Herbert von Karajan - Ein Heldenleben

Above left - Herbert von Karajan aboard his yacht Helisara Vl. Above right - with his Falcon 10 jet at Salzburg Airport, photographer Emile Perauer.


Above left- Die Walkure Act lll Salzburg 1967. Above right - Karajan playing a walk-on part in his 1967 film of Carmen, photographer Siegfried Lauterwasser


Above left - Karajan receiving an honorary doctorate Waseda University, Tokyo, photographer Akira Kinoshita. Above right - untitled, photographer Jaywant Ullal

Photo collage by Pliable, photographers as credited. With apologies to those viewing via RSS feeds, click on this link to solve the puzzle. This collage layout is a one-off experiement, my advice to other Blogger users thinking of doing the same is - don't. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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If you don't go to opera for pretty tunes ...

Michael Berkeley's name seems to recur On An Overgrown Path. He is the son of Lennox Berkeley, presents one of the best programmes on the radio, is Benjamin Britten's godson, and most importantly is a major composing talent in his own right. The Opera Theatre of St. Louis have just given the US premiere of his new opera Jane Eyre, and here is the review from STLtoday.

The story is compressed beyond mere telescoping. The score is musically and dramatically intense. But if you don't go to opera primarily for pretty tunes and costumes, Michael Berkeley's "Jane Eyre" might just prove to be your cup of tea. Seen at its U.S. premiere Sunday night at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, "Jane Eyre" doesn't pull any punches. At 80 minutes, it may be too tightly written for the drama it explores. David Malouf's libretto, from Charlotte Bronte's classic novel, jettisons all of Jane's early story and most details of her time at Thornfield. If it's been a few years since you read the book (or saw a movie treatment), be sure to read the synopsis before the lights go down.

Berkeley's score, however, effectively conveys Thornfield's menace, its hidden mistress' madness, Mr. Rochester's anguish and Jane's evolving emotions. It opens effectively with the low wind instruments and builds spikily to the climax. Berkeley quotes briefly from Britten's "The Turn of the Screw" and frequently from Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." He and Malouf have drawn a not-altogether-convincing connection between criminally insane Bertha Rochester and unstable Lucy Ashton, who went mad when forced to marry the wrong tenor and murdered her groom on their wedding night. I'm not sure a close reading of Bronte supports that conclusion, but it makes Bertha a far more interesting and sympathetic character than the raging beast who's usually portrayed.

Opera Theatre artistic director Colin Graham has staged "Jane" for the maximum dramatic impact. He is ably assisted by Erhard Rom's simple sets and atmospheric projections in bringing out the story's claustrophobic nature and the house's Gothic gloom. The excellent cast is headed by soprano Kelly Kaduce in the title role. She captured both Jane's matter-of-factness and her anguish at the discovery of Rochester's proposed bigamy. Singing with a large, clear, well-produced voice, she brought the character to life.Production shots sow Kelly Kaduce (Jane Eyre), Scott Hendricks (Mr Rochester, and Elizabeth Batton (Mrs Rochester)

Baritone Scott Hendricks brooded nicely and sang strongly and with presence. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Batton as Bertha Rochester made the role her own, with a rich, dark voice and edgy air of madness. As Mrs. Fairfax, mezzo-soprano Robynne Redmon made clear both the housekeeper's essential decency and her role in Rochester's deception. Soprano Adele Reiter sang sweetly as Adele and made a convincing child. Jane Greenwood's costumes were perfectly in period, and perfect for these characters. In the pit, conductor Andreas Mitisek and members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra handled the difficult, complicated score with aplomb.

* St Louis Symphony blog via this link.

Image credits: Michael Berkeley - BBC, St Louis production shots © 2006 Cory Weaver from theoperacritic.com. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath atdot co dot uk hotmail
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Germany remains divided for the World Cup

Like most of what was once the former GDR, it is fair to say that Dresden, the capital of Saxony, has been shut out from the official World Cup party. If you exclude Berlin, whose Olympiastadion is in the old western part of the city, only five of 64 World Cup games are scheduled to be played in the east, all in Leipzig. Only one team, Ukraine, has its base in the east, in Rostock. And now following Saturday's match between Argentina and Mexico in Leipzig, the World Cup is leaving the east altogether. There will be no more games here.

One suspects that the east remains something of an embarrassment to the rest of Germany. It is too poor. The social problems are too deep, with unemployment as high as 20 per cent. Racism and suspicion of the outsider are entrenched, especially in smaller towns. Parts of the east, notably Hoyerswerda in eastern Saxony and some of the Baltic towns, have indeed become, 'no go zones' for non-whites. There is a problem with young disadvantaged young men. In eastern Germany it's the women who are more mobile, who are more prepared to move to other parts of the country, such as affluent Bavaria, to live and work. The men tend to stay behind and, on the whole, their resentment grows.

Neues Deutschland was once the Pravda of the old GDR, with a circulation of more than a million. Today, still leftish, it sells only about 70,000 copies a day. Its diminished fortunes, like those of the old East German football clubs, is representative of the losses as well as the gains of reunification and there remains a lingering sense in the east of the past having a more powerful presence than the present itself.

'Nostalgia or what we call "Ostalgie" is a very powerful force in the eastern states,' says Paul Nolte, professor of contemporary history at the Free University in Berlin. 'What are people nostalgic for? They're nostalgic for the lost certainties of the old era. There's a feeling that things were better and more ordered in those days. This manifests itself in a fondness for old East German products and brand names such as the Trabant pictured above.'

I have left the football World Cup to others who know a lot more about it than me. But Jason Cowley's article in Sunday's Observer, from which the edited extract above is taken, is an excellent piece of journalism highlighting the enduring divide between the former East and West Germanies.

Image credits: Divided World Cup - BBC News, Trabant in the former East Germany by Pliable from my photo essay I am a camera - Robert Schumann's Zwickau. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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This Be The Verse

Last Sunday was Father's Day here in the UK, and the standard currency for presents for Pliable are Prelude Records vouchers. The delights these have brought in previous years include Mikhail Pletnev's wonderful CPE Bach Sonatas and Rondos. This year brought a real discovery, Hyperion's new release of Thomas Crecquillon's Missa Mort m'a privé. In 1539 Isabella — wife of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and undisputed king of much of Europe — died in childbirth. Charles’s grief was profound, and we can share it today through his commissions in memory of his beloved wife. Titian, the leading painter of the day, was commissioned to create a number of posthumous portraits, his Portrait of Empress Isabella of Portugal is used on the CD liner, and is reproduced below. Charles turned to his chapel master Thomas Crecquillon to create a musical tribute, and it is remarkable today that so little is known about this composer whose skills were rated alongside Titian.

The performers of Crecquillon's Missa Mort m'a privé are the Brabant Ensemble (who take their name from the area of what is now northern Belgium/southern Holland from which so many great sixteenth-century composers originated). The ensemble, who are shown in the header photo, was formed by performing musicologist Stephen Rice in 1998 to explore the neglected repertory of sacred music from 1520 to 1560. Comprising fifteen young professional singers, this is the group’s first recording for Hyperion.

