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Showing posts from January, 2007

New BBC chief takes conducted tour

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A few weeks ago I asked - 'W here is Jiří Bělohlávek? I was one of many who welcomed Bělohlávek back in July 2006 after the dark days of Leonard Slatkin. But as this review confirms the BBC Symphony's new chief conductor (right) has made little impact to date.' Today fellow blogger Alex Ross provides the answer as to where the BBC Symphony Orchestra's new chief conductor is making an impact, and it certainly isn't in London where his orchestra's home for more than seventy years faces an uncertain future . Now read about another shuffle maestro for the iPod audience . 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

Early organ transplant is a complete success

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My photograph shows the wonderful Wingfield organ. This is a pre- Reformation instrument that has been lovingly reconstructed from a soundboard found in the coffin-house of the churchyard at Wingfield in Suffolk, not far from where I write these words. The music of Tudor composers such as Tallis , Byrd , Bull , Gibbons and Tomkins would have been played on an organ such as this. The full specification is here , and there are more wonderful photographs, and an audio file, on the Guardian website . The instrument has been reconstructed as part of the Royal College of Organists Early English Organ Project , from where my photograph is taken. On An Overgrown Path has also visited 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 , Norwich Cathedral and Oberlin College, Ohio . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use

BBC deletes classical music downloads

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BBC News says on 31st January 2007 - TV shows like Doctor Who are expected to be available for download later this year after the BBC Trust gave initial approval to the BBC's on-demand plans. Under the proposals, viewers will be able to watch popular programmes online or download them to a home computer up to a week after they are broadcast. But the Trust imposed tough conditions on classical music, which could stop a repeat of the BBC's Beethoven podcasts. Podcasts came under scrutiny, with the Trust recommending that audio books and classical music be excluded from the BBC's download services. "There is a potential negative market impact if the BBC allows listeners to build an extensive library of classical music that will serve as a close substitute for commercially available downloads or CDs," it said. The news will be a disappointment to the one million people who downloaded Beethoven's symphonies in a Radio 3 trial last year. On An Overgrown Path was

" Black people can’t do ballet "

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Cassa Pancho, the British-Trinidadian artistic director of Ballet Black , has heard countless excuses over the years for the lack of black dancers in classical ballet - such as no one wanting to see one black swan in the corps de ballet . So many excuses in fact, that in her third year at the Royal Academy of Dance she made it the subject of her dissertation. "I thought I'd interview four or five black ballerinas and see what they had to say - I couldn't find one," she says. "It was a shock." This sorry state of affairs led her to create Ballet Black, the UK's only classical ballet company for black and Asian dancers, in 2001. Pancho was driven to distraction by the racist stereotyping she encountered, including "black people can't do ballet"; "black women have big bottoms and feet that are unsuitable for pointe work"; "black dancers in the corps are not aesthetically pleasing" . She is not the first person to challeng

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again Norman

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Norman Lebrecht getting it wrong is so commonplace that it hardly justifies comment . Except when it is a journalist on his own paper pointing it out. Here's Fiona Maddocks writing in the Evening Standard . Wrong, wrong and wrong again, thundered my colleague, Norman Lebrecht, in yesterday's Evening Standard , thereby guaranteeing the BBC's forthcoming Tchaikovsky Experience more curiosity and interest than the corporation's publicity department could have dreamed of affording. His attack was on the BBC's cultural turpitude in general, and the choice of the all-time "chocolate box" composer for this wall-to-wall, complete works treatment in particular. The BBC, no doubt, can fend for itself. But the view that Tchaikovsky's music is merely decorative and devoid of deeper meaning is now so outdated that I must urge Norman, politely, to get out more. Recent major studies by Richard Taruskin and Stephen Walsh have reminded us - though our ears tell us

Orthodox leader inspires unorthodox music

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During the 20th century several inspirational church figures were catalysts for the creation of new art and music in England. Probably best known is the Anglican Reverend Walter Hussey , whose commissions in the 1950s and 60s included Henry Moore’s sculpture Madonna and Child , stained glass from Marc Chagall , Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Less well known is the influence of the Russian Orthodox leader Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, who inspired one of the seminal works in 20th century sacred music, John Tavener’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Metropolitan Anthony had early musical connections as his uncle was Alexander Scriabin . The future Metropolitan’s father was a member of the Russian Imperial Diplomatic Corps, and as a child Metropolitan Anthony lived in Russian and Persia. The 1917 Russian Revolution forced the family to flee to Paris where the young exile took a doctorate in medicine at

