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Showing posts from December, 2006

Overgrown Path's People of the Year for 2006

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During 2006 Viktor Ullman , Pierre Villette , György Kurtág , Eric Whitacre, Rudolf Mauersberger , Antony Pitts , Morten Lauridsen , Dr Samuel Hoffman , Lou Harrison , Arvo Pärt , Antal Dorati, Bill Thompson , Herbert Howells , Michel Petrucciani , Nick Drake , Beata Moon , Frederic Rzewski, Ernst Hanfstaengl , Roger Mayor, Olivier Messiaen , Helen Ottoway , Charles Ives , Joby Talbot , Ivan Moody , Vanessa Lann , Ralph Vaughan Williams , Michael Berkeley , Thomas Crequillon , Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck , György Ligeti , Brian Eno , Huw Watkins, Francis Poulenc , Hans Werner Henze , Thea Musgrave , Michael Tippett , Ruth Schonthal , Jan Johansson , Tansy Davies , Roland Dyens , John Coltrane , Darius Milhaud , many contemporary Finnish composers , Stuart MacRae , Julian Anderson , Malcolm Arnold, Heinrich Kaminsky , Gerald Finzi , Francis Pott , Michael Zev Gordon , numerous mid-20th century German composers , Joyce Koh , Nigel Osborne , several Icelandic composers , Moritz Eggert

A New Year's Honour for classical music

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The 2007 UK New Year's Honours announced today are remarkable for the absence of political awards, which may have something to do with the current scandal over cash for honours. But classical music does appear in the awards, with Evelyn Glennie receiving a damehood for 'services to music'. Glennie (above) is a lady of many parts, and on her website describes herself as " solo percussionist, composer, teacher, motivational speaker and jewellery designer." She has strong views on the futute direction of music, and in June 2006 published an open letter to music professionals. Here is an edited version: Dear Colleagues. My comments here demonstrate my huge concern over what our business is actually offering our customers today. As many of you know, I am naturally “stubborn” and do not just accept the dismissal of a need when there is an urgent requirement for its address in a healthy, open, honest and constructive way from ALL quarters of the business and beyo

Berlin parties as Europe expands

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Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate is the place to be on New Year's Eve as a huge party gets underway to welcome Bulgaria and Romania to the EU . The headline act is the Scissor Sisters , with the two new member states supplying support in the form of Bulgarian rock singer Roberta and Romanian band Sistem , and more than one million visitors are expected to attend. The Brandenburg Gate has been the scene of a number of famous free concerts including Leonard Bernstein’s Beethoven Ninth in 1989, see the photo above. If you can’t be in Berlin tomorrow night the next best thing is to join in the fun online via this link. * Now playing - Michael Tippett's suite from his opera New Year . Not exactly party music, the opera is set on New Year's Eve in Terror Town where the principal characters face up to life in a violent, blighted society with the help of friendly space voyagers. There is only one recording , Richard Hickox presides over the fun with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

The musical tastes of our politicians

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Downing Street last night insisted that Tony Blair had paid properly and in full for his winter break, after a day of confusion over the arrangements surrounding his stay in the Miami mansion of former Bee Gee Robin Gibb (left). As yet another political storm rages around Blair's holiday arrangements it is difficult to know what is more suspect, his financial judgement or his taste in music. But appalling musical taste is not limited to the prime minister, as Michael Church pointed out in an Independent article in July. What it adds up to is the rampant anti-intellectualism that I found Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (below) raging against, when I visited him at the Royal Academy of Music. The Master of the Queen's Music has just been listening to David Cameron's Desert Island Discs choice on BBC Radio 4, and he's not amused. "In any other European country," he says, "a politician who chose that sort of garbage would be laughed out of court. The anti-arti

Sibelius – his genius remains unrecognised

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The history of the rise of Sibelius in the good opinion of the fashionable intelligence makes an interesting story. Thirty years ago he was known in the parks, around the bandstands, as the composer of ‘Finlandia’; at concerts he was occasionally represented on the less austere evenings by the ‘Valse Triste’. Outside Finland a few musicians had studied the scores of the First and the Second of the symphonies; and the one in E minor was confidently supposed to be written in the manner and idiom of Tchaikovsky. Not until after the war of 1914-1918 was Sibelius taken up by the best people of Great Britain and America; on the continent in general his genius remained (and remains) more or less unacknowledged or unrecognised. The remarkable fact is that the more bald and taciturn Sibelius’s music became, the more and more his public grew in the places where it was played at all. The critics and the coteries of London were condescending about the First and Second symphonies, in which he explo