This CD is a gem. Beautifully sung by fresh, young voices in the peerless acoustics of Merton College, Oxford, which is used for many of the Tallis Scholar's great recordings. There is very little music by Crequillon in the catalogue, He was a European contemporary of Thomas Tallis (who Stephen Rice is an authority on), and his moving, and very fine, sacred music deserves to reach a much wider audience. I am sorry I cannot bring you the usual audio file. Simon Perry of Hyperion explained to me that their website is maintained by a third party in the US, and there is a delay in uploading the audio samples of their new releases. But I strongly recommend Crecquillon's Missa Mort m'a privé to readers, well worth buying if you can't persuade one of the family to give it to you as a present.

Thomas Crequillon's Missa Mort m'a Privé was composed for Empress Isabella who died in childbirth. The jazz-loving Philip Larkin (right) also commented on the traumas of rearing children in This Be The Verse. Although I don't share Larkin's sentiments in the last verse it is one of my favourite poems, here it is:

This Be The Verse

They fvck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fvcked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin, 1971

With apologies for the two deliberate typos in the poem introduced to stop proxy web servers blocking the Path. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Poetry to your ears and Peerless Portugese polyphony

Norman Foster's Sainsbury Centre

Many outstanding buildings been created by Norman Foster and the partners in his architectural practice. They include Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong, the Nimes Carré d'Art gallery, Berlin's Reichstag, the Swiss Re "Gherkin" in London, the Sage arts centre in Gateshead, and the fabulous Millau viaduct in France (my personal favourite). These are both works of art and funtional structures, and we are lucky to have an early Foster building near to our home here in Norfolk.

Robert and Lisa Sainsbury were avid art collectors who had amassed a fortune from the eponymous supermarket chain. When they were looking for a university to donate their collection to they wanted their collection to be kept, and displayed, in one location. The new University of East Anglia campus at Norwich had space available, and was already a showcase for contemporary architecture with Denys Lasdun’s famous designs for the main buildings.
The Norman Foster designed Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts opened in 1978. Its radical and forward-thinking design is classic Foster. It uses advanced materials and construction techniques to combine open-plan galleries, offices for staff and faculty, teaching spaces, and café all under one roof. The Centre has followed MoMA in New York with a major refit, and reopened just two weeks ago.

All photographs by Pliable and (c) On An Overgrown Path. Some arcane technical stuff for other Blogger users. After endless problems uploading images using Internet Explorer as my browser I switched to Firefox for this article. All images uploaded first time without a problem. Firefox is a free download.


* Architecture Week runs from 16 to 25 June in the UK

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"The best damn record we've ever made"

The eclipse of live performance by CDs and MP3s means that a number of composers are familiar to us from recordings, but rarely receive live performances. One such is the late-16 century Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and it was therefore a delight last Saturday to hear his variations on "Mein junges Leben hat ein End (My young life has an end)" played on the organ of St Michael's Church, Framlingham (above) in Suffolk. The occasion was the recital by Malcolm Russell given in memory of renown organ builder Noel Mander who lived nearby, and died in September 2005 aged 93.

I first came to know Sweelinck's music through Glenn Gould's (right) recording of Tudor consorte music which on the CD version (but not the LP) includes Gould's own piano transcription of the Fantasia in D. The placing of Sweelinck alongside William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons is totally appropriate as Sweelinck was a vital link, both geographically and musically, between the Tudor keyboard style and the Northern German composers, from which eventually flowered the music of Buxtehude and, of course, Gould's beloved Bach. William Russel's perceptive programme for the Framlingham recital also reflected this link with a sequence of Sweelinck, Buxtehude and Bach. (See below for the full programme).

Gould described the consorte music recording as "the best damn record we've ever made" and placed it alongside his Prokofiev and Scriabin album. I can only agree, this is one truly gorgeous disc, and well worth seeking out if you don't know it. His Byrd and Gibbons on the piano is quite wonderful. Yes, I know Tudor music on a piano is politically and academically incorrect. But I am sorry - for me this disc is an important, and visionary, document. And without it I may well not have started on an overgrown path to explore Sweelinck's complete canon.

Sweelink's most familiar organ work is the Echo Fantasia in A minor. There is a delightful recording on, appropriately, the Dutch Globe label played by Anneke Uittenbosch who mixes organ and harpsichord in a delightful recital. But for me the real delights are the Cantiones Sacrae. For recording of these look no further than the highly recommended Hyperion discs with Trinity College Chapel Choir, Cambridge, directed by Richard Marlow. The first CD includes the familiar Hodie Christus natus est. Please share my delight in Sweelinck's glorious choral music by listening to five minutes of his Magnificat anima mea Dominum (My soul doth magnify the Lord) -

The organ in St Michael's (photo at head of article) on which the Sweelinck was played is a remarkable historic instrument. The case dates from 1580 while the pipework was originally built by Thomas Tamar for Pembroke College in 1674. This means the organ case was built when Sweelinck was just 18 - you can't get a more original instrument performance than that! The case is one of only eight to have survived destruction by Purian leader Oliver Cromwell when England was declared a republic in 1649. (For those whose English history is rusty I should add the republic was shortlived. When Cromwell died in 1658, he was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard. The republic then collapsed into financial chaos and disputes between the military and administration increased, parliament was dissolved and Richard Cromwell was overthrown in 1660 - plus ça change!) Framlingham is rich in history, not least Framlingham castle which is just up the road from St Michael's Church. The castle was given, in 1553, by King Edward VI to his sister Mary Tudor (right). She stayed at Framlingham while waiting her sucession to the crown, which hung in the balance. Her colours flew over the gateway and thousands of her supporters camped around the castle. Finally the Earl of Arundel arrived to inform her she was Queen, and she proceeded to London.

The programme for Malcolm Russell's recital at St Michael's, Framlingham on 17th June 2006 to celebrate the life of Noel Mander was:
*Chorale Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier BWV 731
Chorale Prelude Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier - J S Bach 1695 - 1750
* Six variations on Mein junges Leben hat ein End - J P Sweelinck 1562 - 1621
* Ciacona in E minor Bux 160 - D Buxtehude 1637 - 1707
* Pièce d'orgue in G BWV 572 Vif - Grave - Lentement - J S Bach
* Concerto No V Op 4 in F Major Sicialana - Presto (Walsh solo edition) - G F Handel 1685 - 1759
*Voluntary in G major No lV Op 5 Adagio - Allegro - J Stanley 1713 - 1786
* Larghetto in f sharp (1868) - S S Wesley 1810 - 1876
*Sonata No lV Op 65 Allegro - Andante religioso - Allegretto - Allegro maestoso & vivace - F B Mendelssohn 1809 - 1847
* Chorale Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier - J S Bach(without applause)

Image credits: Framligham organ from KCOA: Glenn Gould from Classical-composers.org. Mary Tudor from Framlingham Castle. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to I am a camera - Leipzig

Your tiny hound is frozen

Tonight (22nd June) Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, in association with the European Chamber Opera, presents Madama Butterfly, with guest doggy appearances by two live canines. Taking place at the Royal Geographic Society in London, all proceeds from the opera will go towards caring for the unwanted animals in the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. This Home provides temporary shelter, veterinary and behavioural care to lost or abandoned dogs and cats, while finding them homes, or reuniting them with their owners.

