The rest is downhill

Good to see fellow blogger Alex Ross' forthcoming book listed on Amazon. Good also to report that my much more modest volume (left) is still selling well on Amazon.com after quite a few years. Yes, it is a cycling book, but one with a difference. I bet it is the only cycling guide that recommends, among other things, a Naxos CD of E.J. Moeran's chamber music.

Moeran grew up here in East Anglia where his father was Rector at the Parish Church in Bacton, a village now overwhelmed by a massive natural gas terminal. The composer's 1937 Symphony in G minor is well worth exploring. Which allows me to turn what could have been been a gratuitous plug for my own somewhat tangentical book into a topical CD recommendation. Just this week Lyrita has re-issued Sir Adrian Boult's classic recording of Moeran's Symphony on CD. I haven't heard the CD release, but as I write my original LP pressing from 1975 plays on the trusty Thorens TD125, and if the remastered CD sounds half as good it would still be a strong recommendation. Pity thought that the gorgeous LP sleeve with Turner's 'Storm Clouds: Sunset' didn't make it onto the CD.

Boult was a true gentleman, and a great conductor. His repertoire was wide-ranging, including the first British performance of Schoenberg's Variations in 1931. He was unflagging in his commitment to new music, but I can't help but end with this description by Constant Lambert of Boult's interpretation of Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces - 'played with the touch of embarassment and circumspection shown by a really polite Protestant who has found himself involved in a religous ceremony of some totally different creed.'

Now read why the rest is downhill.
And yes, those are my daughter and son on the book cover. 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