Free MP3 downloads as jazz station launches

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A new online and UK digital radio jazz station launched on Christmas Day. Playing bepop to contemporary, theJazz is coming from the same stable as Classic FM. With 6.3 million listeners Classic FM is the UK's most successful commercial station, and the audience grabbed by its its smooth classics format has been a major factor in the dumbing down of BBC Radio 3. If theJazz follows Classic FM's easy listening formula it isn't going to push the envelope too far. But let's give it the benefit of the doubt. You can listen via this link , and to be totally cool theJazz is offering some free downloads until January 2nd. They include Bill Evans , John Coltrane and Miles Davis , just follow this link. Now push the envelope a little more with A jazz supreme. 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, missi

I am a camera - Vincent Van Gogh

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On 24th December 1888 Vincent Van Gogh threatened Paul Gauguin and cut off the lobe of his own left ear. Eighty local residents in Arles signed a petition demanding that he was confined, and in May 1889 Van Gogh commited himself to the insane asylum in Saint Rémy de Provence . When he arrived at the asylum he was met by Doctor Théophile Peyron, the director. The doctor welcomed his new guest who calmly undertook the admission formalities, and confirmed his request for voluntary confinement. The house was vast and partly unoccupied, thirty rooms were empty and Van Gogh was able to use one of these as his studio. He stayed in Saint Paul de Mausole until his departure fifty three weeks later. His period of intense creative activity there changed the course of western art, and produced an astonishing output of 150 paintings and 100 drawings. Among them are many of his best know works including Starry Night and Cornfield and Cypress Trees . Two months after leaving Saint Remy Van Gogh

Many musicians are just making a quick buck

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"At present," she says ruefully, "there is a growing trend towards commercialisation, with many musicians practically playing to the gallery just to make a quick buck rather than for the love of the Classics. This explains why many students stop attending classes after they have developed a certain level of proficiency." The perennial sellers are compositions of the Baroque and Romantic composers, and the Hooked On Classics series. "Today, the keyboard has replaced many instruments. Though a number of piano teaching classes have mushroomed all over the city, the students prefer to learn the keyboard. As a result, there are fewer takers for piano classes these days. As for other instruments such as the violin and the flute, the numbers are dwindling." Another doomsday report from the musical front line in the US or UK? Well actually no. Extracts from a very interesting article in The Hindu on the decline of Western classical music in India. Thanks to the

Europe's news secret weapon - culture

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With industry in decline and high streets dominated by Far Eastern imports, Europe has discovered a secret economic weapon: culture. The arts and creative industries now earn more than double the cash produced by European car-makers and contribute more to the economy than the chemical industry, property or the food and drink business. An independent study commissioned by the European Commission has underlined the changing way in which Europeans earn their living. Throughout the Continent people are now much more likely to work in sectors such as television, fashion or other "niche" jobs than in a car assembly plant. The sector employs no fewer than 5.8 million people, more than the working population of Greece and Ireland together. While jobs disappeared overall in the EU between 2002-04, they actually rose by 1.85 per cent in the culture and creative sectors. And creative workers tend to be better educated and more flexible than others. Almost half have a university degree,

A Very Happy Christmas To All My Readers

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Church attendance, baptisms and religous marriage vows may be on the decrease, but the Holy Spirit is at work, with a great spiritual awakening in Europe that goes beyond institutional structures. There is in general an increased awareness that we are spiritual beings with an invisible dimension that demands our exploration and understanding. The yearning for the sacred is universal, and love, the highest of all human and divine expressions, is the crown jewel of spiritual life - Stafford Whiteaker. The image is of a copy of a 16th century portable icon from the Monastery of the Transfiguration at Meteora, Greece. Stafford Whiteaker has been a member of a Christian monastic community, and is author of the Good Retreat Guide . For more on spiritual awakening take An Overgrown Christmas Path to There is a green hill faraway called Taizé Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be

