Right at the end of 2007 the Observer ran a story that shames the whole classical music community, including this and other blogs. It was about the BBC's rejection of director Tony Palmer's Vaughan Williams film, a news story that was featured prominently by the Observer and several music blogs, including this one. It now appears that the rejection letter quoted in the coverage was a publicity-seeking hoax, although the identity of the hoaxer remains unclear - read the full account here.
This story neatly sums up a year in which relevance became the order of the day, and swapping the long tail of culture for the short head of the mass market became the number one priority. 2007 saw Norman Lebrecht's attempts to go mass market hit the buffers, while William Barrinton-Coupe's efforts on behalf of his late wife met a similar fate. It was also the year when the Royal Opera House went mass market with its advertising, BBC TV went mass market with its classical music programming, Deutsche Grammophon went mass market with its CD covers, John Foulds went mass market with his World Requiem, the BBC Proms went mass market with its crooners, and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra went mass market with its concert attire and politics.
'Relevance' is in and the long tail is out. But it doesn't always work as Dominic Sandbrook recounts in his excellent book White Heat, a History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties? 'Many Protestant churchmen, alarmed at their inability to reverse the long decline in church-going, concluded that 'relevance was the order of the day'. According to Grace Davie, the churches, besotted like so many other institutions by the 'desire to be modern', consequently 'looked to the secular world for a lead and borrowed, in some cases rather uncritically, both its ideas and forms of expression'. It was in this period, for example, that liberal churchmen first began wielding guitars, introducing handclapping into the Anglican rite and generally conducting themselves like frustrated pop singers, a tactic that failed to attract many new parishioners and often alienated those still loyal to the Church of England'
In 2008 On An Overgrown Path will stay focussed on the long tail, and now playing is Satori (1999) for solo harpsichord by John Palmer. A long way from the Anglican rite, Satori describes the spiritual awakening during Zen meditation. This penetrating work, with its long silences is influenced both by the composer's friendship with John Cage and by his deep involvement with Japanese culture. Adventurous and thought-provoking new music from the enterprising Sargasso label, which revels in promoting the long tail. Check out good length MP3 samples here.
The CD has excellent sleeve notes by Peter Burt, including this one for the title work - A koan, for instance, is that type of apparently nonsensical question by means of which students in the Rinzai school of Zen are trained to transcend the limitations of verbal reasoning, the most famous example perhaps being Hakuin's 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' (My own mischievous answer has always been that it is the audience reaction at the average new music concert).
Peter Burt neatly disposes of the long tail versus mass market conflict with these words - All this picturesque 'Japaneseness' might make it sound as though the listener to this CD is in for a comfortable session of 'New-age' easy listening. But be warned: someone who submits himself to the ascetic severities of Zen monastery life could hardly be expected to opt for facile and superficial artistic solutions, and the musical language of John Palmer's work is uncompromisingly Western and modernist. It demands of its listener, no less than of its creator, an attitude of disciplined seriousness. Deeply rewarding listening.
Which eloquently sums up the long tail listening experience.
* Celebrate the new year with some more long tail - my David Munrow on the record programme is being repeated on Future Radio by popular demand at 7.00pm on New Year's Day, click here for the audio stream.
Sand mandala header photo from my 2007 post about the Free Tibet campaign. And no apologies to all those who think politics, music and sport don't mix. With the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 it is a subject I'll doubtless be returning to. Sand mandalas are a motif in Martin Scorsese's film Kundun which also deals with the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and I featured Philip Glass' score for the film on internet radio in November. My middle photo is from Going Buddhist which featured the music of Lou Harrison, the footer image is from Zen and the art of new music about Jonathan Harvey's music, and there is another contemporary music Koan here from James Tenney. Lots of long tail links for the new year. All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
The big bonus of presenting programmes on internet radio is I get to play the music I want to play, not the music that a focus group tells me to play. On Monday afternoon we have a fun programme for New Year's Eve, and as part of it I'm playing a 15 minute sequence from a double CD that's a personal favourite, but that doesn't fit into any conventional programme format.
Jazz pianist Uri Caine's treatment of Bach's Goldberg Variations defies any categorisation and I'll be playing tracks varying from solo piano to full on jazz. It's all part of our Happy New Ear's programme which is on Future Radio from 1.00 to 4.00pm on Monday December 31st, the Goldberg sequence should be on air at around 2.00pm.
Uri Caine's take is just one of several variations on the Goldberg Variations in my CD collection. Least successful is Robin Holloway's 'recomposition' for two pianos titled Gilded Goldbergs on Hyperion, a double CD which takes a long time to add very little, while Jacques Loussier's jazz variations take less time to say little more.
Among my favourite variations on variations are two recordings of Dimitri Sitkovetsky's masterly transcription for strings. One is a limited edition CD recorded in the beautiful Romanesque cathedral in Vaison la Romaine by the Trio de Prague in 2002, while the other is the fine 1993 recording by the NES Chamber Orchestra on Nonesuch which is noteworthy for both its committed performance and the sleeve notes by John Adams. But Uri Caine is up there with the best, listen in at 2.00pm UK time on Monday December 30th if you can.
Read more about Dmitry Sitkovetsky and those John Adams sleeve notes here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
The source of that 'envy of the world' quote is here. Photo (c) 2007 On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Double Grammy winning record producer Christopher Bishop talks about David Munrow on the record on my programme on Future Radio this Sunday (Dec 30) at 5.00pm UK time. The programme includes music from Munrow's first LP for EMI, Two Renaissance Dance Bands, which is seen above and which was produced by Christopher Bishop. Below is a page from Christopher's recording diary, the second entry down is the sessions for another classic David Munrow album, The Art of Courtly Love.
Christopher Bishop worked with many great artists during historic times. Here is an excerpt from Michael Kennedy's 1971 biography of Sir John Barbirolli: 'It was Bishop with whom Barbirolli was working at the Abbey Road Studios on a day at the height of the Beatle's popularity. As John arrived he saw the famous four and their retinue. 'Is that the Fuzzy Wuzzies?' he asked Christopher, 'because we'd better close the door in case they charge.''
Now playing - Renaissance Dance. This new Virgin Veritas double CD brings together two classic David Munrow LPs, Two Renaissance Dance Bands from 1971 (later reissued as Pleasures of the Court) and Praetorius - Dances and Motets from 1973, and adds five bonus tracks from Munrow's last recording, Monteverdi's Contemporaries, from 1975. This is a must for all Munrow enthusiasts, and a perfect introduction to his music for those too young to have grown up with his LPs. Current price on Amazon.co.uk is £5.97 ($12) - unmissable.
Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm UK time this Sunday, December 30th in real time here. An Overgrown Path podcast will follow. Read more about David Munrow on the recordhere. Hear the programme on Future Radio on Sunday December 30 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here). Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. With thanks to Future Radio for making the programme possible, and in particular to Dan Nyman editor extraordinaire. Also thanks, again, to James the joiner for the sleeve scans. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Who touched more people's lives, Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stockhausen? Not a rhetorical question, but one prompted by reading a fascinating book over the Christmas break. Both Peterson and Stockhausen were consumate musicians who created seminal works in the 1960s. Night Train was recorded in 1962 and Stimmung was composed in 1968. But they were polar opposites in their approach to music making, and they were polar opposites in their propensity to disturb people.
