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Jonathan   21/9/2003	Subject: Negativity towards Raff Message: Dear All, Twice in the last few weeks, I have noticed on the BBC Radio 3 messageboards negative comments about Raff. Does anyone know why this seems to be the case? Is his music (to an untrained and inexperienced ear) too similar to other mid-19th century music or is it just inbuild prejudice against someone who isn't a household name? (For the record, I think it's the latter!!) Thank you for your thoughts... Jonathan P.S. I don't know if I can mention this here, if I can't feel free to remove this paragraph(!) but if you are fed up with the output from BBC Radio 3 (i.e. too much non classical music) then visit the "Friends of Radio 3" website on: www.for3.org Thanks again...
John Boyer   21/9/2003	RE: Negativity towards Raff IP: Logged Message: Well, that's an easy one. It's built-in prejudice against the unfamiliar. Honestly, does anyone criticize Mozart because his music is in the same vein as Haydn's: 18th Century Viennese? What else is a mid-19th Century composer supposed to sound like? Actually, once you get to know Raff, he does have his own sound. The opening themes of the Piano Concerto and the First Cello Concerto are good examples. I know of a reviewer who dislikes English performers (though not English composers). Nearly all English ensembles get bad reviews, though I bet they wouldn't if it were a blind test. I have a friend who despises all American art (music, painting, literature, etc.). Play him Hanson's 1st Symphony and he damns it. Play the second, but tell him it's by the little known German composer Ichbin Nichtmann, and he's full of praise. That's life! If people hate you because of your skin color, it's no big stretch to hate your music, too! As for the fall of BBC Radio 3, here in America classical music on the radio is dying at a visible pace. It's not like watching the leaves fall from a tree. It's more like watching the tree burn. From 1990 to 2000, the number of radio stations broadcasting classical fell by 50%!! What survives is pretty hopeless, a sort of high class Muzak, but Muzak nonetheless: no vocal music (offends the listeners), no 20th Century music (offends the listeners), no large scale works like Bruckner or Mahler (can't fit them in with the hourly 10 minutes of news, besides, their length offends the listeners). Hell, you don't even get Dvorak or Brahms symphonies. Even they're too long.