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Showing posts from February, 2007

Israel can do dance

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I do think dance is under-represented on the blogs. So I was delighted to notice Israel Dance linking to my recent article Black people can't do ballet. Now read why Dance is not an inferior art form Photo credit Ballet Black . 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

Music is in the soul of Russia

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Stephen Moss tells it like it is in his Guardian music blog , and links to On An Overgrown Path: It is of course distressing news that the great Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich is seriously ill in a Moscow hospital. Long may this remarkable performer and life-force live. I once shared a lift with him on the morning after a concert he had conducted in Milan, and his extraordinary energy was apparent even then - at 7.30am, following a party that had gone on into the early hours. A bear hug from "Slava" leaves you winded: his commitment and passion, for life and for music, are legendary; listen to him perform the Bach cello suites or conduct Tchaikovsky's ballets, and you will soon realise why he has been a towering presence in music-making for half a century. How many other ailing classical musicians would make the news in the way that Slava has? And an even more pertinent question: if Slava were British, would our head of state or prime minister have m

The first twelve-tone protest song

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Andrew Murray, of the Stop the War Coalition , says that every week he is sent new anti-war songs, but they are mainly in a traditional folk style, and he has not yet come across a new song that has quite the anthemic, rallying resonance of Fixin'-to-Die or War . He said that the anti-war movement has had plenty of support from writers, actors and artists, but not quite as much as he would have hoped from the musical fraternity. Ms Dynamite was at the big 2003 rally, Damon Albarn (right) has also attended protests, and Nigel Kennedy and Brian Eno have been active - but Murray says there is a gaping hole for a new song - as Saturday's Guardian reports. Perhaps the Composers Collective could help? Arriving at the apartment of Charles and his new wife Ruth Crawford Seeger , Peter found them leaving to hear Aaron Copland (below) speak at the leftwing Pierre Degreyter Club. The couple took the boy to an unheated loft in Greenwich Village. As Peter watched from the back of

A troubled cure ... for a troubled mind

The Gramophone has a not unexpected development in the Joyce Hatto story . Now read A troubled cure ... for a troubled mind. 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

Western takes on Russian music

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I am a Russian composer, and the land of my birth has inevitably influenced my temperament and outlook. My music is the product of my temperament, and so it is Russian music. I never consciously attempt to write Russian music, or any other kind of music, for that matter. I have been strongly influenced by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, but I have never consciously imitated anybody. I try to make my music speak simply and directly that which is in my heart at the time of composing. If there is love there, or bitterness, or sadness, or religion, these moods become part of my music, and it becomes beautiful, or bitter, or sad, or religious. For composing music is as much a part of my living as breathing or eating. I compose music because I must give expression to my feelings, just as I talk because I must give utterance to my thoughts. These are the words of Sergei Rachmaninov, and his intense patriotism means that Russian performances of his sacred music in particular are considered as

An artist is transforming all the time

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The big change in Thomas Adès' own emotional life is his relationship with Tal Rosner; they became civil partners at start of 2006. "It's nothing so banal as you get married and everything changes, but if you're truthful, then everything in life contributes to what you are, what you write," he says. "So maybe now I'm allowing certain feelings or spaces in one's soul or heart which before I wouldn't have recognised or even known were there. I do feel that sense of opening and completion, and all of these things have to be tied up with the music I write. But then, if you're an artist worth your salt, you're transforming all the time." Tom Service interviewing Thomas Adès (photo above) in today's Guardian as the Berlin Philharmonic give the first performance of Adès' new orchestral work Tevot. Service is a fan, and describes: 'the sheer expressive impact the piece makes. Of any piece of new music I've heard at its premi

