Radio plays ony portions of classical compositions

Our local station does that increasingly--rather sad, ain't it?

I listen to CRB frequently, but generally late in the evening and at that time they seem to play the whole symphony. I think it depends on the work. With some only one movement is interesting and the rest is forgettable. For example Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, op. 11, was originally written as a 3 movement piece, but now only the second movement is generally played. The other two movements are in my opinion nothing to get excited about.

Radio plays ony portions of classical compositions
Certainly there are large works of which only portions are really interesting, but this truncating (dumbing down?) is being done because, according to the Director of Programming, long works can't be played in their completion during the day. She told me that some works (she cited Beethoven's 9th, specifically) are too long for even the 9 pm All-time Favorite Classics program. This is foolishness, in my opinion, because CRB frequently plays complete symphonies, concerti, etc during the day, and I'm not referring to the relatively short works by Haydn, etc.

Another reason she gave me was "there's a station in Washington (didn't say whether DC or State) that does this." I don't really find that an acceptable response! That's like saying "But all the kids do it!"

Why would one want to listen to the 2d movement of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony all by itself, for example? There is a complete lack of continuity, when such a work is broken into bits. A symphony is an organic whole, for heaven's sake!

There's plenty of good solid classical music out there which can fit into the spaces between commercials. I say save the big stuff for periods when there's enough time.



My introduction to Beethoven was in school, where we learned one of the many many melodies from his 7th symphony. But that was grade school; I'm all grown up now, and want to hear it ALL.

I'd much rather hear a complete work less often than a movement here and a movement there, all disconnected.

Good God, i thought you meant a public radio station. WOSU, the public radio station here is doing that, and of course, there are no commercials . . . now i'm really pissed . . . and it's all your fault TK . . .

Well obviously it depends on what the piece is. The last concert I played in we played Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. It has 4 movements... and it's 50 minutes long!! Is it really reasonable to play all 4 movements in one go? I think not

I guess it's a consumerism thing... trying to play as much different music as possible

Don't complain too much because it could get worse. WRR in Dallas used to be an excellent classical station playing 24/7. It's city-owned, and many people wanted to sell it and make big bucks for the city, but they kept it and went commercial instead. Now they play only the most conservative wallpaper music during the day, classical period, and some romantic period but almost no modern period but the most conservative. I'd settle for a single movement of Mahler every now and then.

I don't think Dallas is unique. I drive to Florida several times in the winter, and the music is just as conservative.

I think the strategy is to keep a listener tuned to the station once they're listening, and they do that by playing the most inoffensive, least challanging music, which can serve as background music.

Radio plays ony portions of classical compositions
CRB is pretty conservative (though by no means elevator music) but it does go into Bach, some Britten (mostly "The Lark Ascending", I admit) , Finzi's "Five Bagatelles" for clarinet, and similar. Nothing adventurous, but probably quite satisfying for someone who only listens occasionally. My significant other is pretty much housebound, so we hear more repetitions of CRB's limited repertory than we would prefer. But listened to often or listening rarely, CRB certainly doesn't strain anyone's brain.

That said, there's still no reason for chopping up compositions. There's plenty of really good stuff out there to to be played completely (including less familiar things) leaving the longer pieces for periods when the intervals between commercials are longer, like mid- to late evening.

And, I repeat, just because some other station does it, is no reason for CRB to do it!

Setanta - I'm shocked! Shocked! that a public radio station is doing this. There is no excuse whatever for that.

TK, they do it all the time on the weekday shows. Fortunately, they continue to air syndicated NPR and APR programs which explore modern music--but only in the evening.