Bad week for child prodigies & jet set maestros

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The excellent ionarts reports 'Teenage composer Jay Greenberg's honeymoon with the press is over' and links to my recent article . While Anthony Holden's Observer review today suggests jet set maestro Valery Gergiev's honeymoon with the London press was over before it even started. Bag-eyed, straggle-haired and in his usual hurry, he finally made his much-heralded, once-postponed entrance. On giant screens to each side of the stage, a 'new era' was proclaimed by the London Symphony Orchestra as the dynamic Russian maestro Valery Gergiev (picture above) finally embarked on his new role as its chief conductor. Had he surrendered even one of his half-dozen other jobs to give this lustrous appointment the attention that is its due, he might well have been hailed as a thrilling catch for one of the world's finest orchestras - lending it a commercial glamour it has not known since the days of Andre Previn, with a heft worthy of the successor to Colin Davi

Speeding no big deal - BBC's Jeremy Clarkson

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No apologies at all for republishing this article by the Independent's Johann Hari on the day BBC TV screens a new series of Top Gear. One afternoon in 2001, my 80-year-old grandmother crossed the road to post a letter - and was smacked by a car "breezing along" at 45mph. She was thrown into the air, tossed over the car, and left haemorrhaging on the asphalt. Her legs were smashed. Her hip was wrecked. Her brain was damaged. Because she is incredibly tough, she did not become one of the 1,000 people killed by speeding drivers in Britain every year - but it took her a year to relearn to walk, and she has never been able to live in her own home, in dignity, again. So when I hear about the return of a TV show presented by a man - Jeremy Clarkson - who says "speeding is no big deal", a trivial act that shouldn't even be punished with points on your licence, I cannot let out the indulgent chuckle that so many people offer at Top Gear's mop-headed incitements

John Ogdon - a blazing meteor

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John Ogdon was born seventy years ago, on January 27th 1937. The words below were written by him in 1981. "Here then…are some of the harsh facts behind the words ‘severe mental illness’ and ‘serious nervous breakdown’ which the press has been using about me so often lately. Not that I am complaining about the press! – I was thrilled by the sympathetic and wide spread media interest that came my way both before and after my return to the….concert stage" Ogdon (above) was thrust into the limelight in 1962 when he was joint winner, with his friend Vladimir Ashkenazy , of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition. He wowed the Moscow audiences with his performances of Rachmaninov, Balakirev and Scriabin, as well as the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto which became his signature piece. Although Ogdon is mainly remembered today for his stunning interpretations of the Russian romantic repertoire he was also a ceaseless performer of modern music. He studied in Manchester at the same time as

That's Harrison Birtwistle - quick, let's hide

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The Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall are in Philadelphia on Saturday as part of their current American tour, and it's great to see the royal couple taking in a cutting edge contemporary music concert at the city's famed Academy of Music . Here's the programme - The Philadelphia Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach, conductor Tom Brokaw , host, Deborah Voigt, soprano, Ben Heppner, tenor, Dongwon Shin, tenor, John Lithgow, vocalist The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director, Peter Nero , piano Special Guest Appearance by Rod Stewart, A Selection of Popular Songs Ravel "General Dance," from Daphnis and Chloé Puccini " Vissi d'arte ," from Tosca Giordano " Un dì all'azzurro spazio ," from Andrea Chénier Verdi " Di quella pira ," from Il trovatore Verdi " Libiamo ne' lieti calici ," from La traviata Bach/Stokowski, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, & Dukas Fantasia Suite Now take an Overgrow

Lebrecht blusters live on music blogs

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Norman Lebrecht's BBC Radio 3 programme Lebrecht Live , which airs at 17.45 GMT (18:45 [Europe], 12:45 [US East Coast]) on Sunday 28th January, is about music blogs. I am sure you won't be surprised to hear Norman (left) hasn't asked me to take part . But I'll be listening in anyway to see if he (and the BBC) actually come clean over those erased King's College Choir Choral Evensong tapes . And I guess that at least you can't misspell John Tavener over the radio. 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

Your son is working on Petrouchka

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Postcard from Igor Stravinsky to his mother in 1911. The message says 'From Beaulieu where your son is working on Petrouchka.' This afternoon I was returning from a business meeting by car, and caught the last few minutes of a performance of the 1947 suite from Petrouchka on BBC Radio 3. I didn't know who the performers were, but it was very clear that there was some pretty amazing chemistry between the conductor and orchestra, and the sound they were producing was equally impressive. After a well deserved ovation I heard that the band was the BBC Scotttish Symphony under the Russian conductor Alexander Titov , and the concert was relayed live from the orchestra's superb sounding new home in Glasgow City Halls . The BBC Scottish revel in Stravinsky, and I have already enthusiastically praised an earlier performance by them of the Firebird here. Nothing delights me more than to praise a BBC orchestra and broadcast, and the very fact that the BBC can produce such great