World exclusive on the Oscars

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Oscar van Dillen (left) is a contemporary Dutch musician and composer. His studies included North-Indian classical music (sitar, tabla, vocal) with Jamaluddin Bharatiya in Amsterdam, bansuri with Gurbachan Singh at Berkeley, California, classical and jazz flute at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, and medieval and Renaissance music with Paul van Nevel in Leuven (Belgium). He now teaches world music composition and jazz, pop and world music department at the Conservatory of Rotterdam. In 2003 van Dillen's first CD, de Stad (the City), was released on Cybele Records . Do follow that last link for a treasure house of contemporary music. Biography via this link . Oscar Stranoy is a contemporary Argentinian composer who studied with with Guillermo Scarabino , Guy Reibel , Michael Levinas , Gerard Grisey , Hans Zender , and John Carewe . He works in Europe and the US, and lives in Paris. Biography here , personal website via this link . Oscar Straus (1870-1954) was a Vien

Catch this if you can

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BBC Radio 3's new schedules have taken quite a pasting here . So let's give some praise when it is due. Any programme that mixes Takemitsu, Bach, Honegger, Ligeti, Schubert and Eisler gets my vote. Listen to two hours of pianist Iain Burnside delivering an increasingly rare commodity, intelligent radio, via Listen Again , until 4th March. And more praise for my alma mater via this link. 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

Who said that? - the answer is ....

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As we finished, he suddenly said: "I hope these new harmonies will work, but I'm not sure. We will see. You know, I have no confidence in myself ..." When I protested that this was impossible, he gently responded: "But I don't. I know I should, but I don't. I'm basically doing all I do in the most amateur way, just trying to realise something that I imagine in my ear, in dreams. I use techniques, of course, but I forget them after writing and I have no overall scheme or permanent procedures. People of my generation truly believed that music could be explained and structured in a pseudo-mathematical way, but I never believed that." And the answer is ...... A number of readers emailed in the right answer, and they were split pretty well equally between those that recognised the composer behind the quote, and those that pasted the quote into Google. The prize of a virtual bottle of champagne goes to the Frankfurt-based Californian composer Daniel Wolf

Alban Berg - you can't call that music

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Today's big art story is that Prince Charles is joining great 20th century artists Joan Miró , Marc Chagall , Wassily Kandinsky , Andy Warhol , Salvador Dali , Pablo Picasso , and Francis Bacon as the designer of a label for a Château Mouton Rothschild wine vintage. You can view their labels by opening those preceeding artist links, the Royal artwork is above, and Charles' label for the 2004 vintage is here . This story would really have made the late John Drummond laugh, as the following anecdote explains: 'I have always found the Prince's lack of interest in anything to do with the arts in our time depressing, since all his opinions get so widely reported. It seems to me that he has had unrivalled opportunities to get to understand the twentieth century, but he has rejected it without hesitation. Both Denys Lasdun and Colin St John Wilson of the British Library , found work hard to get in the UK in the aftermath of the Prince's criticisms. I cannot believe i

A little light among a lot of heat

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"Assuming that the allegation that László Simon's BIS recording of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes was copied and passed off as Joyce Hatto's own recording is true, I would be most interested in the background to this theft. Given the circumstances surrounding Ms. Hatto's sickness and fate, there may be deeply felt – if misguided – personal reasons for it. Unless further, aggravating circumstances are discovered, we do therefore not intend to take any legal steps against those responsible for the possible infringement of the copyright of BIS Records." BIS founder Robert von Bahr on his company's website . 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

Who said that?

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As we finished, she/he suddenly said: "I hope these new harmonies will work, but I'm not sure. We will see. You know, I have no confidence in myself ..." When I protested that this was impossible, she/he gently responded: "But I don't. I know I should, but I don't. I'm basically doing all I do in the most amateur way, just trying to realise something that I imagine in my ear, in dreams. I use techniques, of course, but I forget them after writing and I have no overall scheme or permanent procedures. People of my generation truly believed that music could be explained and structured in a pseudo-mathematical way, but I never believed that." Clue, the name is among this seventy-two . Answers please to overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk, and I'll upload them. Question mark from Blogs.zdnet Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be remov

All this ….. and what for?