This Christmas I'll be a child again

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I don't think there are any boys for whom the singing is a deep religious experience. My mother says I was born three weeks late and that it was typical of me. Talking one's way out of fights is a very useful skill . Once a mugger said, 'Give me your iPod' and I said, 'I'd rather not' , and he said, 'Well, I'd rather not hit you' , and I said, 'Oh come on' , and he was a bit confused by that and then said, 'How much money have you got? ', and I said 'Oh, only a couple of quid' , so he thought a bit more and then walked off. Another time a chav on crutches tried to mug me. I have a weird feeling when I look at myself or my reflection. 'How can that work?' That I exist and am conscious of myself and things move when I want them to move. It's pretty weird. My parents could have created countless different people. Yet they created me, Maud and Tolly. The biggest cheque I've received from Westminster Abbey i

Simple gifts – a guilt-free Christmas CD

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This is the perfect guilt-free Christmas CD . Don’t worry about dumbing down - it has shed-loads of scholarship and musicianship. But don’t worry about muesli and sandals – it delivers demonstration quality sound, has all the favourite Christmas tunes you will ever need, and finishes with one of the great moments of recorded music, the recessional carol In dulci jubilo complete with organ, instrumental ensemble and a very large choir in a 12th century cathedral. A Mass for Christmas Morning presents a selection of Michael Praetorius’ music arranged as it might have been heard in one the large churches in central Germany in the early 17th century. Praetorius was born into a strict Lutheran family, and his compositions became the musical core of the liturgy of Protestant churches in northern Germany. The Lutheran Mass uses the basic structure of the Roman mass, but with more congregational participation – which gives a great opportunity to produce a sonic spectacular. The versatile Pa

The BBC is performing badly

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When a business performs badly its share price drops. Yesterday's news that the UK government has imposed a six-year below inflation cap on the BBC's annual license fee increase was the public sector equivalent to a plunge in share price, and it confirms what a lot of people have been saying for a long time - the BBC is performing badly. The license fee decision prompts a Guardian leader to say "a measure of economy is overdue in some parts of the organisation, as extravagant pay deals for Jonathan Ross and other celebrities have recently shown", but this does not stop predictable bleating from the BBC as today's main Guardian story reports: 'In an email to staff, the BBC's director-general, Mark Thompson, admitted the reported settlement was a "real disappointment" and warned it would mean "some very difficult choices" for the BBC. "Even with a settlement as tight as this one we would still remain totally committed ... to doi

The Madonna of Stalingrad

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"I spent Christmas evening with the other doctors and the sick. The Commanding Officer had presented the letter with his last bottle of champagne. We raised our mugs and drank to those we love, but before we had had a chance to taste the wine we had to throw ourselves flat on the ground as a stick of bombs fell outside. I seized my doctor's bag and ran to the scene of the explosions, where there were dead and wounded. My shelter with its lovely Christmas decorations became a dressing station. One of the dying men had been hit in the head and there was nothing more I could do for him. He had been with us at our celebration, and had only that moment left to go on duty, but before he went he had said: "I'll finish the carol first, O du Frohliche !" A few moments later he was dead. There was plenty of hard and sad work to do in our Christmas shelter. It is late now, but it is Christmas night still. And so much sadness everywhere." The German army was trapped out

Celebrating with Saint Sarah

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Conflict in Palestine and the persecution of minorities are topical themes today, But this Overgrown Path takes us back 2000 years to when, following the crucifixion of Christ, Christians were persecuted in Palestine and sent into exile by the Jews. Boats containing religious refugees were regularly sent to far flung destinations in the Mediterranean, and one of these boats contained the biblical figures of Mary Magdalene , Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome and the resurrected Lazarus . At the last moment their black Egyptian servant, Sarah, was allowed to join the refugees, and their boat made landfall on the Camargue in the very far south of France. The exiles built an oratory at the point where they landed, and today this has grown into Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer , one of Provence’s most holy places and famous as a centre of pilgrimage for Romas and many others. We made the pilgrimage by car from East Anglia to the Rhone Delta, a distance of just over 1000 miles. Today Saintes-Marie

Key ruling in organ court case

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In a judgment that could have profound consequences for the music business, the organist on the 1967 Procol Harum record won the right for a share of the song's royalties. Gary Brooker, the band's singer and co-founder who had contested the action, said the decision represented a "darker shade of black" for the music industry. Matthew Fisher, 60, who played the Hammond organ on the record that has since sold 6m copies, claimed that the distinctive opening bars of the song, which he had provided with some inspiration from JS Bach, should have entitled him to joint authorship, along with Brooker and the lyricist, Keith Reid. Mr Justice Blackburne, who heard six days of evidence from both sides last month, ruled that Mr Fisher's contribution entitled him to 40% of the composing half of the royalties, but back-dated only until May 2005, when he began his legal action. From today's Guardian - now read how Culture is remix Any copyrighted material on these pages is

