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Showing posts from May, 2005

Enjoyed, found, listened and pleased

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Enjoyed Alchemists of Sound , a post on the excellent blog but she's a girl...... The post is about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop , and includes fascinating information on the woman composer and mathematician Delia Derbyshire who is best known for arranging the electronic version of the original Doctor Who theme tune. ( Delia Derbyshire incidentally entered the BBC as a trainee Studio Manager, exactly the same route as Pliable, but twelve years earlier. The photo above shows Delia editing at the Beeb on a reel-to-reel recorder which brings back many memories of razor blades and yellow leader tape) . Found Infoshare which is a weblog from the US Music Library Association . A lot of good stuff on it, and it doesn't seem to be too well known. Listened a lot to Keith Jarrett's new solo double CD Radiance . To date Jarrett has been a musician justifiably lauded for crossing genres , but conversely has kept his work in separate genre boxes with his Standards Trio, radical

France says "No" - with help from Father Joe

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So the French referendum has rejected the EU constitution, and the pieces of the jigsaw that make up Europe are once again thrown up into the air. Political bloggers such as Clive Davis are better qualified than me to analyse the implications of the "No" vote, but I cannot let the result pass without some personal comment. In a few days time I depart for my annual extended stay in France. It is a country I love, but also find deeply puzzling. The "No" vote seems to be more of a vote of no confidence in the Chirac government than a rejection of the new EU constitution. France is a fascinating mixture of traditionalism and extremism, and this is nowhere better illustrated than in the French attitude to religion. Although the national constitution makes France a secular state, Catholicism is still a strong force in society. I had written the post below a few days ago ready to upload while I was on the road south to the Vaucluse next weekend, but I am posting it today

Monteverdi in Cambridge

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Cambridge is a university first, and a city second. It is at its best when the students are in residence to counterbalance the tourists and language school students who take over in high summer. Last Saturday was a day to savour Cambridge. The weather suddenly changed from damp and grey English spring to something like high summer. The streets and open spaces were thronged with students enjoying the miraculous sunshine while taking a break from studying for exams, and the Backs were crowded as a mixture of students and early tourists took out punts. We walked down Silver Street, along the river and back across Clare Bridge. Despite having seen it so many times we marvelled again at that most uplifting of views, Kings College Chapel viewed from across the river. The buildings are magnificent, but it is the students that make the city. This is the city of Rupert Brooke (who as a founder member of the Marlowe Dramatic Society allows me to insert a contrived link to my Infinite riches in

Classic misunderstandings - Hildegard

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In my post Hildegard comes to Norwich via IRCAM and Darmstadt I wrote about James Woods' excellent new opera Hildegard , which was premiered at the recent Norwich and Norfolk Festival in Norwich Cathedral. I found it thrilling, but did comment on its uncompromising and avant garde nature, and liberal use of amplification, sound effects, batteries of percussion (via the Percussion Group The Hague), all in a score which explores microtoanlity and multiphonics. James Woods' track record includes commissions from IRCAM , and a period as Professor of Percussion at the Darmstadt Summer school, and he has premiered a Stockhausen work. So, it is fair to say, for some ears the opera may have sounded more bleeding-edge than leading-edge. I did comment that some of the audience left during the performance because Hildegard didn't quite seem to be what they were expecting. I am grateful to my friend Chris Marr, who works in the most excellent Prelude Records in Norwich, for the e

Discovered - the online Arnold Schoenberg jukebox

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Want to listen to 24/7 Bach, or nothing but Schoenberg, or exclusively sacred music? Well you can do all that, and a lot more, right here from On An Overgrown Path . My recent post '1984 - you decide' about BBC Radio 3's webcast of Lorin Maazel's controversial opera was mirrored by a number of other music blogs round the world. This, in conjuntion with the Hyperion/Sawkins story resulted in a massive peak in my traffic logs at On An Overgrown Path which lifted first time visitors by a factor of five. (Many thanks to all my fellow bloggers who linked to me on those two stories). This got me thinking, and then researching, about the range of classical music available via streaming on the internet. I spent a couple of hours surfing around this morning, and compiled a starting list of links to sixty classical stations which you will find on the right hand side of this page under the heading Classical Music on the Web . And boy, did that research turn up some interesting