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The terrible raids on Dresden by British and American bombers took place on the nights of 13th and 14th February 1945. But the photographs here are not of Dresden, they show the damage inflicted by the German bombing of Norwich , where I live. 1432 people were killed or injured in Norwich by air raids between 1940 and 1943, and 85% of the housing stock was damaged. During April 1942 Norwich was one of the English cathedral cities heavily bombed in the " Baedeker raids " which targeted cultural centres selected from the eponymous German guide book. The photographs accompanying this article are taken from the official account of the air raids on Norwich published in 1944. This remarkable document, and remember it was written while World War 2 still raged, ends with the words below written by the novelist and war poet R H Mottram: So the long tale of violence and attempted intimidation drags to its close, and as these words are written the seemingly endless vigil is being relax

Towards a one-party musical state

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Today's announcement that Nicholas Kenyon is to take over as Managing Director of the Barbican Centre arts complex takes London even closer to being a one-party musical state. Kenyon was appointed Controller of BBC Radio 3 in 1992, and has been Director of the BBC Proms since 1996. His tenure at the Proms has been marked by unimaginative planning which totally failed to reflect the diversity of today's contemporary music , and his programming repeatedly backed personal hobbyhorses at the expense of important voices . The track-record may be lacklustre, but Kenyon's pedigree is pure BBC - to the point of having written the official history of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The outgoing Barbican boss, John Tusa , was also previously a senior BBC man, but his track-record is positively visionary compared with Kenyon's. The agenda of the one-party state is driven by the BBC, which directly controls the world's biggest music festival , five major orchestras and a leadi

Is the organ baroque?

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I was in St Alban's Abbey and I was intrigued: they were building a new organ and I went up to - I suppose it must have been - the verger and I said, 'Is the organ baroque?' And he said, 'No, it's in perfectly good order.' John Tavener in The Music of Silence, A Composer's Testament (Faber ISBN 0571200885). But Music of Silence is not an original title, it is also the translation of the Spanish composer Federico Mompou's piano cycle Música Callada written between 1959 and 1967. If you don't know Mompou's beautiful music his own recording of his complete piano music on 4CDs from Brilliant Classics is a must-buy. Now read about Even more Brilliant Classics , including Carlo Maria Giulini's Missa Solemnis. 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 ot

Lebrecht lost?

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As Paul Donovan pointed out in the Times the BBC are being very secretive about what is happening in the new Radio 3 schedules. Regular readers will know I am a huge fan of Norman Lebrecht, so I am very disturbed to report that Lebrecht Live seems to have disappeared both from the Radio 3 programmes page , and from its regular last Sunday of the month slot , although Norman is still listed as a presenter . Is Lebrecht lost, or will Norm bluster back in another slot? Watch this space. 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

Paul Hindemith - a true visionary

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" You are not permitted to sell unsanitary macaroni or mustard, but nobody objects to your undermining the public's health by feeding it musical forgeries ." Paul Hindemith (left) writing in his 1952 book A Composer's World :" Now read the rest of the story. 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

BBC Radio 3 - no live music after 7pm

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George Orwell lived long enough to know the Third Programme ; he adapted his own Animal Farm for it. Language that is manipulative and deceitful is now for ever Orwellian. He would have undoubtedly recognised some of the ways in which the Third’s successor, Radio 3, has sought to neutralise hostility and influence reaction to its controversial new schedule, which began yesterday. Its changes are many. Nine shows have been axed. Another five have been moved. Apart from the Proms and other special seasons, and the last act of some New York operas, there will be no live music after 7pm. Late Junction is reduced, Discovering Music extended. There will be a new weekday breakfast host, six new series and afternoon opera. Well aware that some of this was attacked when partly leaked last November, the BBC has acted decisively. All the main Radio 3 message boards — forums for listeners to give their opinions and let off steam — will be closed from tomorrow. Radio Times and Radio 3’s official a

W.H. Auden holding court ...

