While I agree with you, Clark, Tom's observation isn't inaccurate by any means. Of the composers you've mentioned, I think in each case, their Symphonies are more popular than their chamber music to the general public. You may remember "The Music Bluffer's Guide", a small book which came out in the early '70s which, amongst other things, gave tongue in cheek definitions to musical terms. It defined "Chamber music" as "music for a small number of listeners".
db
On Sunday, May 18, 2014 9:29:36 PM, Clark Johnsen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>Tom Fine: My general beef about classical FM radio has always been an
>over-reliance on chamber music.
>
>Noooo!
>
>You're talking the best of Beethoven, the best of Schubert, and much of
>Mozart and Brahms and Shostakovich. How could you possibly think that!?
>
>It is true however that they "over-play Baroque" -- with the exception of
>Bach, of whom there's never enough. Baroque is considered harmless music
>for the carriage trade that tends to support public radio but isn't really
>into music that much.
>
>c
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>On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 7:43 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
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>> My general beef about classical FM radio has always been an over-reliance
>> on chamber music. It may be that the orchestral music is played at times of
>> the day I don't tune in, but especially NPR-afflilated classic stations
>> seem to over-play Baroque and other era small-ensemble music. This is not
>> to my taste, so I usually choose my own music collection over FM radio for
>> classical music. One notable exception was the Syracuse NY NPR station in
>> the early 90s. Back when I lived in transmission range, I'd often tune in
>> and here them playing newly-released Mercury CDs. Needless to say, I
>> donated generously and let the program director know how much I enjoyed
>> hearing the flood of great orchestral recordings then coming out on CD. As
>> I recall, that station mercifully relegated chamber music to overnights and
>> very early morning. WHen most people were tuned in, it was mostly
>> orchestral music, and an excellent variety at that. No bias against
>> American music or 20th Century music. It's hard to believe it was only 20+
>> years ago, but there was still a very vibrant classical recording scene in
>> the US and Europe at the time. And it was the golden era of CD reissues, so
>> there was a huge variety of music coming in from the record companies each
>> month.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Clark Johnsen" <[log in to unmask]
>> >
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2014 3:23 PM
>>
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] classical announcers, was Future of CDs
>>
>>
>> I would say that the two cities that most surprisingly have decent CM
>>> stations are Miami/Broward and Las Vegas.
>>>
>>> NYC sucks!
>>>
>>> clark
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Don Cox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 18/05/2014, Lou Judson wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Perhaps you will find one or two here:
>>>> >
>>>> > <http://www.kdfc.com/> Hoyt Smith isn't bad.
>>>> > The one remaining Bay Area classical station. Now available
>>>> > planet-wide on the internets.
>>>> >
>>>> BBC Radio 3 announcers are mostly OK. They do know how to pronounce the
>>>> names of composers.
>>>>
>>>> Sarah Mohr-Peitch is excellent, I think.
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>> --
>>>> Don Cox
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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