Not much of a career - but free MP3s

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" You don't have so much of a career now ," I say, when I meet the Russian pianist Andrei Gavrilov. In 1974 Gavrilov (left) was the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Tchaikovsky piano competition, aged just 18. He was a protege of the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, and a superstar in the 1980s. In 1990 he had a recording deal with Deutsche Grammophon and the world at his feet - or, rather, his fingertips. That was then. It's been all downhill since - a story of abandoned concerts, loss of confidence, the end of the DG deal, a broken marriage. It was a personal and artistic implosion, though which fed which is hard to say. I asked a friend, who knows his musical onions, what Gavrilov meant to him. Nothing. He was too young. Gavrilov hasn't made any recordings since the mid-90s, and he hasn't played many concerts either. He was history. From today's Guardian interview with fallen superstar Andrei Gavrilov, and the article allows you to down

Simple gifts – Baghdad’s Spring

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Travel Notes – new music for the viola da gamba was one of the most thought provoking CDs of contemporary music that I heard in 2006. One of the tracks is Baghdad’s Spring , and here are composer and viol player Paolo Pandolfo’s own words: Baghdad’s Spring was born while I was on tour in Japan, in March 2003. The TV was like a window opening onto what was happening in Iraq. CNN accompanied me every moment I spent in the hotel room: satellite transmissions of an Iraq reduced to a videogame session, the camera gradually zooming in on the images of bombed targets, strategic sites, bridges, streets, cities … Reality was quite different from those images, the violence of the explosions, the terror of the people … The was seemed to boil down to a question of skill and precision, a game in which someone surgically dosed out horror and death with the click of a mouse button, undoubtedly in the interest of all the world’s TV viewers. I remember the moment in which I decided to keep watching C

Simple gifts – Philip Glass

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As we prepare for Philip Glass’ seventieth birthday on 31st January 2007 his Etudes for solo piano have been one of my great discoveries of 2006. There is a variety in these beautiful miniatures that I sometimes find lacking in his more elaborate compositions. Glass’ own recording on Orange Mountain Music is definitive, and the composer really says it all in the sleeve note: ’The Etudes began for me in the mid-90s and I am still adding new music to this collection as I write these notes in 2003. Their purpose was two-fold. First, to provide new music for my solo piano concerts. And second, for me to expand my piano technique with music that would enhance and challenge my playing. Hence, the name Etudes, or “studies”. The result is a body of work that has a broad range of dynamic, tempo and emotion.' Simple music, simple gift, and simply great. And now read Philip Glass explaining that World Music is the new classical Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for &quo

Choose your fellow award winners carefully

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Several fellow bloggers made something this week of Time magazine’s “2006 Person of the Year” award to “You” to celebrate the rise of blogging, YouTube, MySpace and other “user-generated” sites. Very flattering and all that, but a trawl through past winners is much more interesting. Musicians are notable by their absence, which does raise questions about the relevancy of contemporary music. Music can drive change, but the last time it featured was way back in 1966 when rock-fuelled Young People took the award because “they shook up society, and trusted no one over 30”. U2’s Bono was a joint winner last year, but in recognition of his charity work rather than his music. The media and new technology have done better with awards going to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (1999) , Ted Turner (1991) and The Computer (1982) . Unsurprisingly politics supplies most winners, and the dodgy double winners include George W. Bush ( 2004 & 2000 ), Ronald Reagan ( 1980 & 1983 ) and Richard Nix

Simple gifts - free Czech music downloads

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Few people over the last half century have made an impact on Czech classical music that comes anywhere close to that of the composer Viktor Kalabis (left), who died on 28th September 2006 at the age of 83. His work emerges from a great musical tradition that includes Stravinsky and Martinu, and his compositions are typically characterized by a sense of drama combined with a strong feel for inner musical logic. Viktor Kalabis was also a brilliant organizer. The legacy of his twenty years as Music Director at Czechoslovak Radio that ended in 1972 is felt to this day. He did not have an easy time with the communist regime, and had to wait over forty years before finally being awarded the title of PhD, that he had earned at Prague's Charles University back in 1952. In the years after the Velvet Revolution he played a central role in setting up the Bohuslav Martinu Institute in Prague , devoted to the legacy of the composer. The institute's current director, Ales Brezina, was a clos