Image credit (is it a Basset Profundo?) - One Big Honkin' Pile of Dog Pictures (yes, really). Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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This miraculous music ...

In fact, MacMillan's music was not the most moving on the programme: instead, the six-voice fugue from Bach's Musical Offering, played by solo strings, was a revelation of this miraculous music, and the way Bach creates a spiritual experience from the most rigorous of musical forms - from Tom Service's review of the Scottish Ensemble at the St Magnus Festival in today's Guardian.

Image credit - St Magnus and the dragon, not in Orkney but in Kempten from Bestarium.net Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Farewell to Stromness - a page which interestingly has received more visitors than any other on this blog; something to do with the MP3 link I think, or is it the picture of Clark Gable?

Solicitor succeeds where Dissolution failed

My recent story Not quite so loudly please Maestro Ashkenazy about the attempt to limit sound levels in a historic concert venue which has hosted premieres of music by Benjamin Britten and many others prompted expressions of concern from many readers. Today brings the following deeply disturbing news from the Eastern Daily Press.

The owner of a bed and breakfast opposite St Andrew's Hall in Norwich has won an appeal to curb noise from music at the venue. Solicitor John Hardman and his wife Carol, who also live at the B&B on Prince's Street (above), won their battle at Norwich Magistrates' Court on Monday to get further restrictions on amplified music at the hall. The couple's success means a sound limiter will stay in place at the venue and a deadline of 10.30pm will be imposed on amplified music - an hour earlier than the curfew put in last year following complaints.

A spokesman for Norwich City Council said: "This is deeply disappointing and will threaten the use of the hall and have a far-reaching effect on the sorts of events we can have there," he said. "The halls [St Andrew's and neighbouring Blackfriars] have been a community and cultural venue for hundreds of years.It will threaten educational concerts where the sound of the orchestra trips the limiter. The council will now take advice as to what it does next." The Hardmans, who on their website (see below) promote the proximity of their B&B to the venue, insisted they were not trying to ruin the cultural vibrancy of the city.

* John Hardman's bed and breakfast website via this link. For readers wishing to enquire about accomodation for forthcoming noise-limited orchestral concerts and organ recitals at the nearby St Andrew's Hall his email address is hardman@3princes-norwich.co.uk. The image above is from his website, and is appropriately titled St.Andrews Hall reflections.

* St Andrew's Hall dates from the 15th century when it was built as part of the church of a Dominican Friary. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530's the church was divided into two and the present hall was created, and has been in use as a civic building ever since. The first music festival in Norwich was held in 1788, and performances took place in St Andrew's Hall. Since then the Hall has been in use as a festival and music venue for more than 200 years without a break. See photo to left, and yes, that is an organ you see. The Hall has seen many historic premieres including Britten's Our Hunting Fathers, Opus 8 ( 25 September 1936, St Andrew's Hall, Norwich, Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Music Festival. Sophie Wyss sop, LPO, Benjamin Britten cond).

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Now take An Overgrown Path to New choral music's dream ticket

The delight of the classical music industry

Less than six months after it was unveiled as the Royal Opera's contribution to the Mozart anniversary celebrations, David McVicar's staging of Figaro is back at Covent Garden. The cast is almost entirely new and the show has been revived by Stéphane Marlot with a superb eye for the period detail that makes the production so satisfying. McVicar's shift of the action to a French chateau on the eve of the 1830 revolution, to a community that appears not to have absorbed the significance of the 1789 one, makes perfect dramatic sense.

What makes it really special this time around, though, is the conducting. It is more than 20 years since Colin Davis last tackled Figaro in this house, and his account of the score is a reminder of his qualities as a Mozart interpreter. If there are long stretches of this performance when his contribution goes unnoticed, it's because it is so seamlessly matched. When he does intervene - to steer the second-act finale, or to pull the dramatic strings at the end of the opera - it is done with perfect judgement.

Stylistically, Davis's approach is old-school, warmly expressive, and often quite nostalgically slow, but it is wonderfully effective and the cast prospers. The only disappointments come at its very centre, with Isabel Bayrakdarian's Susannah, who is winsome and lacking vocal allure, and with Kyle Ketelsen's rather anonymous Figaro, though he finds a real personality in the final act. The rest, though, is very high-class. Soile Isokoski sings both the Countess's arias ravishingly, while Michael Volle's Count is genuinely imposing and psychologically intriguing. Sophie Koch's Cherubino is refined and restrained, while Diana Montague (Marcellina), Robert Lloyd (Bartolo), John Graham Hall (Basilio), and Jeremy White (Antonio) provide wonderfully detailed support. It may not be the funniest Figaro you'll ever see, but it is one of the most thoughtful and musically rewarding.

4 stars, Royal Opera House, London. In rep until July 9. Box office: 020-7304 4000

Andrew Clement's reminds us in today's Guardian that musical greatness is possible without self-promotion, and also without Askonas Holt.

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The frustration of the classical music industry

Orchestra insiders giving a mole’s eye view of musical intrigues are currently the hot thing in the media. The Guardian’s contribution is Philippa Ibbotson, who is billed as ‘a freelance violinist’, and yesterday she gave us the inside track on Simon Rattle’s current problems with the Berlin critics. Ms Ibbotson takes many words (I suspect her favourite composer is Havergal Brian) to tell us that Rattle's problems in Berlin are because ‘in classical music … self-promotion has become an art in its own right. But Rattle does not play the game. He is a democrat, not an autocrat’. Now I am sure Philippa Ibbotson is a very fine violinist, but her take on the Rattle problem is rather off-key.

I have been a very great admirer of Simon since being able to make a very small contribution by arranging one of the first ever classical recording sponsorship deals for his Mahler 10 with the Bournemouth Symphony in the 1970’s. But we have to accept that he is a truly fine musician who has been very cleverly promoted by his agent who starred in my story No such thing as an unknown Venezuelan conductor. This was about agent and power-broker Askonas Holt's wunderkind conductor Gustavo Dudamel, whose advocates include Askonas Holt artist Simon Rattle. There has also, perfectly understandably, been vigorous promotion, with Simon's full participation, by his record company EMI, by his Berlin orchestra (also Askonas Holt artists), and by innovative, and deserving, projects such as the film Rhythm Is It!

The problem is that despite all this promotion Simon’s performances, and recordings, are more often very fine than truly great. If I want to listen to Mahler I will turn to other great conductors such as Klaus Tennstedt (right) and Jascha Horenstein who also had a distaste for self-promotion and autocracy. Regular readers will know my exposure to Herbert von Karajan and his court (circus?) when he was an EMI artist in the 1970s left me with a distaste for his autocracy. But Karajan's Mahler 9 is something I repeatedly return to when I want help putting life into perspective, while his readings of Bruckner 8, Don Carlos and Salome that I heard with the Berlin and Vienna orchestras live in Salzburg can only be described as transcendental. And the current totally justified esteem that Bernard Haitink (also an Askonas Holt artist) and Colin Davis (not an Askonas Holt artist) are held in thankfully proves that self-promotion, autocracy and mortality are not necessary to achieve true musical greatness.