White Heat, A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties by Dominic Sandbrook is a superbly researched social history which follows on from the author's survey of Britain in the 1950s. Sandbrook's central thesis is that 'the sixties are best understood not as a dramatic turning point, interrupting the course of the nation's history and sending it off in a radically new direction, but rather as a stage in a long evolution stretching back into the forgotten past'. His conclusion is echoed by a New Society survey of social attitudes carried out at the end of the 1960s.
'Shouldn't one talk of the Cautious Sixties, rather than the Swinging Sixties? Hardly any of the obsessions of the metropolitan mass media rate favourably: some of them don't even rate strongly. You emerge with the very strong impression that if the the 1960s meant anything special to most people in Britain it was because they got, during them, a better chance to lead a not-too-poor, not-too-insecure life ... Despite the way the 1960s have often been portrayed, this has not become a wildly changed country: most people are not that keen on being disturbed.'
Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stockhausen? I would choose both. But despite our current obsession with all things new, doesn't Dominic Sandbrook's summing up apply as much to the first decade of the twenty-first century as it does to the 1960s? - 'Not ... a dramatic turning point, interrupting the course of ... history and sending it off in a radically new direction, but rather as a stage in a long evolution stretching back into the forgotten past.'
Read how Bill Evans and György Ligeti were part of that evolution. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Claude Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie (The submerged cathedral) in his Préludes Book 1 was inspired by the legend of the sunken city of Ys off the Brittany coast. My photograph above was taken in France, but not in Brittany. It shows the Church of Champaubert which is almost submerged by the waters of the Lac du Der Chantecoq in the Champagne region. The lake was created in 1974 as part of a massive flood prevention scheme for the tributaries of the River Seine. It covers 4800 hectacres, and its creation submerged three villages whose 345 residents had to be relocated. Champaubert was one of the villages flooded, but the church remains in eerie isolation by the lakeside.
The huge man-made resovoir has been put to good use. A cycle path runs round the lake, and the area is now a major centre for watersports and cycling. The photo below shows me on the lakeside path. For cycling readers, I am riding my Moulton APB, which is the bike I travel with when serious off-roading is not on the agenda. My ride round the lake was a lot more pleasant than that taken by Debussy's friend Ernest Chausson. In 1899 he lost control of his bicycle on a downhill slope, ran straight into the brick wall of his estate in Limary, Seine-et-Oise, and died instantly, aged 44. But no such mistakes by me on the big downhills.
An interesting bit of music trivia. In 1930 Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed an orchestral transcription of Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie with the bass line augmented by a theremin. But the low frequencies caused nausea in the back ranks of the srting section and the experiment was not repeated.
More on floods here and here. Photographs (c) 2007 On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Photo taken at the festival of lessons and carols in Blythburgh Church sung by the Blythburgh Singers on December 22nd, 2007, a church which has many connections with Benjamin Britten. Have a peaceful Christmas everyone, and a musical New Year. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
It was a night spent in the basement of a burnt out building. People injured by the atomic bomb took shelter in this room, filling it. They passed the night in darkness, not even a single candle among them. The raw smell of blood, the stench of death. Body heat and the reek of sweat. Moaning. Miraculously, out of the darkness, a voice sounded: "The baby's coming!" In that basement room, in those lower reaches of hell, A young woman was now going into labor. What were they to do, Without even a single match to light the darkness? People forgot their own suffering to do what they could. A seriously injured woman who had been moaning but a moments before, Spoke out: "I'm a midwife. Let me help with the birth." And now life was born There in the deep, dark depths of hell. Her work done, the midwife did not even wait for the break of day. She died, still covered with the blood. Bring forth new life! Even should it cost me my own, Bring forth new life! by Sadako Kurihara
Sadako Kurihara was at her home in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb exploded on August 6th 1945. Two days later, in a nearby basement shelter just a mile from ground zero, a baby was born in pitch darkness surrounded by the dead and dying. The seriously injured nurse who delivered the child died, but the baby survived and grew into an adult who sixty years later still lives in the city.
After the trauma of Hiroshima Sadako Kurihara was determined to express her furious hatred of nuclear weapons, and to campaign against their use. Her talent as a poet gave her a powerful outlet for her beliefs. Her most famous work is the story of the baby born amongst nuclear devastation. In Japanese it is Umashimenkana, which translates as Bring forth new life.
For the rest of her life Sadako Kurihara was a staunch anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigner. She published a literary magazine on the theme of the atom bomb attacks on Japan, and circulated an anthology of anti-war poems when discussion of the bombing was restricted by the occupying Allied powers. The author of more than five hundred poems in a writing career spanning more than seventy years, she died in March 2005 aged 92.
Now take An Overgrown Path to the radiance of a thousand suns. Credit for image and text, Tomiko Miyaji September 15, 1945, from Hiroshima Peace site. Please visit the website of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) who are a non-partisan international grouping of medical organisations dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons. They work with the long-term victims of nuclear explosions and accidents from Hiroshima to Chernobyl, and their work has been recognised with the 1984 UNESCO Peace Prize, and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
"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 fröhliche!" 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 outside Stalingrad during the bitterly cold Christmas of 1942. Among the German troops was Kurt Reuber, a clergyman and doctor. Drawing on the back of map of Russian (the folds can be seen on the reproduction above) he used a stick of charcoal to portray Mary holding the baby Jesus in her arms, and shielding Him with her arms. The words above are taken from Kurt Reuber's last letter before he was captured by the Russians. He perished in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp.
His family chose the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin to display the Madonna of Stalingrad, and to pass on the message of light, love, and a sense of protection contained in this moving drawing. A message particularly appropriate at this Christmas time.
Two copies of the Madonna have been sent from Berlin as symbols of hope and reconciliation. One is in Coventry Cathedral which was destroyed by German bombs in 1940, and reconsecrated in 1962 with the first performance of Britten's War Requiem. The other is in the Russian Orthodox Church in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad).
For more on the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church take An Overgrown Path to Music rises from the ruins in Berlin The full story of Kurt Reuber and the Madonna, from which the quotation above was taken, can be read here. Image credit: Scanned from reproduction purchased in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. 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
Taizé chants start my musical celebration of Christmas on Future Radio this Sunday, December 23rd. If you have not heard the music of Taizé before you are in for a very special experience. This is Gregorian Chant updated to the 21st century, it is music written for communal celebration, and it is the perfect way to start Christmas. My header photo shows the Church of Reconciliation in Taizé which we visited again this September. The second half of my programme is drawn from the arrangement of the Christmas Vespers by Rudolf Mauersberger that is sung every year by the Kreuzchor in the historic city of Dresden.
The programme is broadcast at 5.00pm UK time on Sunday, December 23rd. Convert to local time here, and launch the audio stream here. Read more about the music of Taizé here, and the Dresden Christmas Vespers here.
