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Guest Cynic

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I suspect that freeview offers generally better sound that DAB, where I understand that varying degress of compression may be applied. Analogue FM still seems the best, where there is a decent signal strength.

 

JJK

 

I was under the impression (probably incorrectly) that the amount of compression on DAB varied from channel to channel and even from program to program. This varies as the bandwidth/dynamic range of the music varies. The compression on R1 is and can be less than R3.

 

B)

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I was under the impression (probably incorrectly) that the amount of compression on DAB varied from channel to channel and even from program to program.  This varies as the bandwidth/dynamic range of the music varies.  The compression on R1 is and can be less than R3.

 

B)

 

I think you are right. I don't really like the uncertainty, and at times - particularly in early days of DAB - I heard some horribly compressed sounds from R3. I think it may have improved - but one is always at the mercy of whoever makes the decision.

 

JJK

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Guest Andrew Butler

I listened to last week's broadcast from Liverpool through the television on skybox. Not the best sound quality at best of times - but did anyone else who listened think the sound quality of the broadcast was poor even allowing for Liverpool's acoustic?

 

It may be unfair to judge on a less-than-adequate hearing, but was the trebles' tone a bit rough in the lower registers?

 

I see there's another "archive" today from Tenbury, 1970 I think. No DOM or orgaganist listed in RT - who was there then?

 

Perhaps there will be more of these in future, further cuttting the live broadcasts....?

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I listened to last week's broadcast from Liverpool through the television on skybox. Not the best sound quality at best of times - but did anyone else who listened think the sound quality of the broadcast was poor even allowing for Liverpool's acoustic?

 

It may be unfair to judge on a less-than-adequate hearing, but was the trebles' tone a bit rough in the lower registers?

 

I see there's another "archive" today from Tenbury, 1970 I think. No DOM or orgaganist listed in RT - who was there then?

 

Perhaps there will be more of these in future, further cuttting the live broadcasts....?

 

Lucian Nethsingha according to This web site.

 

B)

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Lucian Nethsingha according to This web site.

 

B)

 

Yes - he did not move to Exeter Cathedral until 1973, although he was appointed in 1972.

 

Interestingly, before coming to Cambridge to study with Boris Ord (and later David Willcocks), he had never played a pipe organ. He was born in Columbo, Ceylon (that is Sri Lanka, for younger contributors). What he had played was an old Hammond - presumably with draw-bars for the various harmonics. Apparently, someone else had to take care of the registration during auditions, since he was quite unfamiliar with this aspect of organ-management.

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I do not work for the BBC nor do I know anyone who does, but as a career Civil Servant and therefore trained to be disingenuous, I think I detect an obvious motive behind the move to Sunday afternoon Broadcasts of Choral Evensong.

 

There are many postings which quite rightly expalin the problems of setting up equipment in a Cathedral on a sunday in amongst the Cathedrals other activities. Add to this the premuim pay the BBC will need to pay its engineers to work on a ?Sunday and it seems clear to me that the objective here is to continue to RECORD the services mid-week (any ad hoc WEEK-day to suit where in the country they can find a suitable choir and even better if an outside broadcast team are nearby), and "tidy-up" the performance with whatever extra recorded patches may be deemed necessary, then simply TRANSMIT the event on Sunday afternoon.

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I do not work for the BBC nor do I know anyone who does, but as a career Civil Servant and therefore trained to be disingenuous, I think I detect an obvious motive behind the move to Sunday afternoon Broadcasts of Choral Evensong. 

 

There are many postings which quite rightly expalin the problems of setting up equipment in a Cathedral on a sunday in amongst the Cathedrals other activities.  Add to this the premuim pay the BBC will need to pay its engineers to work on a ?Sunday and it seems clear to me that the objective here is to continue to RECORD the services mid-week (any ad hoc WEEK-day to suit where in the country they can find a suitable choir and even better if an outside broadcast team are nearby), and "tidy-up" the performance with whatever extra recorded patches may be deemed necessary,  then simply TRANSMIT the event on Sunday afternoon.

 

Live often means recorded live i.e. no retakes, rather than broadcast live. I suspect that much of what you’re saying is correct.

 

:(

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I do not work for the BBC nor do I know anyone who does....

 

.....the premuim pay the BBC will need to pay its engineers to work on a ?Sunday

 

 

It's probably not as straightforward as that, since the BBC, like most broadcasters, is what is known in popular culture as a 24/7 organisation That is to say for those who work on the operational side of things there's no such thing as a weekend - they're just two more working days.

