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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > Early Music > How Early is Early?
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Author Topic: How Early is Early?  (Read 339 times)
harmonyharmony
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« on: 14:33:34, 01-04-2007 »
Looking at the schedule for the Early Music Show this week, I see that the two midnight programmes focus on the late 18th century.
It's led me to ask 'how early is early'?
I find it absurd that the BBC now seems to want to cover so much (nearly 800 years worth of music) into the format of one show. I can see that, to some extent, the show reflects how the practice of HIP has spread, but where does it end? With period performances of 1950s electronics pieces?
If the BBC's insistence on the music of a very narrowly defined period of music history wasn't bad enough, it now seems that the ghetto in which the earlier music was thrown is now being redefined to cover an even greater proportion of the repertoire, without, in return, giving much back, in terms of playing time, in return.
I'll be raising this later on, on the FoR3 forum, but I just wanted to practice my outrage and indignation here first.
Just imagine the Hear and Now playlist, featuring a programme of late Beethoven string quartets ('Well, they still sound modern today!' croaks Hewan Ivitt).
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #1 on: 15:05:42, 01-04-2007 »
For me, as a hammer-chewer, the Early Music tag is a convenient bundle to wrap up everyone pre-Bach and post-Bingen but beyond that, it isn't really terribly helpful except to explain to people who know about Beethoven and Brahms, but for whom everything before was a sort of musical fog.

Embarrassed (looking forward to the 'C' chapter, coming soon)  Huh
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #2 on: 15:26:39, 01-04-2007 »
The BBC isn't exactly doing much to help penetrate that fog if Early now encompasses the year after Mozart died.
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #3 on: 16:12:58, 01-04-2007 »
These shows are repeats of course and I think the presenter more or less admitted that this show fell outside their remit. The explanation was along the lines of "but we fancied making the programme anyway".
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