I think you don't hear much vocal music on the radio for the same reason
you seldom hear anything except Baroque, Classical era, LIGHT Romantic,
and *very* melodic, unchallenging 20th Century instrumental music. For
many listeners, Classical radio is "ear candy" - it's pretty background
music. They don't want music that might actually grab their attention and
force them to listen. It's really just MUZAK for people who are too
snobbish to actually listen to MUZAK. I know this is a generalization,
but apparently it's a generalization that the people in charge of
programming on 99% of America's Classical music stations (and Public TV
stations) seriously believe in.
Even the stations here that broadcast the live Met and Lyric Opera
performances don't ever play opera or solo vocal music at other times. The
one exception is Christmas time, when you might occasionally hear a
recording of a carol by Jessye Norman or Placido Domingo. Choral music
gets almost equally short shrift, although choral music doesn't seem to be
quite as taboo as solo vocal music - one does hear the rare choral work
durin g regular broadcast times.
I guess it makes as much sense as having a program called MILLENIUM OF
MUSIC on our local classical public radio station - it bills itself as
featuring the 1000 years of music prior to Bach. But what it is, in fact,
is a program that focuses on 15th c. polyphony, and Renaissance and early
Baroque music. I have yet to hear any of the few extant Troubadour songs
of the 11th Century, or similarly ancient - and "exotic" sounding - fare.
The fact is, there are a lot of classical music listeners out there who
hate anything except "early" music (define this as you will - I always
though it should mean pre-Baroque, but it apparently now includes
pre-Baroque, Baroque, and even pre-Mozart/Haydn classical). Others will
accept a little Mozart and Haydn with their Bach and Handel and Telemann.
In any case, what you will hear very little of is the more challenging
works by Mahler, Richard Strauss, and certainly very little of
Shostakovich or Prokofiev, and forget EVER hearing Schoenberg or Boulez or
even Maxwell Davies.
And of course, what Verdi and Puccini you will hear will be OVERTURES from
the operas. God forbid we should be forced to actually listen to the
human voice!
KM
=====
My NEIL SHICOFF Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Website:
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Es en balde, majo mio, que sigas hablando
porque hay cosas que contesto yo
siempre cantando:
Tra la la...
Por mas que preguntes tanto:
tra la la...
En mi no causas quebranto
ni yo he de salir de mi canto:
tra la la...
- Fernando Periquet
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