 

Since engineers and other transmission staff are habitually required to work at all sorts of hours of the day and night, any day of the week, they are generally in the position of having this compensated for in their salary and therefore don't get paid any extra for working weekends. Clearly football matches would cost a fortune to rig and de-rig if this were the case!

 

Very early mornings and very late nights can be a slightly different case, but I don't imagine CE being rigged before 6am or de-rigged after midnight.

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Tenbury from 1970 was quite interesting tonight - quite dated in some ways - what's the general opinion?

 

AJJ

 

I’m just listening to it using the “Listen Again” facility and so far I’m enjoying it. It sounds as though it’s either closely mic’d or there’s very little acoustic in the building.

 

;)

 

It wasn’t the most exciting rendition of the Ireland that I ever heard but over all I enjoyed the recording.

 

:P

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Very good article in the Church Times about this. The valid point is made that broadcasting midweek sends out the message that Christianity is not just a Sunday phenomenon. The deans of the Association of English Cathedrals have protested that in moving to Sundays there will be difficulties for smaller cathedrals, which could not move morning worship to the nave to allow the broadcasters to set up their equipment in the chancel, and highlighting problems of timing. Sunday evensongs are usually "enhanced" by a sermon but the BBC would not want that. The cathedral organists association is working closely in agreement with them. The Ven Alan Wolstencroft, Archdeacon Emeritus of Manchester, invites all Church Times readers to join him in protesting to Michael Grade.

 

The RSCM however has "broadly welcomed the move" but John Harper added that "the greatest loss will be the reminder that around the country communities of choirs, clergy and congretations are gathering to sing the choral office of evensong on weekdays, maintaining the cycle of singing psalms and canticles... as they have for at least 1000 years."

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Very good article in the Church Times about this.  The valid point is made that broadcasting midweek sends out the message that Christianity is not just a Sunday phenomenon.  The deans of the Association of English Cathedrals have protested that in moving to Sundays there will be difficulties for smaller cathedrals, which could not move morning worship to the nave to allow the broadcasters to set up their equipment in the chancel, and highlighting problems of timing.  Sunday evensongs are usually "enhanced" by a sermon but the BBC would not want that.  The cathedral organists association is working closely in agreement with them.  The Ven Alan Wolstencroft, Archdeacon Emeritus of Manchester, invites all Church Times readers to join him in protesting to Michael Grade.

 

Perhaps someone should set up an online petition. The points above seem worth making, most particularly the first one. The others are not particularly relevant if there's an option of pre-recording a mid-week evensong for broadcast on a Sunday. Who remembers the occasional sung compline? I'm guessing about 30 years ago. Can't remember if it was on R3 or R4, or which day of the week, but in English and pretty close to that white Order of Compline booklet of a similar vintage!

 

Michael

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest paul@trinitymusic.karoo.co.uk

Oh you've all got to read this - assuming Choral Evensong and/or The BBC are of any interest to you at all.

There we were talking about the BBC and their little ways, well (in this instance) it appears they pulled a very fast one indeed! Fraud, in fact.

 

Click here!

 

http://theovergrownpath.blogspot.com/2006/...-fraud-say.html

 

P.

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Guest paul@trinitymusic.karoo.co.uk
Hmm. Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. Or something like that.

 

 

A fair point if we are dealing with one individual. For several people to put this programme out knowing it was not as described, just for a stunt or because it fitted in with some scheme or other... no this is a deception - and if anyone simply thought 'it didn't matter' that this wasn't a live broadcast from the archives although it was described several times both verbally and in print that it was, this is equally a cause for worry.

 

Whether it bothers you depends on what you would have liked the BBC to do with your money (assuming that you pay a TV license fee and Income Tax) This was a programme that cost them nothing - the real thing would have cost them and would have been 100% more honest.

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I suppose the reason I wasn't surprised is because Roffensis did tell us beforehand that is was commercially available (post 6 here).

 

OTOH, it is undeniable that the BBC did tout is as an archive broadcast and I have to admit that their justification for doing so (at the end of the article here) is pretty pathetic. Unless of course the LP/CD was made from BBC tapes. Maybe Richard can elucidate.

 

Sorry if I sound a bit sceptical. I'm not defending or accusing anyone or anything here, but I'm reluctant to take this at face value without a bit more information. I don't know the blog site and I just get a slight whiff of a hidden agenda.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest Andrew Butler

From memory, there are some choral establishments who rarely if ever have featured in the R3 CE slot, and some who did at one time but now seem not to. Any ideas why please?

