evening, though for most concerts the most expensive seats are around £60. Sometimes they're considerably more than that, though the logic behind some of the pricing is hard to follow. There's a top price of £110 for the second of the Vienna Philharmonic's concerts, for instance, a programme of Mozart and Tchaikovsky, while the previous evening, with the same orchestra and conductor performing Berg and Bruckner, the most you will pay is £86. No doubt the BBC and the Albert Hall have their reasons for these and other disparities, and meanwhile throughout the two months of concerts, you can always a get to hear lot of good music for a lot less. The Proms will run from 18 July to 13 September. General booking opens at 9am on 17 May.
