What's Happening to Radio 3?

If you don't listen to Radio 3, you can skip this blog. But if you do, read on.

I owe BBC Radio 3 a huge debt. It helped to form me as a child. At home in the 1950s and 60s, the radio would always be playing classical music wherever it could be found. Radio 3's predecessors Network Three and the Third Programme were the station of choice (unless it was time for The Archers). When it was silent, as it was for much of the time in those days, European stations closest to the UK would stand in. Hilversum had the honour of being picked out with a sticky label on the tuning dial. The hums, wheezes and whistles of short wave and AM were the unforgettable noise behind of my first experiences of music, as were the skips and scratches of the 78s I would play on my wind-up gramophone.

How vivid those early memories are of the music that emanated from that big brown valve radio in the corner of the sitting room! Mozart symphonies and piano concerti, and Schubert Lieder laid down the foundation, I recall. Next came Beethoven symphonies and Bach's keyboard music. Opera was represented by Bizet's Carmen and Wagner's Flying Dutchman. My mother listened keenly to chamber music and my father to the big romantic symphonies and concerti, though it wasn't till I was a teenager that I began to pay attention. By then I'd become a chorister, so I began to devour choral music on the radio, beginning with Bach's St John Passion, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Brahms' Requiem. Choral Evensong, radio's oldest outside broadcast now 90 years old, became a weekly staple - when I was home from school early enough on a Wednesday afternoon to catch it. Like many people, I could tell my life story through the music I've come to love and which I've found to be not just inspiring but life-changing. Much of that is thanks to Radio 3. It has to be one of the most inventive and rewarding music stations in the world.

Now that I'm retired, we have Radio 3 on in the house most of the day (in different rooms that each has its own interpretation of "real time" when it comes to picking up the same digital signal). It's an immeasurable gift to have great music playing all day long. But I've noticed a shift in the style and content recently. There seems to be more and more of what I call pot-pourri programming these days. That's to say, the kind of talk-show scheduling that fills large parts of the day by giving presenters a studio, a CD player and sometimes guests to talk to and live performers to listen to.

Tomorrow, for instance, we shall have Petroc Trelawny on Breakfast duty from 0630 to 0900. Rob Cowan takes over with Essential Classics until noon. In Tune with Katie Derham runs from 1700 to 1900, and for half an hour after that, a new feature called In Tune Mixtape in which assorted tracks are played back to back without being interrupted by speech. This latest baffling invention, just a few weeks old, partly replaces the daily evening repeat of Donald Macleod's admirable Composer of the Week, once required listening at the supper table here in Burswell House. In total, that makes up a full eight hours of free-flowing (I almost said stream of consciousness) programming during the daytime.

I don't want to be misunderstood here. Radio 3 presenters are a splendid group of people: interesting, personable, articulate, urbane, amusing, skilled and musically intelligent. I've interacted with many of them on social media and had many a thoughtful or witty reply that has made me feel that we Radio 3 listeners belong to one of the best clubs in the country. And apart from a few exceptions, it's not a case of "dumbing down" the high art for which Radio 3 is justly renowned. I think we may be hearing more of Bizet's Pearl Fishers duet, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (first movement only) and Pachelbel's Canon than we used to, but on the whole, the musical range is as extensive and stimulating as ever. You only have to listen to Classic FM for a day to realise that the stations are very different from each other in that respect.

But pot-pourri programming inevitably falls back on the well-tried formulae of popular radio. This means above all having an easy conversational style ("as if they were sitting in my own kitchen"), a relentlessly upbeat tone, and maintaining as much musical variety as possible by playing single movements or excerpts from longer works. These days you don't often hear a complete symphony, chamber work or song cycle outside the official "concert slots" in the afternoons or evenings. Is it unkind to hint at "easy-listening" here, easy in the sense of not demanding too much of the listener whose attention spans are presumed not to exceed a few minutes? Or does cost come into it? It's not that there isn't a place for this kind of broadcasting. But there's too much of it. We still need the properly constructed programmes whose shape and grammar are dictated by more serious aims and content than entertaining an audience and keeping it going cheerfully through the day.

"Retirement is making him grumpy" I hear you say. I hope not. I'm not giving up on Radio 3. It's one of my oldest friends. But I do admit to turning aside from it more than I used to (how horrified my late mother would be!), switching the tuner to AUX and finding other means of playing serious music. This morning, when I got back from taking the early service in church, I played four Bach cantatas one after another on YouTube where I've learned you can find almost anything you want musically speaking. I'm not suggesting Radio 3 could or should have done that (though to broadcast the day's Bach cantata on the morning of every Sunday of the year might be an idea to run with....).