Now visit the green hill faraway called Taizé. Hear my Christmas programme on Future Radio on Sunday December 23 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here). Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
* Walter Braunfels' Te Deum from Furtwängler and the forgotten new music. A major successs in the lifetime of this now forgotten composer, Braunfels' Wagner influenced Te Deum is a response to the horrors of the First World War - on CD from Orfeo. * Philippe Boesmans Julie from New music from the old world. Video release of the opera's 1995 premiere production at the Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels - on DVD from BelAir. * Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus from The Well-Tempered Concert. This video captures the Stuttgart production of Hartmann's only opera. Written in 1935 it uses the Thirty Years' War as a metaphor for Nazi oppression - on DVD from Arthaus Musik. * Francisco Guerrero's Missa Super flumina from Size does matter. Rising early music star Michael Noone and his Ensemble Plus Ultra presents the premiere recording of a Guerrero Mass - on CD from Glossa.
More simple gifts for Christmas here. DVD replay standards differ between continents, make sure you buy the right version. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
In between programmes of music by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Colin McPhee and Alvin Curran I have been working on three Christmas specials commissioned by Future Radio featuring Tchaikovsky's great ballets. The hour long programmes will be presented by my wife, and musical highlights from each ballet are linked by a summary of the plot. The project has been a delight from start to finish, and not only because my wife is easier on the ear (and eye) than me. What wonderful music Tchaikovsky wrote, and that's a view shared by some pretty influential people.
'The sheer inventiveness of Prince of the Pagodas is extraordinary - so many memorable ideas - as is the sustained brilliance of the orchestral writing. The quality of the music is the equal of the Tchaikovsky ballets, which served as Britten's model for a large part of the score (Ronald Duncan recalls that Britten told him he kept a score of Sleeping Beauty beside his bed while writing the piece)' - from Britten by David Matthews(Haus Publishing ISBN 190434139).
Our programmes use the recordings of the Tchaikovsky ballets made by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden conducted by Mark Ermler (sleeve above). These were recorded for the now defunct Conifer label in the late 1980s. They were chosen for their authentically Russian style and excellent sound captured in All Saints' Church, Tooting, with the bonus that the wordless chorus in the Dance of the Snowflakes scene in the Nutcracker is sung by the local Halesworth Middle School Choir.
The conductor Mark Ermler (1932-2002) was born in Leningrad and worked with the Bolshoi Theatre as well as Covent Garden. He had a wide repertoire and conducted the first public performance of Prokofiev's last opera Story of a Real Man in Moscow in 1960. Our Christmas ballet specials are being broadcast by Future Radio on FM locally in Norwich, UK and worldwide on the internet on Christmas Day (Nutcracker 6.00pm), Boxing Day (Swan Lake 3.00pm) and New Year's Day (Sleeping Beauty 4.00pm). The audio stream can be launched from the right side-bar where there is also a time zone converter.
In November 2007 Future Radio commissioned an independent listener survey, and this showed that 5.5% of the station's total audience listened to the Overgrown Path programmes, a figure that is not too far behind some of their specialist rock shows. I am only too aware of the danger of comparisons across different data sets, but to give a perspective RAJAR figures show that 1.2% of the total UK radio audience listens to BBC Radio 3.
The results of the Future Radio survey are very pleasing as the basic rule for my programmes has been 'no compromise'. All the works are broadcast complete, there are no long-winded explanations of the music, no cult of the presenter, and no listener phone-ins. Around 95% of each programme is music, and linking announcements are minimised. This allows the music to speak for itself and the listeners to judge the music for themselves.
Overgrown Path radio is an experiment that is just a small part of a long tail. But the results of the listener survey show that when you treat your audience as intelligent equals they respond. That is something much bigger radio stations have forgotten. And they have also forgotten the vital point made by Libby Purves' in her book Radio: A True Love Story. "All that you can do is to make - and publicise - the best and most passionately well-crafted programmes you can think of. Ratings have to be watched, but calmly and with a sense of proportion. You have to believe that if even one person is swayed, or inspired, or changed, or comforted, by a programme, then that programme has been worthwhile".
Now playing - Britten's The Prince of the Pagodas Suite with Leonard Slatkin conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Regular readers will know that Leonard Slatkin's lacklustre tenure with the BBCSO did not make me a big fan of his conducting. This Chandos CD, which couples the Britten ballet suite with Colin McPhee's Tabu-Tabuhan and the 1941 recording of Britten and McPhee playing a Balinese transcription for two pianos, is a good summary of Slatkin's period with the orchestra.
The CD is worth buying for the performance of Tabu-Tabuhan which is persuasive, and this is the recording I used for my recent webcast. The Britten suite is useful for those who don't want to invest in Britten's own recording of the complete work, but there is little else to recommend it. The performance sounds under-rehearsed and routine. Fine for a budget release of a concert performance, but not for a full price CD.
More wonderful Tchaikovsky from Russia here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Here is the perfect Christmas present to compliment those downloads from the DG Web Shop. A windup media player for MP3 files and much more.
Now check out another ethical and musical Christmas present. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
One of the saddest stories of 2007 was the jailing of early music conductor Robert King for almost four years for sexually abusing minors between 1982 and 1995. For many, including his agents, Robert King is now history. Type his name as a search on the Harrison Parrott website and this is the response - 'Sorry, we couldn't find a match for your search words. Please try again.'
But trying again elsewhere produces the same result. Go to the website of the eponymous ensemble that the acclaimed conductor founded and you will find history rewritten. Founder Robert King's name is deleted totally from the history of the King's Consort', although they are still happy to profit from online sales of his CDs. Thank heavens for Hyperion, who are one of the few organisations happy to maintain their links with this important musician.
Different treatment for a role model that got it wrong is reported in today's Guardian. In a story that starts 'When your performance is measured by how fast you can drive on the track, sticking to speed limits in your private life can be a bit of a nuisance' the paper reports that Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton was fined €600 and had his license suspended for a month for driving at 122mph in an 80mph speed limit in northern France.
Lewis Hamilton has received wide media coverage as a role model for young Black people, but that is not important apparently. Speaking about the motoring offence a spokesperson for Hamilton's employer Team McLaren said "We were made aware that Lewis was stopped for speeding in France whilst driving in a private capacity. We understand he has received a mandatory fine and suspension from driving in France for one month."
I am not contesting the pain and damage caused by sexual abuse, and I have have actively championed black role models here. But could Team McLaren, and others, please remember, as Christmas approaches, that a thousand people are killed every year in Britain alone by speeding drivers, and that also means a dreadful amount of pain and damage to innocent families?
Passing sentence on Robert King, Judge Hezlett Colgan told King: "Your victims were in their early or mid-teens at the time." So are many of the victims of speeding drivers. Perhaps role model Lewis Hamilton should be made aware that sticking to speed limits really isn't such a nuisance, even in a private capacity? By the same token, in this season of goodwill, the classical music community could reflect for a moment on the contribution made by Robert King.
If you still need convincing follow 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Just received - a press release announcing that Pierre-Laurent Aimard (photo above) will succeed Thomas Adès as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival for three years with effect from 2009. As the Independent commented following his BBC Prom earlier this year: "At 50, the French pianist-conductor still has the eager simplicity that induced Messiaen to make him his protégé at 12, and the luminous brilliance that persuaded Boulez to install him at 19 as resident pianist for his brand-new Ensemble InterContemporain. . . .”
