The BBC's lamentable coverage of Young Musician

Andrew Shirtliff

As a pianist in the national final in 2002, I was one of the first competitors asked to appear in a 'diary room'-style monologue, which, supposedly, was designed to show that BBC Young Musician programme could be modernised and, no doubt, 'reach a new audience'.

It was an embarrassing experience, so much so that I have never watched any of the recorded footage of it.

Unfortunately this is just another example of the BBC appealing to the lowest common denominator (see also Jeremy Vine) - whilst those who seek more informed coverage will avoid it altogether. It's time to review the license fee and stop taking it for granted that the BBC continue to produce this garbage!

Adam B.

I thought exactly the same thing. The music is presented as peripheral to the performers. I remember watching entire performances when I was a kid, not just of BBC Young Musician, but of a wide range of concerts as well - without interruptions! There also used to be esoteric documentaries, broadening one's view of the world, on subjects that one wouldn't come across elsewhere. But almost everything the BBC does nowadays is dumbed down, or preachy with its own political agenda. The licence fee must end!

Diana

See Radio 3 messageboards - they are rightly incandescent.

Prodicus

Very well said. I hope there are other people in positions of influence who can crack a BBC controller or two over the nut for this. What is the point of covering this competition for TV programme if not to show young people *playing music*, so that other young people might be inspired -- *by watching them play* -- to aim high in music themselves?
I wail and gnash my teeth when I go to other countries and find their classical music channels - some state-funded, some not. This really is a philistine country now and our taxpayer-funded national broadcaster is more guilty than any other institution of making it so. Quite shameful.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Hear hear with a cherry on top. And it's not for want of telling - every music lover in the country has been telling them. They do not listen. This is the final degradation of the Marxist cultural apparatchik. Once they trooped obedient workers into vast opera theatres to listen to Shostakovich and Paul Robeson. Now they crawl on their hands and knees before what they suppose - emphasis on suppose - to be the popular taste. The common factor is that they place their abstract constructs over concrete facts such as angry noticeboards.

salieri

Many thanks for this clarion call. I had given up on the idea of complaining to the BBC that in its determination to make the programme 'accessible' it had quite forgotten to let us hear the music - and perhaps even form an opinion of our own?

Worse still: perhaps not forgotten, but deliberately suppressed, since in the Controllers' view the music just gets in the way of the all-important 'lifestyle' message.

They would only protest that we can hear the finals in full tonight. That is just not good enough. It's dumbed-down, itsy-bitsy vox pop culcha-by-numbers and there are vast numbers of musical people, young and old, amateur and professional, who are infuriated by this creeping and patronising cretinism.

The same is true of the 'Cardiff Singer of the World' - the Leeds Piano Competition has I think disappeared completely from the Beeb - but neither of these carries the "BBC" brand and it is, as you say, all too symptomatic of the BBC's deliberate downgrading of the arts, and music in particular.

John T, London

The problem is that the BBC is now run by managers or journalists, and they see everything in terms of news value or government targets (access, 'multicultural' content, 'environmental concerns', anti-western bias etc). So nothing can be simply broadcast, it must all be 'packaged'. Radio 3's worst enemies are all in the BBC.

salieri

Well, I was wrong about the Finals showing anything in full and I'm still seething with anger. Even by the standards shown so far this was a disgrace.

No, you can't have a whole concerto, that would put the viewers off. Instead, one measly excerpt recorded last night plus one solo piece, and all the usual meretricious yoof-culture substitutes for those deemed unable just to listen: the coloured lights, the amplified back-screens, the restless inyerface camera-work and shoddy mike-placement, the endless sound-bite interviews and flashbacks, the inane chit-chat with the family or the local vicar, the dash from one presenter to another, all chosen for age and looks, the judges likewise youthful, stubbled and/or groovy, the ululating and whistling bingo audience, the whole meretricious rubbish that is today's BBC. They almost had to apologise for the fact that the little music you were graciously permitted to hear wasn't by Lloyd-bloody-Webber.

To hell with the BBC, its relentless egalitarianism and its unending degradation.

Michael Graham Davis

i completely agree with Stephen Pollard. I have just watched the final (24 hours late) and whilst thoroughly enjoying the playing - what little we were allowed to hear I was sorely tempted to switch off because of the appallingly bad coverage.
It is ironic that a trombone player won, and one who started his playing in a brass bands of which the BBC generously gives 30 minutes coverage a week.

Jon Smalldon

Agree with every word.

pemerhati

The BBC's presentation of last night's Young Musicians' Final was a disgrace. The three presenters were appalling - 'amateur' is too generous - and Aled Jones should stick strictly to Songs of Praise from now on. The level of questions and remarks addressed to the contestants was way beneath their obvious intelligence and capabilities, and the inane conversations with gawky, family line-ups was embarrassing and pointless. Why should gifted young performers be patronised and exposed in this way - just because they're young and presumably not likely to walk away from such nonsense? Providing meagre excerpts of their performances without any input from the judges was the final straw. Verdict: What a missed opportunity and an insult to the musicians and TV audience alike. Side note: The set and lighting at the Wales Millenium Centre was hideous, tacky and distracting, which sort of summed up the BBC's whole approach really.

R.Morice

I'm still seething with indignation 2 days after the final - is this the death of culture in our times? I was pleasantly surprised to find how well the young trombonist had played curtesy of radio3's coverage last night -the TV coverage gave little clue.As so many of the contestants come from prestigious music schools I see a danger that these schools and their pupils might withdraw their support from this musical travesty.We should be very afraid of what could happen to the last night of the proms.

Nicholas Cox

As the teacher of the BBCYMY2006 Mark Simpson I have to say I was appalled at the coverage of the final. The whole event has become more like reality TV. Previously the former winner was to hand over the trophy to th new winner. In this case, the former winner was informed on the day that they had changed this. His contribution - was a world premiere of a new work commissioned for the occasion. No mention of this or the composer who had written the new piece or the fact it was for basset clarinet or indeed the distinguished ex-finalist(now established composer) playing the piano part - in fact no credits at all. No coverage of the previous winner - surely of interest to the watching public - how has this changed your life, what have you been up to, where have you performed - nothing.Certainly we know the BBC censors comments to its message board on BBCYMY - my comments have been 'edited' for criticism.
Mark asked me for lessons after he had applied for BBCYMY. Had he mentioned it before I took him on I most likely would have tried to dissuade him that it was a useful thing to do - such is my long held scepticism of the event. I still maintain that the competition is for the wrong age group and forces teenagers to make life changing decisions before they have finished their education. What the country really needs is a competition for musicians in their 20s who are ready for the concert stage and who can benefit from the start it gives. In more than one case the family of the winner has been subjected to needless stress resulting in marital breakdown. It is hard not to reach the conclusion that the BBC wishes to benefit from televisual child labour more than it wishes to fulfil the musical needs of the nation's musicians. It is on the evidence of the most recent coverage not interested in showing music on TV. Quite a contrast to its Radio 3 output! Certainly it has benefitted Mark, but fortunately he is smart and gifted enough to rise above all the mediocrity of coverage that goes with it and would have risen to the top without it.