I'm simply saying that I looked for something a bit more intentional than the Sunday Morning offer from 0900 to midday ("music ranging from Gluck to Debussy by way of Schubert" announced the website). But as I gratefully streamed from the ever obliging internet, I also realised that making my own choices is not the same as live radio. When I choose to play music, I tend to stay within my own musical experience, my comfort zone if you like. Radio's gift is to take me beyond my well-honed musical preferences and prejudices, and challenge me to discover the new, the different, the surprising, the hard and even the alien. It invites me into a community of listeners, and there's something about enjoying music in the company of a worldwide audience that strikes me as precious and important, and a necessary antidote to individualism, so much a tendency of our age.

If someone in the BBC picks this up, maybe there could be a good conversation about the aims and style of Radio 3's scheduling. The world has moved on since my childhood. It's right that Radio 3 responds to change. In particular, widening access to great music and art must always be among its priorities. And yes, pleasing an audience involves compromises. It's not a case of elitism - God forbid! But maybe - maybe - there's scope for looking again at the daily schedules and asking whether the balance is quite right any more, whether there's been a decline of seriousness, or a loss of confidence in the well-tested mission of this wonderful radio station. I'm saying: don't weaken a strong brand. Please. "Discuss."

I hope it's clear that this blog is written out of affection and gratitude. I really don't want to be grumpy. Better to say it openly and see what happens.

Evensong

It isn't quite the BBC's longest running show - which is The Week's Good Cause. But it is the Beeb's longest running outside broadcast. 90 years ago on 7 October 1926, the BBC broadcast Choral Evensong for the first time. By the time I was old enough to be vaguely aware of ethereal singing mysteriously seeping out of the big valve radio in the corner of the living room, it had been going for more than 30 years. At the age of 90 it's more popular than ever.

Last week the national cathedral attendance statistics for 2015 were published. They showed a striking increase in weekday attendances, up by 18% over the past decade. This includes weekday celebrations of the eucharist and the daily office, including of course choral evensong. (Sunday attendance remains "stable".) In some choral foundations you have to turn up in very good time to be sure of a seat in the quire. 

What is it about evensong that continues to draw people to cathedrals, greater churches and college chapels? I can't put it better than the writer of a letter to The Times, quoted by one of the producers of BBC Choral Evensong, Canon Stephen Shipley:*

I turned on Choral Evensong by accident one afternoon a year or so ago and I’ve been listening ever since. The music is beautiful, but the special quality of Evensong lies in other places too, in the paradoxical contrast between the sinewy intricacy of 16th century language, and the simplicity of the thoughts it expresses: prayers for courage, for grace, for protection from the dark, for a good death. These are things to which our minds have particularly lately turned in the aftermath of recent terrible events, but they were there all the time in the psalms and collects of Evensong. For almost 500 years the same words have been repeated by people in times of trouble or of triumph. The presence of that cloud of unseen witnesses lends an intangible quality to Choral Evensong. You could call it calm or spirituality. You could call it holiness. But it’s very precious.

In retirement, I'm often asked what I miss most from my working life. It's a question that can be answered on many levels. There's so much that I miss, however rich life is also becoming in new ways. But in terms of the way time and prayer have been shaped and ordered day by day and week by week, I unhesitatingly say that what I miss most of all is daily choral evensong. After almost 30 years of full-time cathedral ministry, with six years before that living and working in a cathedral close, it's been fundamental to my praying. Days still feel oddly empty without it.  The incomparable blend of finely wrought words, music and architecture somehow touches the human soul in a very deep place - well, it touches mine anyway. Which is why the weekly broadcast of evensong on Wednesday afternoons on BBC Radio 3 has become such an important part of the spiritual life in retirement, as are our midweek journeys to Hexham Abbey to attend evensong there. 

I was first drawn into its powerful and redemptive magic as a boy chorister in the early 1960s. Once enticed, I never looked back. Even in my most fervent evangelical Christian Union days when I sat a lot looser to formal liturgy and relished the spontaneity of the prayer meeting, I never lost the sense that evensong was a wonderful gift of the English Church to her people. My farewell service in Durham Cathedral a year ago took the form of choral evensong with music by those quintessentially English church composers Herbert Howells and Edward Bairstow among others. Nunc Dimittis sung to the Gloucester Service felt extraordinarily poignant. A lifetime of evensongs seemed somehow to be gathered up that afternoon. Looking back, I wonder how I got through it.

There is something very Benedictine about Anglican choral evensong. In cathedrals and on the radio, you feel you are tuning in to the Opus Dei, the "work of God" that is the whole church's continuous offering of praise and prayer day by day and hour by hour. All its parts are in a beautiful and delicate balance with one another: music and words, praise and prayer, scripture, psalmody and silence. And let's scotch a myth about evensong straight away. People sometimes say that it's liturgy you don't join in. How wrong that is! You do join in. But in a contemplative way, by listening, paying attention, allowing yourself to be transported into another place by what you are hearing and experiencing. 