Pierre-Laurent Aimard explained: “It was a big surprise to receive Jonathan Reekie's proposal to become Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival. It was only after long reflection that I realised it was the right and possibly natural progression for me in terms of musical challenge and engagement. I love the exploration of musical confrontations and the encounter with various creators and performing partners - embracing the literature of different eras and cultures in such a way as to let the pieces enlighten each other. So what a joy to share with audiences and colleagues music as a living and growing art form in the context of an annual festival rather than a one off event in time. How we can continue to expand on the inspired concept and spirit of the original Aldeburgh Festival will be a fascinating journey in which I hope that we can do justice to the richness and diversity of music today.”
Pierre-Laurent Aimard has an international reputation not only as a great performer but also as a programmer of real invention. He will give three performances at the 2008 Aldeburgh Festival: as soloist/director with the Britten Sinfonia on Saturday June 14th, in recital on Friday June 20th, and performing chamber music with Tabea Zimmermann and Martin Fröst on Sunday June 22nd. All three concerts will feature works by György Kurtág, composer in residence for the 2008 Aldeburgh Festival. Other international curatorial projects led by Pierre-Laurent which form a backdrop to his new role in Aldeburgh include artiste etoile at the Lucerne Festival (2007); Pianist in Residence at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (2006-07); Domaine Privé at the Cité de la Musique (Spring 2008), Carte Blanche at the Vienna Konzerthaus (2006-07), his own Perspectives series for Carnegie Hall (2006-07); and Artistic Directorship of Southbank Centre’s 2008 Messiaen festival.
Jonathan Reekie, Chief Executive of Aldeburgh Music said: "After an inspirational ten years with Thomas Adès at the helm, in our search for a replacement we were looking for an outstanding, original musician and programmer, who would both respect the Aldeburgh traditions but also stamp their mark on the Festival. In Pierre-Laurent Aimard we have all those qualities, rare in one person - a brilliant performer with a flair for creating concerts and Festivals. His performances here have been the talk of recent Aldeburgh Festivals and we are very much looking forward to working with him."
The 2008 Aldeburgh Festival, Thomas Adès’ tenth festival as Artistic Director, opens on Friday 13th June with a new opera commissioned from Yannis Kyriakides. During the festival Adès will conduct BCMG (Sunday June 15th) and two days later, with Steven Isserlis, will give the premiere of work that he has written for Isserlis. Associate Director of the festival, composer John Woolrich, will remain in this role, working alongside Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
“Every distinguished artist who has been chosen to present a series of Perspectives concerts at Carnegie Hall has used the opportunity to make connections among music of different styles and eras. But no one has taken this kind of exploration to the exhilarating extremes of the brilliant French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. . . . By mixing and matching short pieces or excerpts from longer ones (46 in all), he created, in effect, an original, evening-length, five-section patchwork composition that audaciously leapt across centuries, defying stylistic categories.” New York Times, May 14th 2007
Now read an exclusive interview with Jonathan Reekie Photo credit Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
My Future Radio programme on Sunday December 30th takes an exclusive look at David Munrow on the record. In the early 1970s the scores for the BBC TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elisabeth R brought David Munrow’s music to millions. His Pied Piper radio programme was broadcast four times a week for five years, he presented a successful TV series, and wrote the scores for several major feature films including Ken Russell’s The Devils and the film version of HenryVIII (sleeve below).
David Munrow's interest in early music started when he taught in Peru before going up to Cambridge. He combined reading English at Pembroke College with independent studies of Renaissance and medieval music, and went on to form his famous Early Music Consort of London. Under his leadership the Early Music Consort became best-selling recording artists, and David Munrow’s records were considered so important that copies of them were sent to Saturn on board two NASA spacecraft in 1976.
Today David Munrow is remembered by the records he made for EMI that started in 1971 with the LP Two Renaissance Dance Bands. He was brought to EMI by their double Grammy winning recording producer Christopher Bishop(above left) who produced Munrow's first records for EMI, and who also worked with Carlo Maria Giulini, André Previn, Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Adrian Boult and many other great musicians. Christopher Bishop is my guest on Future Radio on Sunday December 30th, and he will be giving listeners an exclusive look at David Munrow on the record. The photo above shows Christopher with me in the Future Radio studios looking at the album Two Renaissance Dance Bands.
As well as discussing David Munrow's work we will be playing his recordings. These will include an excerpt from a rare early tape of Christopher Bishop conducting his own London Madrigal Singers and the Munrow Recorder Consort in a Weelkes madrigal. David Munrow on the record will be broadcast on the Sunday after Christmas, December 30th, at 5.00pm UK time, listen here in real time. The interview is available as an Overgrown Path podcast.
Playlist for David Munrow on the record, Dec 30, 2007: * Thomas Weelkes: Hark all ye lovely Saints, 3.00", London Madrigal Singers and Munrow Recorder Consort conducted by Christopher Bishop - BBC Third Programme recording 1970 * Tylman Susato: 12 Dances from the Danserye La Mourisque, 1.13" Branle Quatre - Bransles, 1.38" Rondo & Salterelle, 1.34" from Two Renaissance Dance Bands LP EMI HQS 1249 (Reissued as Pleasures of the Court) * David Munrow: Henry VIII and his Six Wives Pastime with good company, 1.32" Joust, 2.34" from Henry VIII and his Six Wives LP HMV CSD 9001 * Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, 3rd movement, Sir Adrian Boult conducting London Philharmonic Orchestra, 5.08" from LP EMI SLS 866 * Giuseppe Sammartini: Concerto in F major, 3rd movement Neville Marriner conducting Academy of St Martin in the Fields, 4.05" from LP HMV ASD 3028
For a range of David Munrow resources follow this link. Hear David Munrow on the record on Future Radio on Sunday December 30 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here). Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.
With thanks to Future Radio for making the programme possible, and in particular to Dan Nyman editor extraordinaire. Also thanks, again, to James the joiner for the sleeve scans. Studio photograph (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Other 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Violainvilnius commented on my recent post on Stockhausen's teachers "OMG, we'll have a Messiaen year next year? Where can I emigrate to?". Well, according to today's Observer nowhere is safe.
"Radiohead's exuberantly talented Jonny Greenwood is using his time as composer-in-residence with the BBC Concert Orchestra to allow his influences - Ligeti, Messiaen, Dutilleux and Penderecki - to guide his quirky, uneven pen. They certainly seem to be at work behind his latest offering, the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson's acclaimed new film, There Will Be Blood, due for release in the UK next February.
Those arid plains are captured impressively in the opening track 'Open Spaces', which employs what is fast becoming Greenwood's 'signature', the Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument. Its oscillating frequencies have just the right haunting, vocal quality to evoke an empty, forbidding landscape."
Sample a unique sound world with Naxos' excellent Music of the Ondes Martenot. And read the extraordinary story of another electronic instrument here. No, it's not an Ondes Martenot. Photo is of Jonny Greenwood playing an Analogue Systems rs6000 synthesizer. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Clear as a sky without a cloud may be a mother's mind, but darker than a starless night with not one gleam, not one, no gleam to show the way.
