Radio 4’s offerings on weekday mornings do not appeal to me: Woman’s Hour and You and Yours with nothing of much interest in between.
Essential Classics on Radio 3 is my choice. Until recently the presenter’s whining voice was most annoying and he struggled to find anything to say between recordings. Oh joy, a couple of weeks ago he dolefully announced his departure to other duties within Radio 3. You may not agree but I am finding his replacement and her producer’s choice of music a vast improvement.
Suzy Klein has a friendly jolly-hockey-sticks manner, speaking to the listener with the same empathy as Terry Wogan, although she got a First in Music at St Hugh’s, Oxford. The content of the programme has changed too. It has gone down-market becoming an alternative to Classic Fm without the ads. Expect to hear popular compositions by great composers with a bit of Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and something from a Bernstein musical. It’s an appealing cocktail. Talking of which, finding I had been overdoing it a bit, I stopped drinking spirits on Monday and feel a lot better for it – just hope I don’t become a recidivist.
Other Radio 3 stalwarts are Choral Evensong and sometimes Opera on 3 and Sound of Cinema.
Meanwhile the falcon chick is losing her down, getting as big as her parents and venturing out of the nest box.
So agree on Essential Classics. Love some of the WOMAD type of pieces like the North African folk songs. Radio 3 is going through a renaissance.