Radio 3 has embarked on an ambitious year-long programme to celebrate the best in British music. Nicholas Kenyon, the station’s controller, reports on this cultural crusade. Radio 3 isn’t often thought of as a young listener’s network, though over the past couple of years we’ve had remarkable success with The Music Machine, presented by Tommy Pearson, in opening up the airwaves to a new generation of listeners.
And then in recent months there has been the rather less welcome placing of schools’ programmes on the network, which for all the disadvantages may also encourage those listeners to dip into everything else that is on offer.
Broadening the range of Radio 3 is something we’re constantly trying to achieve. At times this may bring howls of outrage from listeners to whom any hint of pop, rock, or even musicals infiltrating our regular programming is abhorrent.
Although Jazz Record Requests leads a charmed life as one of our most popular slots, others understand how radical has been the change in younger generations’ listening habits.
No longer does classical music lead a totally segregated life: it’s part of a much wider portfolio of musical listening which, through radio and CD, is now available at the flick of a switch.
So how to explore the huge repertory of music which Radio 3 makes available to its listeners in a coherent and revealing way? Every day Radio 3 broadcasts a vast amount of music, often live and specially recorded, keeping alive a range of repertory which commercial broadcasters cannot match. But too often it passes without enough notice because it lacks focus.
Our year-long season Fairest Isle is one way of addressing this problem: it aims to give every part of the network, from Choral Evensong to The Music Machine, from On Air to Spirit of the Age a chance to contribute to the most wide-ranging examination of our national culture that broadcasting has ever seen.
Fairest Isle grew out of a nice coincidence of anniversaries in British music: the tercentenary of Henry Purcell, the 90th birthday of Michael Tippet, the centenary of Sir Malcolm Sargent, the 50th anniversary of Britten’s Peter Grimes, among others.
From that sprang the idea to examine in detail some of the most demanding new music, and to present a vivid cross-section of the achievements of past centuries. Has there been greater music anywhere than that of Dunstable, Byrd and the English madrigalists, than Purcell and Sullivan and Elgar? Their output needs to be fully explored, instead of being represented by the few “greatest hits” which dominate increasingly our consumerist culture.
I hope that everything we do in Fairest Isle will be thought of as educational, and that the season will be widely used as a resource by schools and colleges. A series of composers of the week ranging from the glories of the Eton Choir book and John Taverner, through Purcell and Handel to Stanford, Parry, modern Scots and Welsh composers will provide a unique tool for exploring our musical history.
There will also be special series of early music and new music, with contributions from the indispensable BBC orchestras and from Radio 3‘s extensive speech output.
A special lecture series at the Royal Society of Arts, already launched with a talk by Lord Gowrie, will look at the influence of multi-culturalism, Europe and America on strands of British culture.
We’ve already broadcast talks and features on women writers of the 17th century, portraits, inventions, perpendicular architecture, and started a major drama season with a new play by Stephen Wyatt: and there is much more to come.
We’re running a composers’ competition for those aged between 15 and 25 who are interested in writing music for children, with the chance of a live performance and broadcast for the winner.
We are mounting a series of invitation concerts around the country, exploring British music from Tye and Taverner to Knussen and Maw; at some of these and our other concerts there will be public forums giving audiences the chance to find out more about Radio 3.
There’s already a book to accompany the season, Fairest Isle, and soon a wall chart and time line will be available to schools, together with a group of educational projects to be designed by BBC Education.
By the time Purcell’s tercentenery actually arrives, on November 21, we hope we will be beginning to understand our cultural heritage better.
Details of Radio 3 events from Fiona Shelmerdine, BBC Broadcasting House, London W1A 1AA
“Fairest Isle” is available for Pounds 6.99 from BBC Books (address above) Entry details for the music writing competition from BBC Radio 3, Broadcasting House, Llandaff, Cardiff CF5 2YQ