The Madwoman arrives at the ferry in Benjamin Britten's first church parable Curlew River. Photograph taken this afternoon inland from Aldeburgh. More on Curlew River here. Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
New music is alive and well in Belgium. Tomorrow (Dec 15) sees an Alvin Curran (photo above) premiere in Ghent played by pianist Daan Vandewalle (who featured in my Inner Cities webcast) and cellist Arne Deforce. The new Alvin Curran work is called Malapromptus. This is the programme, and more details here:
Hear Daan Vandewalle talking to me about Alvin Curran's music here. And a double bill of new Belgian music here and here. Photo credit Hannah Frenzel. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Swapping from William Schuman to Robert Schumann in recent posts has presented a spelling challenge, and, quite rightly, a reader corrected me a while back when I fused the American composer's Christian name with the German composer's surname.
So I was reassured to read the following in David Revill's book The Roaring Silence - John Cage: A Life - 'Cage continued to spend many hours preparing letters seeking support for a center for experimental music. On the back of his inventory of percussion instruments he scribbled one night, "Composers interested in electrical: Jacob Weinberg, Henry Brant, Paul Bowles, William Schumann (sic)"'.
John Cage Christmas gift suggestion here. Cage collage taken at Les Gargoris, France (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Who said that the art of sleeve design died with the LP? - well actually I did. So, to prove myself wrong here is the sleeve for the recording of Stockhausen's Gruppen that I will be playing in my Future Radio programme this Sunday Dec 16 at 5.00pm UK time.
The coupling is Stockhausen's Punkte, and the excellent sleeve notes are by Richard Toop. As well as recording worthwhile composers BMC Records is one of the few companies committed to keeping good design alive in the digital era. More power to them for that.
Now playing - Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 3 'Rhenish'. Schumann and Stockhausen may seem to have little in common other than the letter 'S', but there are links. Both explored new technologies. While Stockhausen pioneered electronic music Schumann was a little less ambitious with his advocacy of the pedal piano which extended the register of the instrument using an organ style pedal action. Schumann's works for pedal piano played by Martis Schmeding are available on the Ars record label, although the nasty close and dry sound of the recording makes it of little interest other than as an academic document.
There are also geographic links between the two composers. Stockhausen was born in Mödrath near Cologne in 1928, and grew up in the Rhineland area where his father was a teacher. Although Schumann was born in Zwickau in the east of Germany he moved west to Düsseldorf in 1850, and later that year wrote his 'Rhenish' Symphony which celebrates the Rhineland and Cologne.
I visited Cologne frequently on business in the 1970s, and was mesmerised by the city's magnificent 13th century Catholic cathedral as well as attending trade fairs at the more prosaic Koelmesse where Gruppen was first performed. The fourth of the five movements of the 'Rhenish' is thought to have been inspired by the ordination of a Cardinal in the Cathedral.
I grew to love the 'Rhenish' through repeated playings of my 1972 LP of Herbert von Karajan's performance with the Berlin Philharmonic (DG 2530 447), and I still retain a great fondness for his interpretation. The Deutsche Grammophon sleeve shown below is wonderfully evocative of the Indian summer of the LP of which it was part. The stark contrast in graphic styles between the Stockhausen and Schumann sleeves also reflects the marked difference between the mellow analogue sound of the 1970s, and the analytical digital sound that was soon to replace it.
When CDs arrived I bought Kubelik's cycle with the Bayerischen Rundfunks Orchestra. These have served well, but never quite generated the frisson of Karajan's performances. More recently I have found David Zinman's cycle for the BMG's budget priced Arte Nova Classics label to be very rewarding. The orchestra is the Tonhalle Zurich who use natural trumpets, baroque trombones and other period instruments. The resulting crispness and bite provides a welcome antidote to Schumman's sometimes thick orchestration. Zinman's CD set is recommended. However, unlike BMC's Stockhausen and DG's Schumann, the CD artwork isn't worth reproducing here. But for some more striking images go to Robert Schumann's Zwickau.
Hear Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen on my Future Radio programme on Sunday December 16 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here) I will also be playing Lou Harrison's 1985 Piano Concerto. Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.
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
Henry Holland has left a new comment on your post On the path of Stockhausen's teachers - "It's actually Bryce Canyon in the photo used for the poster, the rock formation that looks like a cup above the 'h' in Southbank is the giveaway; Messiaen, of course, visited Bryce Canyon, which is mentioned in the 7th part of Des Canyons aux Etoiles."
My photo above is also from the Southbank Centre's Messiaen festival brochure, and shows the composer in Bryce Canyon. Photo (c) Yvonne Loriod. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Much interest in the gamelan threads started by my Colin McPhee posts and webcast, including this comment from Jessica Duchen - 'One of my most fascinating musical experiences was playing in a gamelan orchestra at Dartington when I was a student. After you've entered and become part of that soundworld with all its ringing overtones for two hours at a stretch, a Mozart violin sonata can seem very strange indeed.'
Follow this link and sample that special soundworld online with a complete concert from CBC of music for gamelan by Colin McPhee and contemporary composers.
While elsewhere you can play your own Virtual Javanese Gamelan using free software developed by WCS Music using the Javanese Gamelan of Wells Cathedral School. Their website reports that using the expertise of the music faculty of the Cathedral School, and leading consultants, an innovative and award winning suite of music education software has been created. This allows users to explore one of the liveliest forms of Javanese Music, the Lancaran, and take part in an ensemble performance using sampled sounds from a gamelan. There is also the opportunity to compose and export audio files, and learn about Indonesian Music using online resources.
The first module of the Virtual Javanese Gamelan is available for immediate download free of charge from the WCS Music website. Reader reports on the software are welcome.
Lou Harrison was one of the Western composers who embraced the gamelan. I am very grateful to regular reader Jean Missud of Fitchburg State College, Massachusetts for sending me a link to a wonderful interview with Lou Harrison. Which is a very approprite way to end this gamelan post.
Image credit CBC.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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
In 1950 Karlheinz Stockhausen was accepted into Frank Martin's composition class at the Cologne Musikhochschule. The relationship was not a success, Stockhausen had only a few hours of tuition with Martin, and most of this was spent analysing his teacher's own compositions. More Frank Martin down this path.
Two years later Stockhausen started studying composition with Darius Milhaud in Paris. But once again Stockhausen was dissatisfied with his teacher, and after a few weeks he stopped attending Milhaud's classes. My photo above shows the house that Milhaud was born in at 4, Bd de la République, Aix-en-Provence. His birthplace, which I visited in September, is now the Hotel Artea and not a museum. There is a discount if you check-in after 8.00pm, which cannot be said for many composer's birthplaces.
Milhaud's other pupils at various times included Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Burt Bacharach. Alvin Curran was not among them, but there are connections. Aix-en-Provence supplied my recent Inner Cities photos, and from 1991 to 2006 Curran was Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. This Chair was endowed in memory of Milhaud who taught there after being forced to leave France in 1940 because of his Jewish backgound. Milhaud's Jewish ancestors had lived in the ghetto in Cavaillon. This town is close to Avignon, sometime home of the Popes, which is where Stockhausen's third teacher, the devout Catholic Olivier Messiaen was born.
