John Shea, the presenter who anchors Radio 3's small-hours presentation of music from round Europe and occasionally further afield, has written a Radio Times piece celebrating the programme's 25th anniversary. In it, he explained the genesis:
Donald Macleod [...] launched Through the Night - and with it, 24-hour broadcasting on Radio 3 - in the small hours of 5 May 1996. Remarkably, in those early days he produced and presented the whole thing himself. The playlist featured performances from around Europe that didn't necessarily find a place in our daytime schedule, and two years later we began to share the resulting programme with several other European Broadcasting Union member stations, under the title Notturno.
That's still the basis for TTN (as we call it) a quarter of a century later. Our small team of producers look through the EBU concert offers a few months ahead, and schedule one to start every programme. This usually fills most of the first couple of hours, then we're off on that musical journey around "Europe" - which regularly includes the USA, Canada, China, Australia and New Zealand, by the way. You've probably all wondered at some point how certain countries qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest. Welcome to the classical equivalent!
Long may the programme continue. In these times when the channel is increasingly dumbed-down, it is the last redoubt where, apart from the Thursday afternoon and Saturday evening operas, one can guarantee complete performances .
No comments:
Post a Comment