Gergiev takes baton from Davis

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This morning brings the news that the Russian Valery Gergiev is to take the baton from Sir Colin Davis as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in January 2007. Sir Colin is to become President of the LSO , and thanks heavens will continue his close association with the orchestra. In Pliable's book Sir Colin is one of the few musicians with teeth around today, and he is a conductor par excellence as well. Valery Gergiev is something of a legend in his own lifetime, and works closely with most leading orchestras worldwide. He is best known for leading the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg through the tumultuous period of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and remains as its Artistic and General Director. He will retain his positions at the New York Met and Rotterdam Philharmonic. The appointment of Gergiev as Principal Conductor is something of a coup for the LSO which inevitably will face upheaval as its long serving manager Clive Gillinson leaves in July 2005

1984 - you decide

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I have a lot of admiration for people who have the humility to change their point of view when new facts become available. For that reason I admire fellow blogger Jessica Duchen . Her day job is as a high profile music journalist (as well as a pretty damn good musician), and she did a pre-premiere interview with Lorin Maazel which was (understandably) fairly bullish about the prospects for his new opera 1984 - the subject of my earlier posts Big Brother is paying you and 1984 - the sequel . Now Jessica has been to see the new opera, and in an updating post she writes... "I must concede that my various colleagues who panned this thing were dead right: it should NOT have been put on at Covent Garden." Respect Jessica for writing with honesty and integrity. 1984 has generated a lot of healthy debate in the blogosphere. And the good news is you can now judge for yourself. BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting the whole opera from Covent Garden this Wednesday evening (25th May) at 7.00

Hyperion Records face 'catastrophic' damages bill

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From London's Appeal Court today comes a deeply disturbing ruling. The Court has passed down its judgement in the protracted legal dispute between Hyperion and an Early Music editor. And the ruling looks like very bad news for fans of Hyperion's recordings, and all purchasers of classical CD's. The CD that could change the face of classical recording for the worse The dispute centred around a performing edition of works by the 17th century French composer Michel-Richard De Lalande edited by French Baroque expert Lionel Sawkins. The performing edition was used in Hyperion's CD Music for the Sun King. Hyperion took the position that the revised text for the works including the grand motets Te Deum Laudamus and Venite Exultemus were the intellectual property of Lionel Sawkins; but the edited music itself which was neither an arrangement or adaption (the tests previously established for copyright to apply), so royalties were not applicable on the music. A High Cout rul

Ludwig van fest

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Here is an interesting story from BBC Radio 3 . Between 9.00 o'clock in the morning of June 5th and midnight the following Friday they are broadcating every single note of music written by Ludwig van Beethoven in a week of programming called the Beethoven Experience . When they say every single note, they mean every single note. Not just the symphonies, quartets etc, but also promised are rare morsels such as Two Arias from Ignaz Umlauf's Songspiel The Beautiful Shoemaker's Wife , and a duet with two obbligato eyeglasses. Supporting this Beethoven fest are three distinguished commentators. Alfred Brendel on the piano sonatas, Sir Roger Norrington on the symphonies, and Peter Cropper from the Lindsays on the quartets. The airwaves are literally being cleared for this epic, and during the five days not a single note of any other composer's music will be heard over the network. If five days is too concentrated a period of listening the whole sequence of programmes can b

Diary for evening of 12th May 2005

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6.00pm - The Pulse Cafe Bar (vegetarian), The Old Fire Station Stables, Labour in Vain Yard, Guildhall Hill, Norwich Assiette of grilled fennel, chicory, white beans and gruyere cheese with white truffle oil Parmiggiana di melenzane topped with rocket salad AOC Bergerac Sec Les Charmes 2003 Medieval Music Room in the King of Hearts with Alan Gotto harpsichord 7.30pm - A harpsichord recital by Carole Cerasi in the Music Room in the Tudor Mansion which is now the King of Heart's arts venue . This intimate performing space is a medieval room seating just seventy five. It has a beamed ceiling and oak floor which provide ideal acoustics for chamber and early music. It houses a Steinway piano, but the real gem is the resident double manual harpsichord by local maker Alan Gotto . For tonight's recital this superb instrument has been usurped by another of even greater beauty and depth of tone from the same maker . Charles Hoste has kindly loaned from his collection Alan Gotto

Music and mathematics

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From the web site of the enterprising Spanish Early Music label Glossa whose new release Morales en Toledo I wrote about in my post Size does matter ........ Music and Mathematics We are now working on the first recording on Glossa by the Italian ensemble, Cantica Symphonia. Called Quadrivium, the music is a selection of motets by Guillaume Dufay, beautifully performed with the careful addition of wind instruments and an organ. But equally important are the two essays included in the small hard-cover book we are preparing. Mathematician Guido Magnano, who also happens to be Cantica Symphonia’s organ player, writes an outstanding piece about the importance of mathematics in music, and especially in Dufay’s music. On the other hand, Giuseppe Maletto, the ensemble’s director, delivers his own view on the motets included on the CD. And, last but not least, Glossa’s designers are painstakingly preparing another groundbreaking set of images for this deluxe Glossa Platinum issue. If you fou

