Karen:
AMEN, TO EVERYTHING YOU WROTE
Lloyd
Karen wrote:
>I think you don't hear much vocal music on the radio for the same reason
>you seldom hear anything except Baroque, Classical era, LIGHT Romantic,
>and *very* melodic, unchallenging 20th Century instrumental music. For
>many listeners, Classical radio is "ear candy" - it's pretty background
>music. They don't want music that might actually grab their attention and
>force them to listen. It's really just MUZAK for people who are too
>snobbish to actually listen to MUZAK. I know this is a generalization,
>but apparently it's a generalization that the people in charge of
>programming on 99% of America's Classical music stations (and Public TV
>stations) seriously believe in.
>
>Even the stations here that broadcast the live Met and Lyric Opera
>performances don't ever play opera or solo vocal music at other times. The
>one exception is Christmas time, when you might occasionally hear a
>recording of a carol by Jessye Norman or Placido Domingo. Choral music
>gets almost equally short shrift, although choral music doesn't seem to be
>quite as taboo as solo vocal music - one does hear the rare choral work
>durin g regular broadcast times.
>
>I guess it makes as much sense as having a program called MILLENIUM OF
>MUSIC on our local classical public radio station - it bills itself as
>featuring the 1000 years of music prior to Bach. But what it is, in fact,
>is a program that focuses on 15th c. polyphony, and Renaissance and early
>Baroque music. I have yet to hear any of the few extant Troubadour songs
>of the 11th Century, or similarly ancient - and "exotic" sounding - fare.
>
>The fact is, there are a lot of classical music listeners out there who
>hate anything except "early" music (define this as you will - I always
>though it should mean pre-Baroque, but it apparently now includes
>pre-Baroque, Baroque, and even pre-Mozart/Haydn classical). Others will
>accept a little Mozart and Haydn with their Bach and Handel and Telemann.
>In any case, what you will hear very little of is the more challenging
>works by Mahler, Richard Strauss, and certainly very little of
>Shostakovich or Prokofiev, and forget EVER hearing Schoenberg or Boulez or
>even Maxwell Davies.
>
>And of course, what Verdi and Puccini you will hear will be OVERTURES from
>the operas. God forbid we should be forced to actually listen to the
>human voice!
>
>KM
>=====
>My NEIL SHICOFF Website:
>http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
>
>My Website:
>http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
>
>-----
>Es en balde, majo mio, que sigas hablando
>porque hay cosas que contesto yo
>siempre cantando:
>Tra la la...
>Por mas que preguntes tanto:
>tra la la...
>En mi no causas quebranto
>ni yo he de salir de mi canto:
>tra la la...
>
> - Fernando Periquet
>
>
>
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