Learned Noise

"I intend scheduling the greatest works of music, drama, opera, etc., and the best radio technique, with no concession whatever to mass taste. I'm not going to move an inch from my standard. The listeners will have to come to us."

With this bold proem, George R. Barnes, director of BBC's "Third Program,"*launched one of the boldest ventures in the history of broadcasting. In the month since he spoke, BBC has aired, between the hours of 6 and 12 every night, such works as Shaw's Man and Superman (four hours), Wagner's Tristan and Isolde (four hours), Bach's Art of Fugue, Mahler's Lied von der Erde, a psychology lecture by Sir Cyril Burt. a critical appraisal of U.S. novelist Henry James. Coming attractions: all Mozart's violin concertos, all Beethoven's piano sonatas, Goethe's Faust, a dramatization of Melville's Moby Dick.

But it was evident by last week that British listeners were staying away in droves. The "Third's" audience was so small that Barnes forbade his staff to look at the figures. Most Britons shared trie view of a London lorry driver: "It's all right for them who likes that kind of stuff, but give me Tommy Handley" [Britain's top radio comic]. Only a scattering of intellectuals and critics cheered, but they cheered vigorously.

*So-called for want of a better name to distinguish it from BBC's two other national programs: "Light" and "Home."

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