Stockhausen's relationship with Messiaen more than made up for his failures with Martin and Milhaud. Stockhausen and Messiean shared the Catholic faith, and the young composer attended Messiaen's course in aesthetics and analysis in Paris twice a week for a year. Stockhausen later said: 'In many respects Messiaen did the opposite of what I wanted. He never tried to convince me. That made him a good teacher. He did not give instruction in composition, but showed me how he understood the music of others and how he worked himself.'
Olivier Messiaen was born on December 10, 1908. His birthplace Avignon is only a short distance from Milhaud's in Aix-en-Provence. In fact all my paths converge in Avignon as the city also has connections with Pierre Boulez, who was another pupil of Messiaen and a colleague of Stockhausen.
The work of Messiaen, Stockhausen and Boulez also converge in London in one of the highlights of 2008, which is, of course, Messiaen's centenary year. The event is the Southbank Centre's festival The Music of Olivier Messiaen - From The Canyons to the Stars. If anything was to tempt me to move back to London it would be this year long feast of twentieth-century music. Full details here, and below are some of my personal 'must attends'.
* Opening concert February 2 - Messiaen Des canyons aux étoiles played by Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Susanna Mälkki * February 7 - Southbank Gamelan Players followed by Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie with Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. * February 13 - Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. * February 15 - concert by Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble including Stockhausen Kontra-Punkte and XenakisJalons. * February 17 - must be THE concert of 2008. Boulez Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna and Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum with London Sinfonietta conducted by Peter Eötvös (who is one of the conductors of Gruppen in my Future Radio webcast this Sunday Dec 16). * May 1 - Ascension Day service in Westminster Abbey including the organ version of Messiaen's L'Ascension. * May 11 - Pentecost Mass including movements from Messiaen's Pentecost Mass for organ, Gregorian chant and Victoria's Missa Dum complerentur. * October 20 - organ recital in the London Oratory that includes a rare chance to hear the Kyrie from Satie's Messa des Pauvres, and movements from Tournemire's L'Orgue Mystique. The Satie fragment was composed for the church that the composer founded, and at which he was the only worshiper, the Eglise métropolitaine d'Art. * Centenary concert Dec 10 - Messiaen Couleurs de la cité céleste and Sept Haïkaï, Boulez sur Incises with Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Pierre Boulez.
I'm just adding up how much a ticket for every concert will cost ...
Now playing - Messiaen's Des canyons aux étoile (From the canyons to the stars) on the double Apex CD with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, and Ensemble Ars Nova. The couplings are Messiaen's Hymne au Saint-Sacrement and Les offrandes oubliées, the sound is excellent, and there are decent sleeve notes. You can buy it from Amazon resellers for not much more than a Starbucks latte. What can I say, other than ask that seasonal roast chestnut? - is recorded classical music too cheap?
Header photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Having an opinion is unfashionable in some places these days. But not according to a link on A.C. Grayling's website. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
'In terms of new music, 2007 was less special, save for Magnus Lindberg's fine violin concerto, Heiner Goebbels's indefinably moving Songs from Wars I Have Seen, and Jonathan Harvey's adroit chamber opera Wagner Dream. There were no premieres worth mentioning at the Proms, save Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto, quite the worst new piece to come my way all year' - writes Andrew Clements in today's Guardian.
Read more about Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream in Malcolm Miller's review, which is where the production shot from the 2007 Holland Festival in Amsterdam came from. (Photo credit Clärchen and Matthias Baus). More on Jonathan Harvey here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
* How Radiohead killed the record labels - the announcement in the early hours of this morning of the imminent arrival of In Rainbows, the seventh Radiohead album, is hugely exciting for the band's millions of fans.
Potentially though it's even bigger news for the music industry. Released in ten days time, the album is available as a digital download for whatever price you want to pay. Radiohead may have done irreparable damage to the industry's traditional business model - Telegraph.co.uk October 1, 2007.
* Hello Everyone, The download area that is “In Rainbows” will be shutting its doors on the 10th December 2007. A big thank you to everyone who came and downloaded the music. It’s been the most positive thing we’ve done and we hope you shared the experience with others. The discbox will still be available from the w.a.s.t.e store here until they have all gone. We then have no plans to make further stock.
For those of you who wish to buy In Rainbows in the usual way, it will be available on CD/Vinyl and download from traditional outlets from the 31st December 2007. The record will be released by TBD Records in North America and XL Recordings for the rest of the world.
Thanks for everything - from official Radiohead website
* XL Recordings is an independent record label which was launched by Tim Palmer, Nick Halkes and Richard Russell with Beggars Banquet Records in 1989 to release its rave and dance music ... In October 2007, Radiohead completed negotiations to sign with XL for a proper studio release of their seventh studio album, In Rainbows - from Wikipedia.
More free Radiohead here. 1976 poster by E. Shakhtakhtinskaya is from the former USSR Lenin Library in Moscow, now part of the Russian State Library. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
I went into Norfolk's main library on Saturday morning and asked for a book from the reserve collection. The librarian was in his early twenties, had a beard and wore a T-shirt with a slogan. Great to see a hip young person working in a library I thought. When I asked for the copy of a biography of Stockhausen the young librarian looked blank and asked "How do you spell that?"
Clearly the librarian hadn't seen the surprisingly high profile media coverage of Stockhausen's death. But he is also one of the internet generation, and my server data currently shows very few Google searches for Stockhausen. Far lower than, for instance, Rostropovich following his death. Yes, it is a weekend, but internet traffic yesterday was low even for a Saturday.
Have I have accidentally stumbled on the acid test of cultural significance? - can the librarian spell it? No chance for György Kurtág or Peteris Vasks. But I wonder if in thirty years time a librarian will be able to spell Radiohead? Coming to that, I wonder if in thirty years time we will have any librarians?
* Below is the book that was in the library's reserve collection, the English translation of Michael Kurtz's Stockhausen biography (Faber ISBN 057117146). Is it significant that this book is out of print? The library copy has been on loan ten times since 1996.
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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
"One of television's most imaginative film-makers has condemned Mark Thompson's leadership of the BBC as a 'catastrophe' and accused the corporation of undermining its worldwide reputation by insulting the intelligence of viewers.
Tony Palmer, who has won more than 40 awards including Baftas, Emmys and, uniquely, the Prix Italia twice, criticised the director-general after the BBC turned down a documentary of his. The film, about English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, has been produced by Five instead.
Palmer said he received an extraordinary rejection letter from a BBC commissioning editor explaining that, 'having looked at our own activity via the lens of find, play & share', it had been decided the film did not fit with 'the new vision for [BBC] Vision'.
Bizarrely, Palmer said, the letter concluded: 'But good luck with the project, and do let me know if Mr. V. Williams has an important premiere in the future as this findability might allow us to reconsider.' Vaughan Williams died in 1958."
This story in today's Observer may help explain why I, and many others, are so critical of today's BBC.
The fiftieth anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams falls on August 26, 2008. I will be starting the celebrations on my Future Radio programme on Sunday January 6. Unlike the BBC I haven't looked for an important premiere by Mr. V. Williams. Instead, I'm making do with his overture The Wasps and 'Glorious John' Barbirolli's blazing account of RVW's magnificent Fifth Symphony - for me not just one of the composer's greatest works, but also one of the masterpieces of twentieth century music.
