So we say, 'Thank you for the music'

RADIO REVIEW:IF EVER THERE was a time for music to prove it has charms to soothe a savage breast, it was this week.

The seven presidential candidates blanket-bombed the radio waves to the extent that it was hard to find a talk show that did not feature an interview with an Áras hopeful. The resulting items were so generic or evasive that primal emotions of rage and resentment were difficult to suppress.

There was the odd exception, such as Gerry Stembridge's revelation on Today with Pat Kenny(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) that Martin McGuinness enjoyed watching Dad's Army, which probably counts as fraternising with crown forces in some republican circles. Overall, however, the presidential race saturated proceedings to the point that the only refuge from electioneering blather lay in music's calming bosom.

So, on the face of things, RTÉ's Big Music Week arrived at just the right moment. The second outing of this annual celebration of all things musical sprawled across the national broadcaster's stations this week, rivalling the election in the all-pervasiveness stakes. The event spread beyond normal musical outlets: both Kenny's programme and The John Murray Show(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) featured live performances from acts such as the rootsy singer Alice Jago and the avant-pop act Henrietta Game.

Wednesday's edition of Mooney(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) dispensed with its usual discussion format to host a busking competition outside Dublin's Gaiety Theatre, with its stand-in presenter, Aonghus McAnally, sounding as breathlessly enthusiastic as he did in his youth-television heyday. The street performers were a game bunch, from the de rigueur strummy troubadours to would-be guitar heroes. But, like most busking, it was probably best enjoyed in fleeting moments rather than in a wearying 90-minute block.

Elsewhere, the Big Music Week allowed some presenters to indulge predilections for the limelight. On Tuesday, Ronan Collins(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) departed from his usual fare of vintage pop and easy listening to sing a version of the late Joe Dolan's Make Me an Islandin front of an audience, complete with orchestral backing. In fairness, Collins's tribute to his old friend was a crowd-pleasing coda to a concert that featured performances from the foppish crooner Neil Hannon, the Dublin stalwarts Aslan and, most successful of all, MayKay from the electropop act Fight Like Apes, with the singer giving a surprisingly resonant rendition of the Ruby Murray standard Jimmy Unknown.

The live broadcast was arguably the highlight of the week's events. Collins's patter sounded better interacting with a crowd than it does in the confines of the studio, and the concert format refreshed a show that often seems lost in the lacuna between Kenny and News at One(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays).

Otherwise, however, the Big Music Week exuded an overeager, even pushy air. Starting with the vague yet self-satisfied name, with its inadvertent echoes of David Cameron’s Big Society initiative, the event seemed less concerned with highlighting the simple pleasures of music than showing off RTÉ’s ability to promote its wares across a variety of platforms.

Oddly, the event barely registered on 2FM, which is, after all, a music-based station. Lyric FM contributed more, featuring live broadcasts such as the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet's performance on Marty in the Morning(Lyric FM, weekdays) in Dundrum Town Centre: an anomalous concert venue, maybe, but no more baffling than Whelan's frothy sinecure on a supposedly serious music channel. But Lyric hardly needs a dedicated week of events to underline its core musical mission. If RTÉ really wants to attract music-lovers, it might be better served ditching self-promoting spectacles and working on an uneven music policy that places the likes of Collins and Whelan in unsuitable slots.

Another inchoate event of note was the Global Irish Economic Forum, which was covered on The Business(RTÉ Radio 1, Sundays). As smug in tone as it was hazy in concrete results, the conference seemed the perfect subject for its presenter, George Lee, who, when he was RTÉ's economics editor, made his name as a cool deflator of Ireland's self-serving economic myths. But while he mused that the Irish are good at talking but not so good at doing, even Lee was unable to get his teeth into the subject, so amorphous was the substance of the forum.

Instead, buzzwords and received wisdom abounded among the expat delegates Lee spoke to. Rachel Mooney of Sanofi spoke of “the need to talk to the young leaders among the diaspora”, and the business journalist Margaret Doyle praised the Victorians’ belief in the redemptive quality of work, saying that even people who work in fast-food restaurants are happy. How all these noble sentiments could translate into high-value jobs back home was less clear.

The most revealing thing to emerge from the show was the detached air exuded by many of Lee's wealthy guests as they dispensed their advice. If The Businessis anything to go by, this particular talking shop provided little in the way of solutions. It's better to face the music.

Radio moment of the week

Those who fear that Ireland’s media relentlessly pursues a secular, godless agenda will have been heartened by Wednesday’s news bulletins on RTÉ Radio 1. Raiders who broke into Holy Cross Abbey in Co Tipperary made off with what was repeatedly described as a holy relic of the cross on which Jesus Christ is believed to have been crucified. Conspicuously absent from such bulletins was the obvious caveat: believed by whom, exactly?