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Another chance encounter with a writer was due to my friend Julian Pettifer , who was at St John’s (Cambridge). He said there would be a special guest in his rooms that evening, and asked me to drop in late for coffee. I climbed in and found to my delight the rumpled figure of W.H. Auden holding court. He was relatively sober and hugely entertaining, and I could see immediately why so many people found him charming. In later years he became a prize bore when drunk, which was most of the time, going on endlessly about who had sung the Third Lady in The Magic Flute in 1952. Happily, before that I was with him on a number of occasions when he was reading his own works, at which he excelled. Once in Edinburgh, after a BBC recording, we went to the pub to have a drink with Stevie Smith at her eccentric best. Within twenty minutes Wystan and Stevie had started on a nostalgic journey through Hymns Ancient and Modern at a hideously out-of-tune piano. I rushed back to the BBC, rounded up a

Classical music should embrace marginality

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Regular reader Bernard Tuyttens gives us the heads-up on the post below from A Sweet Familiar Dissonance as a contribution to the current debate, or should that be despair? about the changes to BBC Radio 3. Tom Strini suggests that the best thing for the future of classical music would be to "embrace its marginality." I tend to "flip-flop" on this issue (if you'll excuse the expression) though most of the time I try to keep a positive outlook. I would like to think there will always be a few people who love classical music - maybe enough to keep it alive indefinitely - but the world we live in is discouraging to a classical music fan. "Singers" who can't read a single note of music make millions of dollars and fans dismiss as "boring" anything that requires the least bit of thoughtful attention. People who have never bothered to listen to even one complete symphony - people who, in fact, may not even realize that the five minute excerpt

Variations on a theme

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Today’s Telegraph has a further instalment in the Joyce Hatto story . All this is becoming very familiar to anyone who drives on busy motorways. An accident happens on one carriageway in which people are hurt. The traffic on the other carriageway backs up as everyone slows down to stare at the carnage. This story in the Guardian is far more important. 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

Multicultural, multimedia, and banned

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In 1925 New York bandleader Sam Wooding's all-black jazz revue Chocolate Kiddies toured to Berlin (photo above). Among the audience were composers Ernst Krenek and Kurt Weill . Krenek had studied in Vienna under Frank Schreker , and was married Gustav Mahler's daughter Anna for a short while. His compositions include an opera written to a libretto by the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka . Chocolate Kiddies inspired Ernst Krenek (photo below) to write his jazz influenced opera Jonny Spielt Auf ( Johnny Strikes Up ) which was premiered in Leipzig in January 1927, and opened at the City Opera in Berlin ten months later. Jazz was anathema to the ascendant Nazi party due to its African-American origins, but despite this Jonny Spielt Auf achieved major success with audiences across Europe, and was translated into twelve languages. The Center for Jazz Arts describes the opera as having "jazz-infused harmonies, syncopations, and story-lines; an African-American jaz

New music and news stories

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The graph above shows hits On An Overgrown over the last month, and the peak is the Joyce Hatto story . Wouldn’t it be great if collectively, we could transfer some of that excitement onto some rather more deserving causes? Here, for starters, is a link to seventy-two composers worth exploring. 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

Joanna MacGregor and Andy Sheppard live

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It's almost midnight here in the UK and we've just returned from hearing Joanna MacGregor and Andy Sheppard at The Forum in Norwich. Live music rules, jazz rules, Joanna MacGregor sounds more and more like Keith Jarrett , and Andy Sheppard sounds more and more like Charles Lloyd. For more on the inspired duo of Joanna MacGregor and Andy Sheppard read Commercially jazz is in a bad way. 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

Some help and understanding needed

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I spoke to Joyce Hatto's husband yesterday. William Barrington-Coupe runs the Concert Artist record label that is at the centre of the controversy over the provenance of some of Ms Hatto's CDs . I had been disturbed by the tone of some of the coverage of this story, and thought it might be useful to do the obvious, and speak to the person at the centre of the story. We spoke for a few minutes, and Mr Barrington-Coupe said he had read the stories on the websites and 'was not running away' . But he asked for questions to be put in writing, and undertook to answer them in twenty-four hours. I submitted six questions, twenty-four hours have elapsed, and I don't have any answers. I am not surprised I haven't heard from him, and in a strange way I'm relieved. Mr Barrington-Coupe sounded like somebody who needs some help and understanding, irrespective of the facts behind the story. I can offer no information on the source of the disputed recordings. But perhaps