Header photo was taken in better times at the BBC, when Michael Tippett's Second Symphony was being rehearsed at their Maida Vale studios. From left Sir Adrian Boult, Michael Tippett, RVW, Ursula VW and John Minchinton. More Vaughan Williams here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Karlheinz Stockhausen died on December 5, 2007. In tribute I will be playing his orchestral work Gruppen on my Future Radio programme on December 16, preceeded by Palestrina's Missa Brevis. My article below explains the connection between the two works, and also looks at Stockhausen's position within the bigger picture of mid-twentieth century culture.
This photo of Peter Orlovsky was taken in 1955, and he is the subject of the background portrait which was painted by Robert LaVigne. Orlovsky became beat poet Allen Ginsberg's lover and companion, and Ginsberg is listed as one of the thirty-six most influential people of the hippie era. Here is the complete list:
This list comes from the quirky and wonderful Hippie Dictionary compiled by John Bassett McCleary. This is a compelling but fallible book, and I wonder how many readers will agree with all the thirty-six names in the list? Shouldn't contemporary classical music be represented by more than Ravi Shankar?
Look again at the header photo, there is a a Capitol Records LP of the Bach B Minor Mass (can anyone identify the actual recording?) visible bottom right. And in Barry Miles' biography of Ginsberg there is a description of Ginsberg tripping on LSD with Timothy Leary as Götterdämmerung blasted on the stereo.
The soundtrack of the hippie era crossed musical boundaries. In 1952 at the invitation of Lou Harrison a 'concerted action' was staged by John Cage and friends at Black Mountain College, North Carolina. This event is generally considered to be the forerunner of the multi-media happenings that defined the 60s. Later, in 1966, a Concert Happening at Aerospace Hall in Los Angeles included music by Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage. At the happening John Byrd performed a composition titled 'The Defense of the American Continent from the Vietcong Invasion'. This used chance techniques drawn from Cage's work, and concluded with a transition from improvisation to a chorale arrangement of 'America the Beautiful'.
There are links between Allen Ginsberg and John Cage. In the 1950s Cage (below) considered working with Ginsberg on a project based on the cycle of seasons, but it never came to fruition. Thirty years later, when the early IBM PCs became available, Cage used a computer programme to extract random pattern's (mesolists) from Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, which he then used to generate 'chance' music - these programmes are available for download.
Earlier, in 1970, Cage had lived in a flat in the West Village, New York, with Yoko Ono and John Lennon as neighbours. Lennon contributed a page of a Cage's collection of scores which was published as Notations, and which also included contributions by Igor Stravinsky, Milton Babbitt, Morton Feldman and Darius Milhaud.
The Beatles connection leads us to Karlheinz Stockhausen(below), who joined the soundtrack of the 60s when he was a visiting professor of composition at the University of California, Davis. Paul McCartney says he was influenced by Stockhausen's music, although you wouldn't guess it. And Stockhausen became part of the era's iconography when Peter Blake (who, himself, is a candidate for the list) included him on the sleeve of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at McCartney's request. Stockhausen is fifth from left in the top row in my footer image. You can find out who the other icons are here.
Philip Glass, of course, has lots of links with Allen Ginsberg, although most of these post-date the hippie era. I wrote last year about Glass' 2002 Symphony No 6, which sets Ginsberg's Plutonian Ode. Glass' Wichita Vortex Sutra for solo piano was the result of a chance meeting between Glass and Ginsberg, in St. Mark's Bookshop, in the East Village, New York. "We decided on the spot to do something together and chose the poem,'" Glass recalls. He explains "I composed the music to match the rhythm of Allen's reading", a technique which has echoes of John Cage's mesolist writing.
Wichita Vortex Sutra was first performed in 1988 at a benefit for a group of Vietnam veterans, with Ginsberg reading his poem and Glass playing piano. No excuses for not knowing it - you can hear it on Jeroen van Keen's ulta-low priced Minimal Piano Collection which I reviewed here recently, and it is incorporated into Glass' 1990 chamber opera Hydrogen Jukebox.
The links between Philip Glass (below) and Allen Ginsberg continue ten years after the poet's death. At the October 2007 London performance of Glass' Book of LongingPatti Smith joined the composer on stage to invoke Ginsberg's spirit. In a wonderfully circular path Book of Longing is a setting of Leonard Cohen's poems, and Cohen is surely a candidate for the list of thirty-six hippie movers and shakers?
Leonard Bernstein is also missing. I am sure that Lennie would have felt his Black Panther connections meant he was a shoo-in for the list. But despite West Side Story and Mass I'm not sponsoring him, with, or without clothes. But one priceless Bernstein story is worth repeating. The infamous radical grouping the Weatherman hijacked the West Side Story lyrics for revolutionary purposes. 'The most beautiful sound I ever heard' was not 'Maria' in their extreme left utopia. Instead Stephen Sondheim's lyrics were morphed to 'I've just met a Marxist Leninist named Kim Il Sung, say it soft and there's rice fields flowing, say it loud and there's people's war growing'.
Difficult to follow that one. But it is not just in music that John Bassett McCleary's list can be challenged. The visual arts are not well represented. Where is Andy Warhol for instance? And if Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry is on the list, why not Stanley Kubrick? He, of course, famously used György Ligeti's music in the ultimate 60s trip, the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange became a leitmotif for the death of the hippie dream, and featured music by Wendy Carlos (credited as Walter Carlos) who might just make the list herself. And, of course, Wendy (left) plays the Moog synthesizer, which provided the cantus firmus of the Hippie era, which means Bob Moog just has to be among the thirty-six as well. And Bob Moog's path crossed with John Cage in 1965 when Moog created a movement triggered sound system for Merce Cunningham's performance of Cage's Variation V.
A Clockwork Orange was based on Anthony Burgess' novel (Burgess was also a prolific composer), and writers are not well represented either. George Orwell is a perverse inclusion as he died in 1950. Instead I would argue for some who were not enrolled in what the artist Robert Crumb called the 'army of the stoned'. How about Marshall McLuhan, Hermann Hesse, J.D. Salinger, but above all the monk, writer and thinker Thomas Merton?
Merton's 1948 book The Seven Storey Mountain was an unexpected best-seller through the 1950s and 1960s, and the story of his search for faith resonated with many of the hippie generation. Despite being a member of the strict Trappist Order Merton worked for peace with leading activists, politicians and theologians until his tragic death in 1968, the turbulent year that also took Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F Kennedy from us.
The last page of Stockhausen's score for his 1957 masterpiece Gruppen carries the words Deo gratias (Thanks be to God). This response occurs three times in the Latin Mass and frequently in the Breviary and in Catholic prayers. Like Stockhausen, Thomas Merton (below) was profoundly influenced by Catholicism. But also like John Cage (and Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg and many others) Merton's late inspiration was Buddhism. In fact the paths of Merton and Cage crossed, they were both disciples of the great Zen teacher Daisetz T. Suzuki.