BBC downloads hurt classical music market

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The BBC's plans for an on demand "catch-up service", a central plank of its strategy to remain relevant in the digital age, were dealt a blow yesterday when the media watchdog said it risked having an adverse effect on commercial rivals unless certain elements were axed. In the first major test of the way the new BBC Trust will work with the media regulator, Ofcom warned that the BBC iPlayer (above) risked harming DVD sales and could impact on orchestras and classical music revenues. The iPlayer, which has been in development for three years and extensively trialled, will allow licence fee payers to download any television or radio programme from the previous seven days at will, while also watching the BBC's channels live over the web. Altogether it could account for almost 4bn hours of listening and viewing by 2011. Ofcom also warned the ability to download audio content could have a "serious adverse effect" on the market for audio books and classical mu

Reheated gestures from a museum

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I would love to hear something genuinely new from a US composer of any age, let alone Jay Greenberg (above) at 15. But if you were thinking of using Cilla Black's wonderful putdown - "I've got tights older than that" - be warned that Greenberg's musical language is on the antique side. The fifth symphony is an impressively skilful exercise in academic harmony, orchestration and counterpoint, with no sense of anything new in the voice at all. The first movement begins with a standard, late-19th-century unison string tune answered by a woodwind chorus; the harmony is Mahler, the orchestral style Dvorak. The galumphing scherzo shows that Vaughan Williams's reputation had gone further into the US than anyone knew - the model here is the Sinfonia Antartica, which even in 1952 was an incredibly conservative piece. The kindest thing to say about the finale is that it made one wonder whether the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra is still under copyright. Striking

BBC to sell-off its main classical music studio

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The photo above shows Pierre Boulez at a rehearsal for his Pli selon pli before the first complete London performance in May 1969. The rehearsal took place in the BBC's Maida Vale Studio 1, and last week came the news that this historic studio complex is to be sold as part of the current BBC cost cutting measures . The BBC Symphony Orchestra moved to Maida Vale in 1934 when it outgrew the concert hall in Broadcasting House . The Maida Vale building was a disused roller-skating rink in west London, and it was converted into five purpose-built studios. The largest, used by the BBC Symphony and seen in the three photographs here, has a capacity of 220,000 cubic feet, and can accomodate a small audience. It has hosted many famous musicians, including Bruno Walter who is seen below conducting a rehearsal there in 1955. Boulez and Walter were just two of the international musicians who worked at Maida Vale. But Studio 1 has a particularly important place in the history of British mus

Igor Stravinsky's Tibetan connection revealed

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Dear Pliable, I must agree with Sir John's comments on Stravinksi's innate spirituality, despite the superficial appearance of coldness in his music. But this note is more prompted by one of those coincidences that often happen in life. My brush with the famous of 20th Century music, if you like. I grew up in the 50's with three recordings of The Rite of Spring: Stravinsky's own recording on 78's (not very good, I'm afraid and not in the league of his later stereo version for CBS), Fantasia (of course, and always hated the cuts and other liberties), and a mono Decca by Ansermet (my very favourite which I wore out with repeated playings). Well, fast forward to circa 1980 in India when I was living in Dharamsala , India, working on a mammoth Tibetan translation . (BTW, the 3rd edition has just been printed!) It turned out that both Ansermet's widow and daughter had been ordained Buddhist nuns and were living there. I only talked to the daughter once, over

Let's celebrate the good news from Kiev

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Why are we so fixated on bad news from the former Soviet Union? When we are not replaying yesterday's revelations about Shostakovich , Stalin's purges and communist black-lists we are broadcasting today's news about gas prices and murder by plutonium . It is all rather sad, and baffling, because there is so much to celebrate in this vibrant region. So today, let's counterbalance the awful religous persecution, that lasted from the revolution of 1917 to the millenium of the Russian Church in 1988, with the good news of a new cathedral that is nearing completion in Kiev in Ukraine, and then follow that story with a download of music from one of the region's monasteries. The new patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in Kiev, which can be seen in my photo above, is a five-domed church 49 meters wide, 56 meters long and 61 meters high. It combines traditional design with contemporary features. Four of the gilded domes, representing the four evang

Talking with Stravinsky

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John Tavener writes in today's Guardian - Since the age of 12, when I heard the world premiere of the Canticum Sacrum , I have loved the music of Stravinsky. After hearing the Canticum I went to every concert conducted by him in London. I vividly remember that on one occasion I was introduced to Stravinsky by Rufina Ampenoft of Boosey & Hawkes, for she had previously given him a score of one of my first pieces, The Donne Sonnets. As I peered down at his tiny but muscular form, he inscribed the score with two mysterious words: "I know." I never found out what he meant by this, but intuitively I felt that it was in some way tongue-in-cheek, and therefore linked to the spiritual world of the holy fool, common to all traditions. The last time I saw Stravinsky, in Oxford after a memorable performance of the Symphony of Psalms , I went backstage, and he happened to take my arm (because no one else was available!) so that he could descend the stairs to the stage door where