Posted by
Bill Cherry on Sunday, February 08, 2009 11:17:38 AM
A lot of big cities have radio stations that program classical music. In Dallas, the station is WRR-FM and it is owned entirely by the City of Dallas even though it claims it makes a profit year-after year.
I listen to it from time-to-time, but I usually find myself changing the station after awhile. It's not because I get tired of the music. It's that I get tired of the voices that infect it.
They come in two catagories. First, there are the guys with the British accents. (They automatically make me crazy!) Then there are the guys who, even if you didn't, you wanted to beat up when you were in junior high school together. (I'm thinking about making a temporary trip back to those times so I can have an excuse to take care of a couple of these guys.)
I often wonder if the popularity of the classical music as well as the audience numbers wouldn't increase if the stations used hosts who spoke like Texans and who sounded a bit on the friendly side. They could start with a trial segment. How about getting one of the fellows from one of the local country-western stations to take a three hour show every day for a month?
But you see, this has no choice but to hit a stone wall. Here is the actual audition script that WRR claims it requires every new announcer applicant to read and pass. So let see, you think there's any chance Walter Cronkite or Anderson Cooper could meet the requirements?
(While WRR infers that the audition script is original with them, in actuality it was lifted from WFMT.)
"The WRR announcer's lot is not a happy one. In addition to uttering the sibilant, mellifluous cadences of such cacophonous sounds as Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Carl Schuricht, Nicanor Zabaleta, Hans Knappertsbusch and the Hammerklavier Sonata, he must thread his vocal way through the complications of L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and other complicated nomenclature.
"However, it must by no means be assumed that the ability to pronounce L'Orchestre de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris with fluidity and verve outweighs an ease, naturalness and friendliness of delivery when at the omnipresent microphone. For example, when delivering a diatribe concerning Claudia Muzio, Beniamino Gigli, Hetty Plumacher, Giacinto Prandelli, Hilde Rössel-Majdan and Lina Pagliughi, five out of six is good enough if the sixth one is mispronounced plausibly. Jessica Dragonette and Margaret Truman are taken for granted.
"Poets, although not such a constant annoyance as polysyllabically named singers, creep in now and then. Of course Dylan Thomas and W.B. Yeats are no great worry. Composers occur almost incessantly, and they range all the way from Albeniz, Alfven and Auric through Wolf-Ferrari and Zeisl.
"Let us reiterate that a warm, simple tone of voice is desirable, even when introducing the Bach Cantata "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis," or Monteverdi's opera "L'Incoronazione di Poppea."
"Such then, is the warp and woof of an announcer's existence "in diesen heil'gen Hallen."
So what do you think about my ideas?