The shouts from the Berlin critics are not an attack on Simon Rattle. They are the collective cries of frustration of the short-term fixated classical music industry which has found once again that there is no fast-track to musical greatness. Simon Rattle is just 51. Musical greatness will come. But whether the Berlin critics and orchestra, his record company, and Simon himself will have the patience to wait for it remains to be seen.

Photo credits: Simon Rattle - Doris Wild, Klaus Tennstedt - Klassika.com. Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Berlin Philharmonic plays inconsequentially and Berlin Philharmonic is in superlative shape

Roma - the forgotten Holocaust victims

The fate of the millions of Jews murdered in Hitler's death camps is well documented, but less is known about the 500,000 Gypsies who also died. There are not many written accounts of the Roma or Sinti travellers who died in the camps, because, their culture is traditionally oral, not literary. By contrast the majority of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust came from educated middle-classes, and left behing written records of their terrible fate. The photograph above shows Roma prisoners in the Belzec concentration camp.

The genocide of the Roma by the Nazis is the most shocking example, but the history of the persecution of Gypsies goes back to their first appearance in Europe in the 15th century, when they were often confused with the hated Muslim invaders from the east. Laws were enacted against them across the whole continent, and centuries of persecution, forced assimilation, enslavement and extermination followed.

In England the last executions for the crime of being a Gypsy took place in East Anglia, close to where I write, in the 17th century - just a year before the birth of the great English composer Henry Purcell, and only twenty-seven years before the birth of that central figure of the Enlightenment, Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1658 thirteen Gypsies were tried and hanged by the Bury St Edmunds Assizes under the Vagrancy Acts introduced under the Tudor and Elizabethan monarchs to combat the 'gypsy problem'. The East Anglian based Romany Theatre Company has created the drama Killimengro (which means 'dancer' in the English Romani language) based on the true story of the 1658 executions.

The Romany Theatre Company is rooted in the Romany people, their culture and their centuries-old struggle for equality, and the Company's work is committed to challenging the negative views of Romany people and the lives they lead. The Company also empowers young Romany people by allowing them to celebrate their identity and culture through theatre and performance. Author of Killimengro and the artistic director of the company, Dan Allum, is himself a Romany Gypsy who had no formal education. He taught himself to read and write at 16 and went on to become an award-wining author of plays, screenplays and short stories

The powerful performance of Killimengro we saw on Friday at The Cut performing arts centre in Halesworth featured players from Budapest, Seville and East Anglia. The drama uses a flameco guitarist and dancer as a Greek chorus to comment on the action. The guitarist at the performance we attended was the renown Flamenco exponent Steve Homes who learnt his technique from the gypsies around St Maries de la Mer in the Carmargue. Here is a short MP3 download from his album Secret Garden -

Killimengro is multi-lingual, using English, Romani, Hungarian and Slovakian. The Romani language is of Indian origin, and is the only Indo-Aryan Language than has been spoken exclusively in Europe since the Middle Ages. It is assumed that the ancestors of the Roma migrated from India to Europe and settled in Byzantine sometime before the 10th century. During this period the language absorbed many Greek influences in grammar and vocabulary, which are still recognisable today.

From the 14th century onwards, Romani-speaking populations migrated outwards from the Balkans, reaching northern and western Europe in the 15th century. Various groups migrated into Britain via France, Germany and Scandinavia from the early 16th century. Gypsy communities in countries such as England, Wales, Spain, Portugal and Sweden have given up their language to use the majority language of the surrounding population. However, these communities have often retained a Romani vocabulary, which they use as an in-group secret language. This uses words derived from Romani but adapted using the sound system and grammatical inflections of the native language. Here in England Anglorami is the linguistic term used to describe the para-Romani spoken by Gypsies.

Romani resources:
* Manchester University Romani project with audio files of Romani dialects
* Romani lexical database from University of Graz
* English Romani dictionary
* Future performances of Killimengro - this is an important piece of theatre, I urge you to see it. And I would encourage the many US arts organisations that read this blog to explore ways of bringing it to the audience it deserves across the Atlantic.

Now playing - Bela Bartók's Roumanian Dances with Antal Dorati conducting the Minneapolis Symphony on vinyl LP (SRI75105) in glorious Mercury sound in those wonderful days before the wonders of digital encoding, and before the benefits of multi-tracked and multi-miked recordings . The seven movement dance suite was originally written for piano, and uses tunes transcribed by Bartók from Gypsies in Máramaros in Northern Transylvania. The photo to the right shows Bartók (in black hat) travelling to research Gypsy folk music, complete with Edison phonograph. Like the Roma Antal Dorati was forced to migrate by political forces. Born in Budapest, he worked in Dresden before he moved first to Monte Carlo, and then to the US where he recorded this wonderful album with the Minneapolis Symphony, whose music director he was for eleven years.

Image credits - Belzec from Sinti and Roma teaching resources: Gypsy children from Amber Online: Gypsy women from University of North Texas: Bartók from Good-music-guide.com. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Suzi Quatro on Mozart

"Mozart - his music is wonderful, but where are the mistakes?" - from today's thought-provoking BBC Radio 3 Private Passions where Suzi Quatro was Michael Berkeley's guest. Her choice of music ranged from Beethoven to Dylan and Billie Holiday, and, yes, Mozart - the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622. Worth listening to, catch via Listen Again until June 25.

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Andrew Lloyd Webber on Puccini

"When people ask me if musical theatre should be taught in music colleges, I reply that there is no need. All anyone needs to study is the second act of La Boheme because it is the most tightly constructed piece of musical theatre that there is. It is practically director-proof: you can't stage it badly because it just works too well. If you can write La Boheme, you can write anything. I would also recommend studying Britten's Peter Grimes."

And on Prokofiev ... "My father gave me a choice of two records: Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, which he was hoping I would go for, or Love For Three Oranges, which was rather more dissonant and not my father's favourite music at all. But my brother and I fell in love with it, and it led me to Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata, the third movement, in 7/8 time, which is one of the greatest rock'n'roll pieces - it's got a pulse going though it and it's absolutely wonderful. Every single musical I have ever written has a piece in 7/8 time and that clearly has something to do with Prokofiev." From an interview with Andrew Lloyd Webber in today's Observer .

Image credit - Andrew Lloyd Webber from Royal Academy of Arts. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Shostakovich on Puccini

Opera producer Colin Graham's account of an exchange between Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten:

Shostakovich: 'What do you think of Puccini?'

Britten: 'I think his operas are dreadful.'

Shostakovich: 'No, Ben, you are wrong. He wrote marvellous operas but dreadful music!'

From The Tongs and the Bones, the Memoirs of Lord Harewood (Weidenfeld & Nicholson ISBN 0297779605)

Image credit - Shostakovich and Britten meeting after a concert of Britten's works in the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, December 1966 from the Guardian. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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No organist? No musicians? No problem!