Hildegard comes to Norwich via IRCAM and Darmstadt

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The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has a long and illustrious history of first performances. Probably the best known took place in Norwich Cathedral in 1899 when Sir Edward Elgar premiered his composition Sea Pictures, while Ralph Vaughan Williams gave the first performance of his Five Tudor Portraits in the Cathedral at the 1936 Festival. (Vaughan Williams noted 'I think they thought they'd get 'O Praise the Lord, but I sent them the Five Tudor Portraits. ') Last night, in the very same performing space in the former Benedictine Abbey, the world premiere of James Wood's opera Hildegard was staged as part of this year's Festival. James Wood (photo below) studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, before reading music at Cambridge (a recurring destination on this overgrown path ) where he was an organ scholar, and then going on to study percussion and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. He was Professor of Percussion at the Darmstadt Internation

I am a bringer of Truth and Enlightenment

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In line with the UK's General Election fever this week I have been reading My Trade, A Short History of British Journalism by the BBC's Political Editor Andrew Marr. Excellent book, highly recommended. I was particularly intrigued by this section which seems to be a pre-echo of today's blog fever. "The largest group of early writers who wrote for themselves and published weekly, sometimes daily, fare were the dissenting pamphleteers of the seventeenth century. By Cromwell's Commonwealth, according to one estimate, 30,000 pamphlets and journals with a political motive were being published in a single year. Were they journalists? The pamphleteers didn't think of themselves as reporters in a modern sense but as partisan political players, and often religous bringers of Truth and Enlightenment." Marr then moves on to genius, tradesman's son, government spy, novelist and traveller Daniel Defoe who "wrote excellent, clear, uncluttered, reporterly Engl

Tallis' Forty Loudspeaker Motet

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B&W speakers and no singers in St Peter's Parmentergate Norwich for Janet Cardiff's performance piece. One of the most innovative music performances at the Norfolk and Norwich Music Festival didn't involve any live musicians. Janet Cardiff is a Canadian artist who specialises in performance art using audio recordings, and she brought her Forty Part Motet to the deconsecrated church of St Peter Parmentergate in Norwich. This work is the ultimate surround sound experience. It uses a specially commissioned recording of Tallis' Forty Part Motet Spem in Alium using forty discrete audio channels (via DAT) for each of the voices. Forty B&W DM303 are located around the periphery of the nave of the beautiful, but empty, church. The speakers, each on a tripod stand, are grouped in eight blocks of five reflecting the five SATB voice groupings in Tallis' score. Some very beefy Tascam power amplifiers bring the performance to life, and continuing my thread of the im

Infinite riches in a little room

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Recent interesting exchanges online with Richard Friedman and Will Benton about the merits (or otherwise) of 'non-authentic interpretations' such as those practiced by the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek with Officium (see my post Officium live - a triumph of music theatre ) and Jacques Loussier (see my post Jacques Loussier close up ) prompted me to sing the praises of a fascinating 'interpretation' of a section of John Dowland's Lachrymae by the jazz pianist (and 'envelope pusher', and he also plays accordion and cello) Hugh Warren. He is better known for his work with innovative jazz group Perfect Houseplants who have worked with violinist Andrew Manze (who we hear in Norwich next week), recorder player Pamela Thorby , and early music vocal ensemble the Orlando Consort (I am probably, unfairly, slightly suspicious of their collabarations with the Orlando Cosort on the grounds that they represent Linn Records trying to 'do an ECM'; but in

Jacques Loussier close up

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My thread about the importance of the performance space continues with this post. We took a risk at last night's Jacques Loussier Trio concert in St Peter Mancroft Norwich , and opted to sit in the front row of the choir stalls. This put us five feet behind the bass and drums, and within touching distance of the end of Loussier's piano, and in his direct line of sight. It was a calculated risk as I knew Loussier wasn't going to blast us out of our seats, as had happened when we inadvertently got front row seats for a Joe Zawinul Syndicate gig a couple of years back, and ended up sticking Kleenex in our ears! We were rewarded with one of the most musically involving jazz performances we have been to for years. Instead of being in a magnificent fifteenth century English perpendicular church we were in a jazz club. We were not watching the band, we were part of it. I am slightly ambivalent about Loussier's music. But for many of us Loussier's Play Bach LP&#