Sunday
nights don't mean Music Night any
more
After 70 years BBC
Radio's longest running programme
- a showcase for the BBC Concert
Orchestra - is coming to an end.
An article by
Simon'O'Hagan in The i Newspaper
(25th
November 2023)
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Friday Night
Is Music Night
latterly Sunday Night Is
Music Night is BBC
radios longest-running live
music show, the last surviving
link to the era of the Light
Programme (which became Radio 2
in 1967) and shows like The
Goon Show and Round the
Horne. It began all the way
back in 1953 but in 2023,
after 70 years, is Sunday
Night itself heading into
the night?
Numerous elements
have combined to make the show
special. Its two hours
live, and its performed in
front of packed audiences in
theatres and concert halls across
the land. The music is hugely
varied, from pop to classical to
film themes to showtunes. No
piece lasts longer than three or
four minutes, and theres
the fun of never knowing
whats coming next. And
throughout its history, it has
been a showcase for the most
versatile of all the BBCs
performing groups the BBC
Concert Orchestra.
"It's our
ability to switch between styles
in an instant which I think is
the orchestra's defining
quality", long-time
orchestra member Alasdair Malloy
says. "And Friday Night
was where we got to show off that
quality. As a player, you become
quite addicted to it. If you
think of the BBC Symphony
Orchestra, they're playing
symphonies and other things from
the classical repertoire all the
time. I think there are one or
two members of it who are quite
envious of the Concert Orchestra
the way we'll go from
Rachmaninov to Rogers and
Hammerstein all in the same
evening."
A recent schedule
change has had a big impact on Sunday
Night Is Music Night, and
therefore on the Concert
Orchestras opportunity to
do what it does best.
That change came
about when, in October, Paul
Gambaccini departed the
presenter's chair on Radio 2's Pick
of the Pops on a Saturday
lunchtime, making way for Steve
Wright. Gambo, as he is known
within the industry, has been a
voice on BBC radio for 50 years.
He's a legend. Nobody wanted him
to disappear, and so he acquired
a slot on Sunday evenings on
Radio 2 The Paul
Gambaccini Collection.
Something had to
give, and that something was Sunday
Night Is Music Night.
"We are all feeling the
loss," Malloy, who is a
percussionist, says.
Radio 2 are at
pains to point out that it is not
the end of the show. Specials
like the recent Doctor Who
-themed edition will continue to
appear in the schedules. In the
run-up to Christmas,
therell be Trevor
Nelsons Soul Christmas
featuring the BBC Concert
Orchestra.
"The show is
in the spirit of Sunday Night
Is Music Night, but
broadcast on a Thursday
night," a spokesperson says.
Nonetheless, for
the Sunday Night Is Music
Night listener, and before
that, Friday Night,
its beginning to feel like
the end of an era one that
stretches all the way back to
when the host was required to
wear black tie, and the BBC had a
connection to the regions that it
subsequently lost and is now
trying to regain.
From Hastings to
Blackpool, and Watford to
Cardiff, Music Night
reached out to where the
audiences were, and those
audiences enjoyed the kind of
light music that has all but
disappeared from the schedules
Viennese waltzes, Nelson
Riddle arrangements, cinema organ
favourites, and the work of such
composers as Eric Coates, creator
of the Desert Island Discs theme
tune "Sleepy Lagoon".
"It was
really an old-fashioned variety
show that somehow survived",
one former Friday Night
insider says. "It was very
tight, very slick, but even as a
vehicle for the kind of pop star
who wants to work with an
orchestra, its time seems to have
come. That type of audience
isnt being served any more.
And maybe with changing work and
leisure patterns, Friday nights
and now Sunday nights dont
mean the same as what they once
did."
The dwindling of
the show also comes at a cost to
musical talent. It gave
opportunities to young and
lesser-known performers who might
well go on to much bigger things.
The conductor John Wilson
now one of the most in-demand in
the world learnt much of
his craft on Friday Night Is
Music Night.
Other performers
for whom Friday Night
was either a stepping stone or a
showcase include Michael Bublé,
Glen Campbell, the operatic tenor
Nicky Spence, the harpist Catrin
Finch, the singer and
multi-instrumentalist Julie
Fowlis, and the operatic soprano
Aylish Tynan.
Spence embodies
the essence of Friday Night
his opera roles embrace
Benjamin Britten, Richard Wagner
and Leos Janacek. At the same
time he is one of the singers who
have just combined to release an
album of Noel Coward songs.
Whenever this kind
of change happens, the question
of the bottom line will never be
far from the picture. Paul
Gambaccini's new Sunday night
show will be costing a fraction
of what it takes to put on an
edition of Sunday Night Is
Music Night, with not just
soloists and conductors to pay
for but the whole panoply of
logistics involved in getting the
56 members of the BBC Concert
Orchestra, and often a choir,
ready and in position, perhaps
many miles from their London
base.
"It was one
of the most complicated things
I've ever worked on",
another former member of the Friday
Night team says. "There
were so many different
constituencies involved
the Outside Broadcast team, Radio
2 editorial, the orchestra's own
management, and so on. But the
way it all came together was
beautiful". Budget cuts is
how the reduction in Sunday
Nights has been explained to
the Concert Orchestra members.
The orchestra
remains much in demand and still
has a full diary. Its BBC
commitments include recording TV
theme music, and they are a
regular fixture on the Piano
Room, part of Vernon
Kays weekday morning Radio
2 show. There's also work they do
for outside promoters, which is
an earner for the Corporation.
But for Alasdair Malloy, the
memories of Friday Night Is
Music Night are very
special.
His favourite
takes him back to a show in
Bexhill-on-Sea when he came up
with the wheeze of having smoke
come out of his xylophone during
a particularly frenetic piece.
"The producer loved the idea
and the pyrotechnics crew were on
board. But what nobody had
reckoned with was how long the
smoke would fill the stage. The
presenter was the great Robin
Boyle who was always the supreme
professional but he tried to
introduce the next number and
just fell about laughing. People
listening at home must have
wondered what was going on!"
For Music
Nights devoted
audiences, as well as the
countless musicians who've graced
its stages, the hope must be that
there is still breath in a show
like no other.
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