This week saw the passing of György Ligeti whose choral work Lux Aeterna touched millions. In the same week articles about the new technology of MP3 downloads featuring music by Mozart and historic performers generated the kind of readership figures On An Overgrown Path that most commercial websites would kill for. If a Google search for MP3, Ligeti or Mozart brought you here I urge you to read on, this article is important.

Comment posted to my recent tribute In Memoriam Kenneth Ryder - God rest your soul, sir.
I just learned of your passing via my parents. I was one of your original 'Norwich Boys' Choir' members back in the early 70's. For sure you helped shape my musical career. You touched the lives of so many. Roger Hewett, Musical Director, Cirque du Soleil, Montreal, Canada.

The fact that the organist and director of music of a church in distant East Anglia could 'touch the lives of so many' on other continents started me down An Overgrown Path which the Guardian also explored in a recent article:

Not every member of the congregation will approve, but at least it solves the problem of who will play the organ. The Hymnal Plus, a karaoke-like machine with a repertoire of almost 3,000 hymns and psalms, is becoming a must-have item at churches around the country. As well as traditional songs of praise, the British-made machine can play a disco version of Amazing Grace and a jazzy adaptation of The Lord's My Shepherd. Church-goers who struggle to remember the words can look up at a big screen for help, just like real karaoke.

Traditional churches will, no doubt, favour the "pipe organ and piano" settings or perhaps even try the "big strings and harpsichord", but the more adventurous will be able to experiment with driving drum beats and horn sections. Built-in Midi and MP3 players mean that music directors can add their own songs - hymns or rock favourites - to the standard repertoire. And clergy beware, the Hymnal Plus can also lead parishioners in prayers and recite pre-recorded sermons.

Worried by the shortage and ageing population of organists, churches are beginning to snap up the machine, which costs £1,900 ($3500). The 15th century St Mary the Virgin church in Mudford, near Yeovil in Somerset (photo right), was one of the first customers. The parish does have an organist, Christine Whitby, but she is in her 80s and sometimes wants a week off.

Bill Watkins, a church warden and now "hymn DJ", will have his fingers on the remote control when it makes its debut next month. He said: "We don't want to replace Christine with this box of tricks but it will allow her to take a break or to stay away without her feeling guilty when she is feeling under the weather. There are no young organists on the horizon, which is a nationwide problem so one day it might be all we have."

Mr Watkins is impressed with the flexibility of the machine. If the congregation is struggling to hit a particular note, he can change the pitch at a touch of the button. If a rousing finale is required, he could alter the tone, volume or style. But he said: "We are quite a traditional church so I don't think we'll be going for any disco beats or jazzy sounds just yet." Alan Kempster, a director of the machine's makers, Hymn Technology Limited (motto: No organist? No musicians? No problem!), said there had been growing interest in the product, not just from churches but also hospitals, prisons and military chaplins.

He said the response from organists had been positive. "It's not about putting organists out of business. It's about giving churches an alternative. I spoke to one church organist from Gloucestershire recently who had been playing the organ for 50 years and was sick to death of it. This takes the pressure off people like that," he added.

A thought-provoking piece from the Guardian, but not everyone agrees that churches should be given an alternative. The Campaign for the Defence of the Traditional Cathedral Choir has been established because: 'We must never forget how many of our leading musicians and music-lovers in this country today were cathedral or collegiate choristers when they were boys. They have certainly enriched the musical life of this country and made this country once again highly respected in the musical world. England must never again become 'the land without music'. We must encourage all that is best in the music of our Church at all times.' And a very interesting read is 'Thine Adversaries Roar .. ' by Michael Howard (Gracewing ISBN 9780852445303) who was Organist and Master of the Choristers at Ely Cathedral in the 1950s, and who also founded influential choral group the Renaissance Singers. And UK Cathedral Music Links is another useful resource for Anglican music.

Here On An Overgrown Path I have recently written about the wonderful organs in Oberlin College, Ohio, Norwich Cathedral, St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, St-Louis-en-l'Ile, Paris, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin, the recently restored Frauenkirche in Dresden (photo at head of article) and St Thomas', Leipzig, and it is vital that new technology is not allowed to destroy this great tradition of church music.

And if you need any convincing of how ghastly 'a karaoke-like machine with a repertoire of almost 3,000 hymns and psalms' actually sounds listen to this five minute sample linked from the Hymn Technology Ltd website -

Now playing - Herbert Howell's Office of Holy Communion (Collegium Regale) from Decca 470194-2. Howells (right) was a central figure in Anglican church music, and his compositions include a complete Service for King's College, Cambridge (the Collegium Regale) and settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for the choirs of St John's College, Cambridge, New College, Oxford, Westminster Abbey, Worcester, St Paul's, and Gloucester cathedrals. The motet Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing, written shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, is dedicated to Kennedy's memory, and is considered by many to be perhaps his finest a cappella anthem.

Image credit, Frauenkirche photographed by Pliable for I am a camera - Dresden, Lantern of Ely Cathedral from Wikipedia, St Mary Mudford from church website. Herbert Howells from Cantori. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Treasure trove of historic MP3 downloads

The Finnish national broadcaster YLE Radio 1 has the most extraordinary treasure trove of historic MP3 downloads on their website. I can't even list the riches available, but the artists include Dinu Lipatti, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot, Kirsten Flagstad , Yehudi Menuhin, Arturo Toscanini, and many, many more. There are lots of downloads for each artist, and the technical quality is very good. The whole site is in Finnish, but navigation is intuitive. Just select the artist from the left hand side list, then select the Real Audio or MP3 hyperlink under the composition. Each download has a spoken introduction of around 20 seconds in Finnish, but don't let that put you off.

This is an extraordinary discovery. I am listening to Toscanini conducting the adagio molto e cantabile from Beethoven's 9th as I write - beautiful. Here is the link, and many thanks to reader Walt Santner for the heads-up.

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Mostly Mozart MP3 downloads

The UK's Mostly Mozart Festival runs at the Barbican from 6th June to 29th July. The organisers are supplementing the great concerts with fourteen free MP3 downloads. The artists and performances are top-notch, but the MP3s are a motley mix of Mozart - single movements from symphonies, concertos and the Requiem K626, and only one complete work, the String Quartet K156. But if mostly, but not completely, Mozart MP3s are your thing follow this link and start downloading. Or you can take An Overgrown Path to Mozart MP3 download fatigue cured

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Neither avant-garde, nor traditional ...