 

In the 1st category come: Carlisle, Bradford, Bangor, St Asaph, Brecon

 

In the 2nd category: Chelmsford, Llandaff, Leeds PC, St Mary Warwick, Jesus Cambridge

 

There are probably others.......

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From memory, there are some choral establishments who rarely if ever have featured in the R3 CE slot, and some who did at one time but now seem not to. Any ideas why please?
Stephen Shipley gave one reason which I quoted in post #3 above: http://web16713.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/discus...ost&p=16251. There could be a variety of other reasons too, of course.
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Shipley again:

 

"Radio 3 gives us money to broadcast from the cathedrals and college chapels of the land with the proviso that the musical standard within the worship is kept as high as possible. After all, we may be following a recorded concert from the Proms, say, by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle. If the music in the service sounds untidy, under rehearsed or over ambitious, Radio 3 will quite rightly want to know the reason. That's why we have to keep an ear continually to what's going on in the country's choral establishments - and why we may need to steer clear of certain places until things improve..."

 

 

From memory, there are some choral establishments who rarely if ever have featured in the R3 CE slot, and some who did at one time but now seem not to. Any ideas why please?

 

In the 1st category come: Carlisle, Bradford, Bangor, St Asaph, Brecon

 

In the 2nd category: Chelmsford, Llandaff, Leeds PC, St Mary Warwick, Jesus Cambridge

 

There are probably others.......

 

A friend of mine started his cathedral singing career at one of the establishments listed. Without going into detail, what is highlighted in bold is one of the main reasons why this particular establishment hasn’t had much air time since.

 

;)

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hanks - yes, I recall that. I posted a provocative reply a little further on that did not provoke, so am trying again! PM if anything libelous!! ;)

 

Why not just e-mail Stephen and ask him? BBC e-mail addresses are fairly easy to work out - first.last@bbc.co.uk usually.

 

In my experience, cathedrals/places of worship get taken off the list (pending review) if a) they produce a bad one, b ) if, when the BBC turn up, there are insufficient resources to produce an evensong (as happened at Ripon once - 8 boys off with gastric flu), c) they are inconsistent - e.g. you can't rely on them producing a good one.

 

I'm sure there are lots of other reasons.

 

Incidentally, as well as Stephen Shipley's credentials as former Precentor of Ely, his son was also head chorister at Lichfield.

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Guest Roffensis
From memory, there are some choral establishments who rarely if ever have featured in the R3 CE slot, and some who did at one time but now seem not to. Any ideas why please?

 

In the 1st category come: Carlisle, Bradford, Bangor, St Asaph, Brecon

 

In the 2nd category: Chelmsford, Llandaff, Leeds PC, St Mary Warwick, Jesus Cambridge

 

There are probably others.......

 

Well I recall some of Carlisle and Bradford......

 

Also Chelmsford latterly, plus Leeds PC, Warwick, and Jesus.

 

I once had a snotty letter that said "someone has to make the decision where CE comes from, and that person happens to be me" It continued how the standard of singing has to be high.

 

I had written questioning nothing from Truro, some twenty years ago.

 

IMHO the standard of BROADCASTING is awful, even on DAB, and the almost total lack of anything organ, clearly not seeing the instrument AS a instrument.........well, old ground....

 

We need a decent classical broadcasting company. At present, we don't have one, unless you like Jazz.

 

R

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest Andrew Butler
From memory, there are some choral establishments who rarely if ever have featured in the R3 CE slot, and some who did at one time but now seem not to. Any ideas why please?

 

In the 1st category come: Carlisle, Bradford, Bangor, St Asaph, Brecon

 

In the 2nd category: Chelmsford, Llandaff, Leeds PC, St Mary Warwick, Jesus Cambridge

 

There are probably others.......

 

 

Omissions from above lists: Coventry, Southwark.

 

Also, unless I'm mistaken, haven't heard Chichester or St Alban's for a while either......

 

Might be interesting to bear in mind this list whilst reading the St John's topic currently running....

 

Edit - Oops - Should have looked here first! <_<http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/cesched.shtml - St Alban's coming up soon.

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Omissions from above lists: Coventry, Southwark.

 

Also, unless I'm mistaken, haven't heard Chichester or St Alban's for a while either......

 

Might be interesting to bear in mind this list whilst reading the St John's topic currently running....

 

Edit - Oops - Should have looked here first! :)http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/cesched.shtml - St Alban's coming up soon.

 

Chichester were on last March (2006)

 

:)

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