A Letter from the Editor...
Radio 3 brings an orchestra into your kitchen. The LSO in action
Dear Idlers,

A few weeks ago Victoria turned off Radio 4 in the morning. Instead she turned on Radio 3. And she says that her mood has soared ever since.

Radio 4, and the Today programme in particular, seem expressly designed to make you angry about matters over which you have absolutely no control. The news, as Morrissey pointed out, tries to frighten you, to make you feel small and alone. Discussion programmes are all about arguing. They may be entertaining, in the same way as watching gladiators was entertaining. But they’re hardly edifying and certainly not transcendent.

Radio 3, on the other hand, lifts you up to other-wordly planes. (Overseas readers who may not know what I am talking about: Radio 3 is the BBC’s classical music station, and you can of course listen to it via the Internet).

Here is the world’s most beautiful music, chosen by lovely knowledgeable presenters, emerging for free from the radio in the corner of the room. It’s a blessing, nay, a miracle. It’s a spiritual experience.

Your companions on weekday mornings are Petroc Trelawny and Georgia Mann, both very amiable hosts. There’s a little bit of news, so you don’t feel completely out of touch. But very little.

We now just leave the radio on all day, so whenever you walk into the kitchen, you will hear Vivaldi (this week’s Composer of the Week) or Bach or something more obscure. I think how miraculous the people of the 18th century would have found the wireless: an entire invisible orchestra playing for you!

Radio 3 is experimental too and never afraid of the avant garde, as any listener to Night Tracks will attest. You can hear some really weird sounds coming out of the radio late at night.

Then there’s their brilliant words and music strand, where seemingly random bits of poetry and prose are read by actors and interspersed with relevant music. There’s no commentary or explanation. It’s like a work of audio art. It’s called simply Words and Music and goes out on Sundays at 5.30pm.

And then there’s my favourite of all, The Early Music Show on Saturdays at 2pm, when the presenters go back to medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Lutes, harpsichords and viola da gambas galore.

Now these presenters, what a great job they have! I can't think of a more idle occupation than "Radio 3 DJ". The job involves only the tiniest bit of chat: "That was a lovely recording of Mozart's Violin Concerto No 5 in A Major with Arthur Grumiaux and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted there by Sir Colin Davis." Then you just press a button and drift off for another 20 minutes. And the show lasts only two or three hours. Nice work if you can get it.

It's the anti-work radio station. While Zoe Ball and Chris Evans are all about cheering up and distracting the workers for a day of picking and packing in the warehouse, Radio 3 takes you to sublime worlds which make you question the need for work at all.

Some of the titles of the shows, it’s true, strike a bum note. Music Matters must be the worst name ever for a programme about music. And some are sweetly innocent and 1950s-sounding: “In Tune”, for example. Though this is an excellent show where Sean Rafferty interviews young stars of classical music.

Its listening figures are not massive. Radio 2 gets nearly 15 million listeners a week. Radio 4 nearly ten million. 6 Music (also great) gets 2.5 million, and Radio 3 gets two million. Still, that's an awful lot of people.

Truly, I repeat, Radio 3 is a blessing from the gods, and I beseech the poets to compose an ode in Latin to its joys.

Live well,

Tom

PS Our guest on tonight’s “A Drink with the Idler” is author Kamin Mohammadi. Kamin was born in Iran and moved to England when she was eight years old. She worked in glossy magazines in London and later underwent a life change with a move to Florence, which she has written about in her book Bella Figura. More recently she has been a prominent voice in support of the women’s protests in Iran. “After all these months, it's clear that these protests represent a seismic shift for the future of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Read an excerpt from her memoir The Cypress Tree here. We’ll see you at 6pm this evening. It’s free for subscribers and members. Non-subscribers: book here. Subscribers: you have been sent a direct link. Any queries, please email us at mail@idler.co.uk.
 
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Idler 88: January/February. Out now. Available in selected WHSmiths, Waitrose, Waterstones, Sainsbury's, Easons and Booths. For subscription options, click here.



On  "Idle Thoughts"...


Book of the Week: The Cypress Tree
Kamin Mohammadi explains the appeal of Ayatollah Khomeini’s ideas in 1977 Iran

Whatever Happened to Elevenses?
We mustn’t lose this marvellous idling tradition, says Tom Hodgkinson (with your comments)

Review: The Right to Be Lazy, New Edition
We assess a new critical edition of Lafargue's classic from the New York Review of Books' publishing imprint

 

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