"My compositions defy all attempts to categorise them: they're neither avant-garde, nor traditional, nor tonal, nor atonal. And certainly not post-modern, for dramatizing the past in ironic fashion is something that is completely foreign to me." - György Ligeti, born Tirnaveni 28 May 1923, died Vienna 12 June 2006

Now playing - György Ligeti Etudes with Toros Can piano. "My studies for piano are not jazz, not Chopin either, nor Debussy or Nancarrow, and even less mathematical constructions ... They are virtuoso pieces for piano, studies in the pianistic sense of the word and in the sense of the composition itself. "

György Ligeti certainly defies all attempts to categorise him. When he appeared on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions programme on 22nd November 1997 his personal choice of music was:

*Nancarrow, Study No. 3a, Conlon Nancarrow (player piano) Wergo WER 6168-2
* Trad., 'Gending: Dhenggung Turulare', Langen Praja Seven Seas KICC 5184 (Pliable - Javanese gamelan, follow this link for audio files)
* Trad., 'Piere', Etienne Ngbozo (small sanza and voice) / Joseph Sasmba (large sanza) / Daniel Hgadike, Robert Tarapai, Raymond Doko (voice, rattle and percussion sticks) Ocorra c 580008(Pliable - African drumming)
* Trad., Whistle Ensemble, Banda-Linda Ensemble Auvidis/UNESCO 8020 (Pliable - African ethnic music)
* Claude Vivier, Lonely Child, Susan Narucki (soprano) / Schonberg and Asko Ensembles / Reinbert de Leeuw Philips 454 231-2
* Beethoven, Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 (second movement), Alfred Brendel (piano) Philips 446 701-2

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Now take An Overgrown Path to Ligeti's Etudes fit the Bill and György Ligeti's Private Passions

The latest spin on CD prices

Today I ordered Tchaikovsky's Liturgy of St John Chrysostom coupled with Gretchaninov's Vespers sung by the National Academic Choir of Ukraine - "Dumka". This newly recorded Brilliant Classics 2CD set cost me £3.10 ($5.50) plus £1.24 ($2.25) shipping from the very dependable Caiman USA.

Here in the UK a large Starbucks Frappuccino ice blended coffee costs £3.60 ($6.50). If I hadn't just written a piece about the demise of Warner Classics I would have said that Starbucks' prices are too high.

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Cherie, I shrunk the record label

Prime minister Tony Blair’s choice of classical record label seems to be as unlucky as his choices of Home Secretary. Last Friday in Rome, as reported On An Overgrown Path, he gave worldwide publicity to Warner Classics by presenting Pope Benedict XVI with the label’s boxed set of the Mozart Piano Concertos played Daniel Barenboim who also directs the Berlin Philharmonic from the keyboard.

Meanwhile back in London on the same day, in a move that surprised both industry insiders and staff, the effective closure of the very same Warner Classics was announced. The label will make no more new recordings, and will be absorbed into Rhino, Warner's reissue division. Artists in the Warner catalogue include Barenboim, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Sakari Oramo, and their sub-labels include Erato and Teldec. Outstanding releases from Warner featured On An Overgrown Path recently have included Scott Ross' complete Scarlatti Sonatas and Chanticleer's Sound in Spirit.

Warner Classic's demise reduces the so-called majors in the classical record market to just EMI, Universal and Sony-BMG. And in a continuing story of industry musical chairs head honcho of Warner Classics Matthew Cosgrove is tipped as the new Vice President of A&R at Deutsche Grammophon. As regular readers will know Deutsche Grammophon’s recent artistic achievements include an album of Dowland lute songs by that well-known early music specialist Sting ...

* Follow this link for a video of Pope Benedict XVI receiving that soon-to-be limited edition Warner Classics boxed set.

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I am a camera - Robert Schumann's Zwickau

Few people have heard of the town of Zwickau in the former East Germany which we visited recently, and if they have it is probably in connection with the huge car factory there. Today's Volkswagen plant is a symbol of the post-unification free market. But the huge manufacturing facility was previously the home of another car that came to symbolise the economic failure of the GDR, the Trabant. Three million of the plastic bodied two-cylinder cars rolled off the Zwickau production line under communist rule.

Prior to 1989 Trabants were banned from West German roads due to their very high pollution levels - five times as much carbon monoxide and nine times as much hydrocarbon as the average Western car. But post-unification Trabants have the run of German roads, Trabi safaris are all the cool thing in Berlin, and their iconoclastic status is confirmed by the post-Wende image above painted on the remains of the Berlin Wall . The Trabants simple plastic construction coupled with a two stroke engine and few moving parts gave them an extraordinary longevity, and they are still in everyday use today as my photo to the left shows.

In 1989 problems in the GDR economy triggered the peaceful revolution that toppled the communist dictatorship, and opened the door to the elections that led to German re-unification in 1990. (For the full story see I am a camera - Leipzig.) Evidence of that economic hardship was still evident everywhere we travelled in the former GDR. Outside the city centres there are still boarded-up houses, derelict factories and warehouses, and disused industrial buildings - many still pock-marked by bullet scars from the Second World War. Saxony suffered a double-whammy in the conflict. First from the dreadful allied bombing attracted by nearby Dresden and Leipzig, then from the invasion by the advancing Russian forces as they bulldozed their way to Berlin. Miraculously the centre of Zwickau survived virtually intact, and the 15th century buildings (photo above) of the Aldstadt are one of its joys today.

Virtually all the service infrastructure has been installed since 1990, and this means the consumer facilities in the former-GDR are new and very impressive. That ultimate symbol of the free market, the shopping mall, has sprung up in every city, and the restaurants and cafés equal, or better, those in the old West Germany. My photo is taken in a coffee shop in Zwickau that not only bettered Starbucks with its brews, but also served hot Apfelstrudel and ice cream to die for. But our main objective in visiting Zwickau was not to sample the culinary delights or visit the tourist attraction of the Trabant museum, but rather to pay homage to the city's most famous son in this the 150th anniversary year of his death.


Above is the very room Robert Schumann was born in on June 8th 1810. His father was a book publisher in the city, and the young Robert grew up under the dual influences of music and literature that were later to so influence his compositions. Schumann attended the local Lyceum, and lived in the city until moving to nearby Leipzig in 1828 to study law. While in Leipzig he studied piano with Friedrich Wieck, whose daughter Clara he eventually married. Schumann never returned to live in Zwickau. His travels took him as far afield as Russia, Austria, Switzerland and Italy before he died in a mental hospital near Bonn on July 29th 1856. The photo at the head of the article is of the massive billboard opposite Schumann's birthplace, and it portrays Robert and Clara.

The birthplace has been extensively restored, and now houses a superb museum, and archive. There is a small concert hall which is the venue for chamber music recitals and seminars devoted to the composer. Despite being close to both Leipzig and Dresden Zwickau is not on the tourist trail, and only the faithful make the pilgrimage to the Robert-Schumann-Haus. This means it has an atmosphere of tranqulity and purpose that is missing from so many other composer 'shrines'. Our visit to Zwickau gave us a fascinating insight both into post-unification Germany, and into the early days of one of the most important composers of the 19th century.

CDs bought in Zwickau:
* Robert Schumann, Works for the pedal piano. A very interesting rarity, four works composed in the mid-1840s for the piano with pedal attachment to simulate an organ technique. The six fugues on the name of Bach (Op 60) are more commonly played on the organ. This CD is on the Ars Produktion label (ARS 38011) with Martin Schmeding playing the hybrid instrument.
* Two CDs of the Kreuzchor from nearby Dresden. This is the choir that I wrote about in Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims. These Berlin Classic releases feature choral music and folksongs conducted by the composer of the Dresden Requiem and legendary conductor Rudolf Mauersberger (0013142BC), and romantic choral music Reger, Bruckner and Mauersberger) conducted by Gothart Stier (0013512BC)


Image credits - all (c) On An Overgrown Path except interior of Robert-Schumann-Haus and bas relief which are courtesy of the Robert-Scumann-Haus, and Berlin Wall graphic which is from Wikipedia. Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Other I am a camera features On An Overgrown Path include: * Berlin * Dresden * Leipzig * Britten's Aldeburgh and Rare Romantic Requiem's in Avignon features Schumann's sacred music.

