WCRB

I was listening to WCRB in the car this evening. Something pretty strange happened. After the first movement of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto, they played a very unexpected piece -- the second movement of the concerto. Maybe the third movement followed, but by then I had arrived at my destination.

Yes, the demise of WCRB will be a little sad, as Boston should have a full-time classical music station, but the peope lamenting its impending format change as part of the death of classical music are missing part the point. In its current format, WCRB is hardly friendly to classical music. It's not just that the station only plays a very small selection of music, pretty much excluding anything written before 1700 or after 1900. It isn't even their terrible habit of playing just one movement from a piece.

WCRB's real problem is that it has a very negative attitude about the music it plays. Again and again and again, they talk about "relaxing" classical music. (Even to bizarre effect -- I remember one time several years ago when the relaxing piece the host was plugging turned out to be Beethoven's 5th.) In CRB's world, classical musc isn't something that is supposed to engage the mind; it is supposed to turn the mind off.

I think if WCRB respected its listeners a little more, maybe it would be doing a little better. Instead, it tries to cultivate brain-dead listeners by making classical music into a brain-dead product.

Addendum:

Today, WGBH pulled a CRB-style move, and played just the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th. (I didn't believe my ears until their website confirmed it.) But I'm much more willing to cut them some slack -- they have an interesting and eclectic playlist, and don't treat their audience like idiots.

-12/30/05, 22:11