And when the Prayer Book psalms for each of the thirty days of the month are chanted in full, you catch Benedict's vision of daily prayer that is organised around the songs of the Israelite community that are collected up in the Psalter. Celebration, lament, despair, thankfulness, comfort, anger, trustfulness, bewilderment, joy, hope and love are all there in the Psalms. They gather up all the quotidian experience of life - as it was in ancient times and as it now. I used to say to choristers in the cathedrals where I served: make the Psalms your special joy. They are like Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, the 48 Preludes and Fugues. If you can play those, you can play anything. And if you love them, immerse yourselves in them, learn some of them off by heart, they will nourish you for a lifetime. 

The surprising thing is this. I've found that choral evensong can be a powerful tool for evangelism. I've met many people over the years who have found faith through coming to this service. Maybe they came tentatively at first, not quite sure what they would find, relieved perhaps that they didn't have to open their mouths and sing or say very much. Gradually they found themselves drawn into the inward logic of prayer which is that it takes us to places beyond our immediate experience, and by doing so, helps us to see things in a new and life-changing way. For some, this has come as nothing less than a fresh expression of lived Christianity. Looking back, I think the seeds of faith were sown in me at evensong too. 

Among those who became committed Christians have been the parents and families of choristers themselves. They came at first simply to enjoy the music and support their children. As a former chorister parent myself, I can entirely understand that. Gradually, they began to see that there was more to this strange world of prayer and worship than they had imagined. Perhaps the growth in attendance at evensong is precisely because cathedrals offer the possibility of "liminality" - finding your own way of approaching the thresholds of faith and making the journey from being a member of an audience towards being a participant and a pilgrim. 

Late in life, I am still on that journey. I'm profoundly thankful for this lifetime of choral evensongs. Thank you to the cathedrals, greater churches, college chapels and other places of worship - not just in the UK but across the world - that guard our precious "English choral tradition" so lovingly and so well, and contribute so much to the rich spirituality of Anglicanism. And thank you to the BBC for its continued commitment to broadcasting the service week by week. Happy 90th birthday!

*http://www.choralevensong.org/90_years_BBC_Evensong.php

The EU referendum: should the churches take a view?

This week I put in an appearance on the BBC's Sunday Programme on Radio 4. I was invited, as convenor of "Christians for the EU" to take part in a discussion with my opposite number from "Christians for Britain". I suppose we are both campaigning organisations though I'm not sure I like the label much. What we are both trying to do is to apply a Christian mind and Christian wisdom to the EU referendum. We hold entirely different positions on whether the UK should remain in or leave. But I think the debate is worth having between Christian people who want to make a decision informed by good theology, ethics and practice.

Later that morning, I was surprised to find that a number of people had been listening. (Why weren't they enjoying a lie-in on Sunday like other civilised folk? I quipped.) Some said they agreed with what I'd said, some were clear that they disagreed wholly or in part, while yet others were carefully saying in an Athenian sort of way "we will hear you again about this" (Acts 17.32). But they all seemed to welcome the airing the EU referendum was getting on a religious news programme. Once upon a time some might have said that the church "shouldn't mess with politics". Not now.

On the radio we were asked what role the church should play in the debate. Here's what we agreed on (I'm expanding a little here, but I'm pretty confident the loyal opposition wouldn't dissent). 1 - That the churches absolutely must not tell anyone how to vote. 2 - That churches should urge their members to think hard about the issues, offer them to God in prayer and reflection, and discuss and debate them with others, whether Christians, people of other faiths, or those with no particular religious commitment. 3 - And that the churches should set up events of all kinds - public fora, study groups, vigils for prayer and meditation - so that lay people and clergy are given all the resources they need when it comes to casting their vote on 23 June.

But what about the churches giving a lead by coming to a view and saying so publicly? Let's be a bit controversial for once.

I keep being told that there is no possibility of the Church of England, which is what I know best, declaring for one side or the other. Its bishops are being hesitant in telling us what they think: some episcopal bloggers believe that "taking sides" on a political matter like this doesn't belong to their public roles as church leaders because it would be construed as directing people what to think. At a time of division, the church should be there as a place of healing and reconciliation, not division and disunity.

Why don't I altogether agree with this line of argument?

By way of answer, let me quote a statement issued by the Church of Scotland in February, just before the referendum date was announced.