France complicit in crimes against humanity

France's government and state railways have been ordered to pay compensation for deporting Jews during World War II. The case was brought by people whose relatives were taken by train to a transit camp at Drancy near Paris during the Nazi occupation of France.

More than 75,000 French Jews were transported from the camp to death camps in Germany. The court found that the French state and the rail company, SNCF, had been complicit in crimes against humanity. The government and SNCF have been ordered to pay compensation of 60,000 euros ($80,000, £43,000) to the family. Records show that the SNCF billed the French state for the journeys and carried on demanding money for the transfers even after France had been liberated - from BBC News

* The photograph above is of the new Holocaust Memorial in Berlin by American Architect Peter Eisenmann. It was inspired by Prague's Jewish Cemetery with its closely packed gravestones, and comprises 2700 grey slabs. The photo was taken by me from where the Berlin Wall once stood and looks across to the centre of the former East Berlin, Alexanderplatz. It is from my recent photo essay I am a camera - Berlin.

* The Emperor of Atlantis was composed by the Czech composer Viktor Ullman, and is based on the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. Ullman was sent to Theresienstadt from his home in Prague in the autumn of 1942. He was later moved to Auschwitz where his fellow prisoners included the musicians Karel Ancerl, Rafael Schachter, Gideon Klein, and Hans Krasa. For the story of this important 20th century opera take An Overgrown Path to Holocaust opera's rare performance .

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Strange but true ...

1. When prime minister Tony Blair was received at the Vatican last Friday (right) his gift to Pope Benedict XVI was a boxed set of the Mozart Piano Concertos played by Daniel Barenboim who also directs the Berlin Philharmonic from the keyboard - I'm trying to think of the significance of this.

2. Rock star, and environmental guru to the rich and famous, Sting has recorded a CD of Downland lute songs, which will be released in October by Deutsche Grammophon, purveyor of classical music to the rich and famous - I'm trying not to think of the significance of this.

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Freedom should always be restricted

Ksenia Sobchak (above) is a career celebrity, she is the darling of Russian tabloids, the most eligible bachelorette in Moscow, a city of petrodollar glamour, flush with 36 billionaires. The host of Dom 2, Russia's hit reality TV programme, she plays cupid to the show's contestants, bolstering her sex-kitten image as the media darling of the country's implausibly rich elite.

But now Sobchak is trying to use her image to political advantage: she has formed a youth movement aimed at encouraging young people to assert their rights. She announced the creation of "All Free" last Thursday, an attempt to turn her feisty image into people power.

Why is she starting a youth movement, the sort of group used in Ukraine and Georgia to unseat the authoritarian governments allied to the Putin administration? Lilya Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment thinktank, suggests the idea may not have been her own. "Anything connected to the Sobchak family should be connected to the Kremlin's initiative, or inside their control, taking into account who her father was," she says, adding that it is probably to do with "political cloning", whereby the Kremlin makes its own versions of traditionally opposition ideas.

What Sobchak's movement, All Free, stands for is not completely clear. Sobchak only announced its creation nine days ago and will not or cannot say how many members she has before her first congress in a fortnight's time. But her rhetoric chimes nicely with the managed democracy of Putin's Russia. She advocates freedom of the press and of association, and respect for minorities, all hot topics in a country where state control and xenophobia are on the rise. Young people should become more aware of their rights, she says, adding they should name and shame university professors who demand bribes for places.

Yet "freedom should always be restricted", she says, adding that otherwise you have anarchy. "If we stay within the law [young people] can decide what's right for themselves." She says she is financing the group and its headquarters in central Moscow from her own pocket, but hopes businessmen will come to her aid. "We try to get young people to stand up for their rights. A fight for your rights can be a party. We want to do it in a free and funky way," she says. - from Saturday's Guardian.

Now playing - Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor performed by Rubio Quartet (Brilliant Classics 6249); Under Stalin the 1948 "Resolution of Music," headed by Andrey Zhdanov, had listed the official, acceptable musical genres, chamber music was not among these and it had been denounced. The decree had also condemned Shostakovich, together with Prokofiev and Khachaturian, for 'formalist' and decadent tendencies. By the time of the composition of the Eighth Quartet in 1960 the 'thaw' had begun, and Khrushchev's reforms had begun dismantling Stalin's brutal legacy, and Shostakovich had even agreed to join the Communist Party. But, although Zhadanov's decree was no longer strictly enforced, its legacy remained and the Eighth Quartet, with its autobiographical text, was a brave statement opposing the ideology that 'freedom should always be restricted'.

Image credit - Ksenia Sobchak from Federalpost.ru, Shostakovich illustration by Nathan Jensen who kindly gave his permission for image to be used - check out his web site. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Benjamin Brittten's relationship with children

From early in life, Britten had close relationships with handsome teenagers. On his side, there was often a sexual attraction. The boys themselves were sometimes unaware, sometimes complicit. Ronan Magill, the last such figure in Britten's life, wasn't conscious of the charge in their relationship at the time, but says now: 'If he did [feel attraction], then I'm glad that he did - if I could make him think that way for even five seconds.'

When it comes to the question of how far attraction was physically expressed, Bridcut sometimes leans on the evidence. In 1936, Britten invited Harry Morris, 13, on a family holiday in Cornwall (Britten's brother and sister and their families were also present). According to Morris, Britten came into his room one night and made what he understood to be a sexual approach. The boy screamed and hit his host with a chair, attracting the attention of Britten's sister, Beth. Harry returned to London in the morning.

With Pears installed as a sort of combined spouse and chaperone, favourites were welcomed but limits were set. The chosen boys tended to be more or loss posh, and both sensitive and sporty. For Britten, the essence of boyish beauty was movement, which was why he made Tadzio in Death in Venice a dancing role. (See photo above). Parents were usually grateful rather than suspicious (Ronald Duncan willingly made over part of the parenting of his son, Roger, and forwarded his school report).

Innocence and sensuality seemed to co-exist in Britten, as they do in children, but an adult's innocence must always be held to account. He was lucky. There was gossip, but never quite scandal, though in himself, by virtue of being an artist with an obsessive outdoor streak, Britten combined the two arch stereotypes of the corrupting homosexual - the aesthete and the scoutmaster. Bridcut mentions a day of composition, rehearsals and performance into which he managed to cram four swims.

To describe an aspect of Britten's relationship with children, Bridcut uses the term 'paedocratic', not a word that will widely catch on, perhaps. Britten liked children to be in charge. The freer they were, the better he liked it. He never talked down to children and, in sports, never lost by choice.

