Here in Munich we have two CM stations, one that feeds off a private
operation based in Hamburg; the other one is the Fourth (radio) Program
of the publicly-owned Bavarian Broadcasting system.  The private outfit,
Classic Radio, has a shorter attention span, is marred by commercials, but
on the other hand has good, up-to-date resources.Transmission quality is
excellent.  The other station, Bayern 4, has greater stamina, almost no
advertising but, for that,more tutelary talk and theory.  The programming
comes with a change of pace.  There are regular programs devoted to
specific genres of music, eg voice, and these are compendia of excerpts
chosen from a very fine library.  Other programs are topical, for example
one this morning on new cd's.  But this evening I'm right now hearing all
of Gluck's Iphigenie in Tauris, done by the Musiciens du Louvre, conductor
Marc Minkowski.  This will be followed by an hour of old music.  Earlier,
we had an hour and a half of complete shorter works that included
Kreutzer's Trio in A-dur; Faure's Fantasie Op.79;a Debussy sonata and two
Interludes by Ibert.  Following that came a half hour devoted to the Piano
Trio #4 by Louis Gouvy.  Then a half hour of Alfred Brendel.

I have a feeling that the private station is as "serious" as it dares to be
in order to survive.  The public station appears to be doing its best to
sustain what the (conservative) Bavarian State considers the sort of Kultur
that its people ought to imbued with.  Moreover, I doubt that the private
station would scoot very far up the Kultur market even if its highbrow
rival didn't exist.  Both serve CM, but the one in the sense of lower
culture, the other in the sense of a higher culture.  So it goes.  (And I'm
glad that we have both kinds.  If you don't like what's playang, you just
push the other button.)

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]