The Church of Scotland has called for a positive debate on the EU that considers its role in promoting peace security and international cooperation. The Church recognises that:

1. A referendum will be held and that could be in as little as four months.
2. The Church of Scotland General Assembly has supported remaining in the EU since 1996.
3. In this time of huge international challenge it is crucial to work together across national borders.
4. In deciding how to vote on this momentous decision we should consider issues of peace, security and international cooperation.

Rev Dr Richard Frazer, Vice Convener of the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council said:
"Since last year's General Election, we have known that there will be a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Union. There is likely to be a very short timescale to discuss such an important set of issues. It will be a decision which will shape our country, our communities and our lives for generations to come. It is vital that there is now a respectful, engaging, but above all positive debate which will focus on important issues.

"Since its report in 1996 "The European Union – Crisis or opportunity" the Church of Scotland has repeatedly affirmed the work of the European Union in promoting peace, security and reconciliation amongst European nations. As recently as 2014 the General Assembly stated its opinion that 'it is better for Scotland, Britain and Europe for the United Kingdom to remain in the EU.'

"At a time when there is great conflict in the world, when we are faced with millions of desperate people seeking refuge in Europe and where climate change is wreaking havoc, there is a need to work internationally and globally. We need a bigger picture of the world, not a smaller one. The decision on which way to vote in June is one for each individual to reflect on and make with integrity, but it is in working together, across national borders, that real progress will be made."

This statement seems to me to be exemplary in every way. It's clearly not telling its members how to vote but it does offer guidance about the issues involved. In particular, it urges Christians to think beyond their own interests and their own country into a 'bigger picture of the world' and to have regard for social justice, peace, security and international collaboration. Its tone is measured, restrained and eirenical. If someone dissents with its content, there is space to do so without any loss of integrity or standing. And it invites people to engage seriously with the debate as a matter of urgency, whatever their personal convictions. It allows for "good disagreement".

I ask myself: why could not the Church of England make a similar statement? After all, the Kirk is the national church of Scotland and has a vocation to speak for the Scottish people. The Church of England is similarly placed. In the past, it has not been afraid to take a stand in the face of considerable unpopularity in some quarters: Faith In The City and The Church and the Bomb are just two well-known precedents. Where the EU debate is similar is that it is not dividing the nation along party-political lines. If it were, the church would indeed want to promote debate but would wisely not commit to a particular party line - precisely how it plays its part before each election.

Of course the Church of England General Synod has not debated the EU referendum, nor has it come to a common mind about the European Union in the way that the Church of Scotland General Assembly did in 1996. The General Synod doesn't now meet again until after it's all over, so we have lost a golden opportunity (even though we've known since the general election that a referendum would be coming down the slipway). Even the February Synod would not have been too late. But nothing was said as far as I know, apart from a question about how church members would be helped to think about the issues raised by the referendum. (The written answer was along the lines of my third paragraph above. It was fine as far as it went. But I longed for much more, a proper Synod debate at least.)

But there is nothing to stop the C of E's Mission and Public Affairs Committee coming to a view and declaring it: it's already energetically promoting EU discussion and debates in English dioceses and cathedrals (for which, thank you!). The Archbishops' and Bishops' Councils and Diocesan Synods could do the same. There is nothing to stop bishops coming out with their views, whatever they are, in presidential addresses to synods, in papers, blogs, broadcasts, Parliament (if they are in the House of Lords) and social media. I said on the air waves that I hoped preachers would take up these themes in the run-up to June 23rd. (Unless church members regularly visit social media feeds like this one, they may well not hear Christian insight into the referendum anywhere else but in their local church.)

Let me add this. Not to take initiatives like these in relation to this once-for-all decision would look as though the church was not greatly interested. That would not play well in an environment where "public faith" is now rightly the expectation placed on a national church. The C of E is one of the leading Christian voices that speaks for England as its established church out of an extraordinarily rich theological and spiritual wisdom. That's a hugely privileged position to take, but it's also a big responsibility. There is a vast resource of Christian social theology written by Church of England theologians and others which, coupled with an accurate instinct for the Zeitgeist of our people, is uniquely placed to make a vital contribution to the discussion enlightened and enlivened by the gospel's grace and truth.

So here's my plea. Let's take a modest risk here and be brave enough to speak in a prophetic and wise spirit. I'd love it if the national and diocesan Church of England bodies I've mentioned could emulate the Church of Scotland's exemplary lead, not just in what it says but the skilful way it says it. I'd love it if other churches across the UK did the same. Even when views differed, it would still be very good for the quality of the debate. It would be marvellous if it helped mobilise the UK population to be as politically engaged with the EU referendum process as the people of Scotland were before the independence vote in 2014. That would be to perform a really important service for church and nation. Its effects would, I believe, far outlast the outcome of the referendum itself.

You can follow Christians for the EU on Facebook and on Twitter @Xians4EU.