From today's Observer review by Adam Mars-Jones of John Bridcut's new book Britten's Children. A brave, and highly commendable, piece of publishing by Faber. It tells, for the first time, the full story of Britten’s love affair in the 1930s with the 18-year-old German Wulff Scherchen, son of the conductor Hermann Scherchen. As Paul Hoggart of The Times commented, ‘this type of love belonged to an emotional landscape that has vanished for ever, and we are the poorer for it’. Follow this link for Richard Morrison's perceptive Times article on the TV documentary from which John Bridcut's book is a spin-off.

Now playing - Britten's Holiday Diary and the music for one and two pianos. A wonderful anthology of Britten's piano music composed and revised between 1923 and 1969. Played by Stephen Hough and Ronan O'Hara on EMI Classics 567492. The cover painting is by the English artist Henry Scott Tuke who worked in Falmouth in Cornwall between 1885, his work in this style made him a pioneer of gay art.

Image credit - Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice, Opera Company of Philadelphia production from Stevenrickards.com, Britten from Britten-Pear Foundation Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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30-second soundbites and democracy

'Democracy is not possible without the written word. You cannot carry on an intellectual debate in the market-place of ideas via 30-second soundbites. For that you need books.'
Al Gore speaking at this week's Hay Festival, an event described by Bill Clinton as 'the Woodstock of the mind' (what is it about American politicians?)

* Follow this link for a report on Al Gore's Hay speech.

Now playing - Keith Jarrett's Book of Ways, The Feeling of Strings: 2CDs of improvisations on the clavichord which simply confirm that great music, like great books, should make you question every thing you have previously accepted.

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Eno is enough

There is contemporary music, there is challenging music, and there is bad music. I hate to be negative about new music, but in my humble view the Brian Eno choral works in last night's Radio 3 broadcast from the Bath Festival fell into the latter category. I have considerable admiration for the innovative approach of the Festival's new director Joanna MacGregor (left). But her decision to segue Eno's new work August 1914 into Tallis' Spem in alium at the end of the concert made as much sense as mixing Glenfiddich single malt whisky with Pepsi-Cola.

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Centenary of a legendary record producer

Walter Legge was born on 1st June 1906, and worked for EMI from 1927 to 1964. He was a legendary record producer, talent spotter, and entrepreneur. The great artists he worked with included Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, Maria Callas, Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer, and Dinu Lipatti. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was both one of his artistes and his wife. The photograph above shows me discussing Legge's legacy with Schwarzkopf a month after his death in 1979, the occasion was an exhibition I created in his honour at the Royal Festival Hall in conjunction with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Legge founded the orchestra as a vehicle for his recordings, and later capriciously abandoned it. Today there are many record company executives that can rival him for ruthlessness, but none that come within a million miles of his artistic vision.

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Digital technology builds a virtual concert hall

An important 2CD set from an enterprising Seattle record label reminds us that the massive number-crunching power of today's PCs can bring musical benefits beyond the ubiquitous MP3 file download.

Acoustics remain a highly fallible science. A number of modern concert halls, including London's Barbican and Royal Festival Halls and New York's Avery Fisher Hall, have all undergone extensive, and expensive, rebuilds in search of the perfect sound, while the computer-less architects of yesterday, who built halls including Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and Bayreuth's Festpielhaus (above), had an infuriating habit of getting it right.

In a very thought provoking project Loft Recordings have leveraged modern computing power to demonstrate how a virtual acoustic can be created. The acoustics of Chartres Cathedral in France were mapped using a tone sweep played through three monitor speakers placed in the cathedral crossing (see diagram below), and recorded through microphones placed eleven meteres away. The difference between the original sweep tone and the recorded sound is the acoustic 'signature' of the cathedral. This signature was then encapsulated in a computer algorithm, this means any recording processed by it takes on the characteristic sound of Chartres Cathedral. The number crunching involved in the process is awesome. The reverberation period in Chartres is slightly more than ten seconds. The processing computer has to take each digital sample of the original recording and apply the algorithm to it to generate 10 seconds worth of results. The sampling rate was 44,100 times per second, per channel. This means that for each second of stereo sound, the computer had to generate 38,896,200,000 numbers!


Commendably, Loft Recordings have not used this new technology as a sales gimmick, but rather as a very useful appendix to a first-class recording of Tournnemire's organ works played by J.Melvin Butler made on the new instrument in the Finney Chapel in Oberlin College, . The organ was constructed by C.B. Fisk, and is modelled on the classic Cavaillé-Coll instruments in Epernay, Caen, Toulouse, Rouen, Lyon, and in Paris, St Sulplice and Sacre Coeur (open this link for a database of all Cavaillé-Coll organs). The first CD in the set includes three substantial extracts from Tournemire's L'Orgue Mystique (for more on this monumental work see the links at the end of the article) coupled with several of his notated improvisations. This CD is recorded 'straight' in the Finney Chapel, and is the raison d'etre for the release. The second CD is presented as a bonus, and is exactly the same recording as the first modified to the Chartres acoustic using the computer algorithm.


So what does it sound like? The first CD is an excellent performance and recording of Tournemire's music played on an exceptionally fine new instrument. The 'Chartres' recording is palpably different, with more space around the sound, and more depth and body created by the signature 'lift' in the bass reverberation of the cathedral. I cannot say that the sound is better, or that it is the accurate sound of Chartres Cathedral, but there is no claim that this is the authentic sound of Chartres. The acoustic mapping was carried out at the crossing of the cathedral, and this is not where the organ would be located. Additionally the original recording included the Oberlin acoustic, and this was also 'enhanced' by the reprocessing.

But Loft Recordings did not release this fascinating 2CD set (LRCD1063-64) to prove they could use a computer to recreate any acoustic. They set out to make a world-class recording of Tournemire in the Finney Chapel complete with excellent documentation. They added as a bonus a thoughtfully presented illustration of the creative possibilities that are being opened up by new technology, and the 2CDs sell for the price of one. Tournemire in Oberlin is a triumph in its combination of artistic excellence and creative experimentation.

* On An Overgrown Path has recently visited other fine organs in St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, St-Louis-en-l'Ile, Paris, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin, the recently restored Frauenkirche in Dresden, St Thomas', Leipzig and Norwich Cathedral.

* The Gothic Catalogue has a wonderful catalogue of organ, choral and early music recordings from Loft Recordings and Gothic records, all made with passion and flair. Do visit their web site and explore the riches.

Image credits: Bayreuth Festpielhaus - Wikipedia, Chartres Cathedral - History.com, Sainsbury Centre, UEA - Greatbuildings.com. Any copyrighted material on these pages is includedin "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Leipzig rediscovers Gothic music

Any World Cup fans who arrive early in Leipzig could be in for a big surprise. Instead of the beer and bratwurst they may be expecting, the streets will be awash with mead, medieval markets, music - and extravagantly dressed Goths. For Leipzig, the only city in the former East Germany chosen to host World Cup matches, is also home to the self-proclaimed world's biggest Goth festival. Some 20,000 enthusiasts will gather from as far afield as Japan, Australia and the US for the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival from 2 to 5 June. Six days later, the city's Zentralstadion will be the stage for the first football World Cup game for Serbia and Montenegro and the Netherlands.
From BBC News, and there is also a BBC World Cup blog.

Do visit the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival website, makes a change from Sequenza21! Image credit - Ballade.no Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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