The Envy Of The World: Fifty Years Of The BBC Third Programme and Radio 3 (Humphrey Carpenter)

Not even in my most rabid classical music devouring years was Radio 3 a significant fixture in my life, but I like the idea of it being there... just in case. And if someone were to write a potted history of the Third Programme, well, who better than the guy who wrote the Mr Majeika books. (Yeah I know he used to work there, that's not the point.)
What a ludicrous century the 20th was. We will look back on it, if we don't already, in utter disbelief. And this is topical actually with the Jimmy Savile outrages becoming more horrific by the day- inevitably you ask yourself: how did this happen? How could this have been allowed to happen? How could our safe European lives have been so very different back then? And there are clues in here, in Carpenter's book.
And let's say straight off the bat that this is a joy of a book, capturing a tine of arrogance, snobbery and entitlement that we will never see again. And yes of course that's a bad thing, surely that goes without saying, and yet... And yet. You can see the allure of this world. The heyday of the Third Programme, as detailed in Carpenter's book, has the simultaneously humdrum and otherworldly appeal of those gentlemens clubs, all oak panelling and ironed copies of The Times- you were born in to this world or, rather more likely, you were not born into this world, and if you weren't then you were destined to forever be peering through the doors, trying to catch a peek of a class beyond your own. The history of Radio 3 is genuinely fascinating and worthy of this sort of study- there are some extraordinary characters and anecdotes in these pages. But what we are reading here is not really the story of those few English eccentrics, but an entire culture, a society of the elite. The Third Programme as microcosm of 20th century British society's ills.
You won't be finding many black faces in these pages. Try and introduce the idea of Race into what we're reading here and think how utterly laughable it would be to imagine black composers / musicians having their music played on Radio 3. Being introduced by black presenters. Of course that's true of Western classical music as a whole in the period covered by this book- jazz is mentioned now and again, rather begrudgingly, though only Gershwin (Gershwin!) gets a name-check. And, with the inevitability of one of society's majority-minorities following another, we can say the same of women. There are women, let's be upfront here, mentioned in these pages, but usually (not exclusively) because of their distinctive, silky voices. And silky of course= sex. At least women would have been allowed to listen to the Third Programe. Tolerated at least. As long as they fit certain educational criteria.
None of this is really mentioned by Carpenter. Hardly relevant to his story. And yet it should be- Radio 3 had the potential to be revolutionary. Instead it was cowardly and lazy. Is it nowadays? Probably not. I wouldn't know. But the moment has passed. The radio elite had the potential to change the world, and they didn't. Revolutions in music they sneered at and mocked, but ultimately had to go along with- not until Classic FM came along could 20th century music be comfortably done away with. But it wasn't only the economically elite running the Third Programme, but also the intellectually elite, and they did nothing- not a jot- to improve the world.
The history of the Third Programme is a history of vile, bullying men, unwilling to listen to any voice other than their own, and sensitive aesthetes steamrollered by their own culture. Still- an addictive book.
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As an aside, the story of 'Mobile', a hoax piece broadcast by Hans Keller and Susan Bradshaw (a woman! but oh a woman of terribly minor significance I'm afraid) in 1961 is fascinating.
'The idea struck us as we listened to the faintly melodious sounds provided by the moving of chairs after a concert- we used drums, xylophones, cymbals, glasses, ashtrays, and anything else handy. At one time we were whistling, using an echo effect...' Noting in passing that this is the kind of music I spend a considerable amount of my life listening to these days- do recordings of this exist? As a hoax of course this is pretty obvious, childish stuff, but the idea is magical.

Slight Return

Popping this down as a placeholder because I've missed blogging even if it does feel like whispering sweet nothings into the abyss. Things have changed a lot from a personal perspective since January, and while I don't particularly want to dwell on those changes, I am finding myself more and more frequently feeling I want to record 'stuff' somwhere other than a paper journal. It's hard though- I read back on some of those earlier entries and think: 'that doesn't sound like my voice' or, worse, 'that sounds like me trying to sound like someone else'. I can't imagine other people worry about this while tipping their ephemeral crap onto the page, so I'm going to try not to worry- hopefully in time I may even start to recognize myself in the stuff I write here. So- more to come, hopefully.