It’s been a while since I tuned in to Radio 3. I took a break last year, partly due to the BBC Singers’ saga, the Clive Myrie Proms Thing and a myriad of other things which left me thinking a bit alienated from the station.
Stepping back has been refreshing. With Radio 3’s new lineup, there’s an opportunity to reassess. The old adage rings true: a change really is as good as a rest.
There’s a sense at the beginning of Tom Service’s first Saturday Morning show that Radio 3 is relaunching. Service’s show has a lightness to it which is appealing for the time of day its broadcast. At the same time, it doesn’t shy away from dipping into detail. In the first episode Spring acts as a springboard for a selection of musical choices.
The first hour feels a little crowd-pleasingly stiff, but the second hour warms up a lot with a wider range and possibly even eclectic mix of tracks. It’s this second hour I’m fully bought in, appreciating the lack of news bulletins, and the sense that we’re embarking on a journey of discovery with multiple voices confidently introducing favoured tracks with expertise, passion and warmth.
The pre-recorded interview with Lang Lang transitions from studio to playout and back again with a sophisticated air of the kind I don’t think I’ve heard on live Radio 3. The live performance and interview sequence with Hilary Hahn and Andreas Haefliger was a joy – Haefliger’s recollection of a family memento documenting Brahms’ love of wine was a delightful surprise.
The inclusion of through the noise as a radio package clearly stated Radio 3’s intent to platform (modestly) alternative concert venues – a clear indication of the station’s aspiration in repositioning classical for a new generation of listeners. Once again, the transition between live and pre-recorded had a sense of style without it feeling too ‘newsy’.
The preponderance of promoting what’s coming up has me coming out in the same level of hives as it does whenever I see it in a TV show, but the lack of interruptions for news and Service’s measured enthusiasm made this new show a surprise. If I’m not mistaken, it would be the kind of thing my non-classical listening fan Lorna would happily engage with (always my acid test).
Earlier with Jools Holland is a personality-led playlister with personal recommendations. It is lighter in tone – very much everyman. The music ‘choices’ are the inevitable but still interesting mix of classical, jazz and soul. His delivery does sometimes display similar levels of sincerity as Scott Mills on Radio 2. That said, the hour long dabble is a gentle extension to the air of discovery Tom Service has established during the three hours of his show, an indication of why it was perhaps necessary to shift the connoisseur’s show Record Review to later in the day.
As a ‘block’ of new radio, Service’s three-hour show works. There were some pleasing newish elements heard in the first hour that were appreciated by this listener, including the distinct lack of calls to get in touch until the final 20 minutes, and opening with the Camille Saint Saens piano concerto which pianist Lang Lang later illustrated in his conversation with Service.
Read more Radio 3’s revamped radio schedule
I’ve rarely listened to Record Review in the past, simply because I always felt as though it was a club where my imposter syndrome ran riot. But here building up to RR at the end of three or four hours I feel more inclined to listen to on. Maybe that was the intent.
The journalism element of the day in the form of Richard Morrison’s Land Without Music (part of a revamped Music Matters) contains a wealth of contributors and excerpts that illustrate a section of present day contemporary classical music. Inevitably, his articles in the Times are going to feel weightier than the BBC’s impartiality rules will allow in a radio broadcast. But if I was a newcomer sticking with this new style of programming, I will have got a fairly good overview of the state of classical music in the UK at the present time from the key voices I needed to be introduced to, even if I didn’t realise it.
After listening back to what amounted to five hours of radio, the overarching observation was how many more varied voices, composers, and music we had heard in the space of a morning.
If this change was intended as a soft reboot of Radio 3 then, though it pains me to say, it worked well by doing something different with a bit of panache, in keeping with the standards the station has long upheld. Not everyone will like it. Chances are, they are not the target audience anyway.