Merton, unlike Ginsberg, understood that the use of any kind of drugs was utterly contrary to the spirit of Zen. But, despite this divergence, Thomas Merton's writings were uniquely inclusive, as this extract from his posthumously published Asian Journals shows:
In speaking for monks I am really speaking for a very strange kind of person, a marginal person, because the monk in the modern world is no longer an established person with an established place in society, We realise very keenly in America today that the monk is essentially outside of all establishments. He does not belong to an establishment. He is a marginal person who withdraws deliberately to the margin of society with a view to deepening fundamental human experience. Consequently, as one of these strange people, I speak to you as a representative of all marginal persons who who have done this kind of thing deliberately. Thus I find myself representing perhaps hippies among you, poets, people of this kind who are seeking in all sorts of ways and have absolutely no established status whatever.
That link between Thomas Merton and Allen Ginsberg brings this meandering overgrown path full circle. So many strange, marginal, and anti-establishment people to celebrate, and this really could go on for ever. The Hippie Dictionary is a wonderfully entertaining and stimulating book, and debating who were the most influential people of the hippie era could just be the new Trivial Pursuits. But don't take it all too seriously - understand that this is a dream.
Now, continue the trip on the majic bus. Hear Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen on my Future Radio programme on Sunday December 16 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here) I will also be playing Lou Harrison's 1985 Piano Concerto. Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.
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
'The importing agent in Den Pasar handled among other things, Oriental records, Chinese, Malayan, and even recordings from the Koran. There were shelves of Balinese recordings - sacred texts, cremation music, theatre, music from the shadow-play. They had been made in Bali in the late 'twenties by two German firms, Odéon and Beka(label below), and were rare, since only a few had been considered successful enough for the European market. You could not get them in Europe, or even Java, but here they had been stored in quantities.
They had been made, of course, to sell on the island - a naïve project, for no Balinese had money or even the desire for a phonograph. Why should they sit and listen to disks when the island rang day and night with music? Thus, one morning, when I bought two sets, the agent remarked bitterly that this was the first sale in a year. I shall throw them all out, he said angrily. They are only taking up room on my shelves.
It was a warm day, and I thought that he was perhaps infuriated by the heat as much as anything else. But, later, when I knew I was leaving, I returned for another set of records, only to find that he had, in one of those quick fits of rage that can seize a Westerner in the tropics, smashed them all the week before. Not one remained.
Good riddance, he exclaimed defiantly. He seemed quite pleased at my dismay. Anyway, he suddenly shouted, how can you consider that music? You, who call yourself a musician? He looked at me through his thick glasses with sudden hatred'.
Colin McPhee writes in A House in Bali of the destruction of the remaining stocks of the historic gamelan records that were to have such an influence on Western composers including Benjamin Britten and Lou Harrison. More on Colin McPhee here.
Buy MP3 downloads of the historic gamelan recordings here. Photo of G'ndérs playing the melody for the lélong dance from A House in Bali by Colin McPhee, Oxford University Press ISBN 0195804481, out of print. Beka record label from Wikipedia.
Hear Colin McPhee's gamelan inspired Tabu-Tabuhan on my Future Radio programme on Sunday December 9 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here) I will also be playing Lou Harrison's 1985 Piano Concerto. Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream, on Sunday December 9 at 5.00pm UK time. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.
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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk.
Good to see the Chandos recording of Grechaninov's Passion Week riding high in this year's Classical Grammy nominations, and congratulations to all the other nominees. The photo above is of a real live Classical Grammy, read the full story here. Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
'It seems to me certain that future progress in creative music for composers of the Western world must inevitably go towards the exploration and integration of elements drawn from more than one of the world's cultures.' This remarkably accurate prophecy was made by Henry Cowell in 1947, and was prompted by a radio broadcast of Colin McPhee's gamelan inspired Tabuh-Tabuhan which had received its first performance eleven years earlier.
Carol J. Oja's exemplary biography (jacket below) describes Colin McPhee as a 'composer of two worlds'. He was born in Toronto in 1900, and established a dual career of pianist and composer at an early age. He started his studies at the Peabody Conservatory in 1918, and spent two years studying in Paris before settling in New York in 1926. He quickly established himself as a one of a new generation of American composers, and his music was presented at a concert of Edgard Varèse's International Composer's Guild.
At the time Henry Cowell ranked McPhee in a group that included Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Charles Seeger, Roy Harris, Henry Brant and Ruth Crawford. McPhee's dual career of composer and pianist continued, and in 1927 he played in the infamous Carnegie Hall premiere of George Antheil'sBallet Mécanique alongside Aaron Copland. In New York McPhee also developed an interest in African-American culture, and ignored contemporary prejudices by accompanying the black soprano Abbie Mitchell in a group of his own songs.
While in New York Colin McPhee had heard newly released recordings of the Balinese gamelan. This experience was to change the composer's life, as he explains in his own words: 'I was a young composer, recently back in New York after student days in Paris, and the past two years had been filled with composing and the business of getting performances. It was quite by accident that I had heard a few gramophone rcords that were to change my life completely, bringing me out here in search of something quite indefinable - music or experience, I could not at this moment say.'
In 1931 McPhee travelled to Bali for the first time accompanied by his wife Jane who he had married the previous year. As well as being an established researcher in her own right, Jane McPhee contributed much of the funding for her husband's work in Bali. The marriage lasted for seven years despite Colin McPhee's undisguised homosexuality. There was genuine interdependence in the marriage, but extraordinarily, Jane McPhee, née Belo, is completely written out of the composer's accounts of his time in Bali, all of which are written in the first person singular.
In 1932 the McPhee's started to build their own house on Bali. The story is beautifully told in McPhee's own words in his book A House in Bali(jacket above), albeit without any mention of his wife who bankrolled the whole project. During his first stay on the island McPhee immersed himself in Balinese culture, and studied the gamelan from close quarters. In 1935 the McPhees returned to America for an extended period, and the composer renewed his close working relationship with the Mexican conductor Carlos Chávez, who has already featured on these pages. Chavez had founded the Orquestra Sinfónica de México in 1928, and he invited McPhee to visit Mexico in 1936 to compose an orchestral work for the Mexican orchestra using material from Bali. This work was to become the Toccata for Orchestra and Two Pianos, Tabuh-Tabuhan. Its title is a Balinese collective noun for a collection of percussive rhythms and sounds.
Tabuh-Tabahan was completed in a rented house in the exquisite silver mining town of Taxco, south of Mexico City. The two photographs here were taken in Taxco in 1987 when I was staying in the town while working with Chavez's Orquestra Sinfónica de México. They are anachronistic, but, nevertheless, somehow reflect the different worlds of Colin McPhee.
There is another interesting musical connection to Taxco. Igor Stravinsky, his wife, Robert Craft and his secretary, later turned unauthorised biographer, Lillian Libman had visited the town on Good Friday 1964 to see the Passion Play that is performed there every year. The procession through the town is led by small boys from the village, like the one above, and the whole town follows with lighted candles. The Stravinsky party had stayed at the Hotel de la Borda, which is where I also stayed twenty-three years later.
The ambience of Taxco clearly suited Colin McPhee's muse. The first performance of Tabu-Tabuhan conducted by Carlos Chávez in Mexico City in September 1936 was a major critical success, and it looked as though McPhee's advocacy of World Music would relaunch his career as a composer. But he was a prophet before his time. Despite support from Aaron Copland and Carlos Chavéz further performances did not follow, although those interested in the score included Leopold Stokowski and Serge Koussevitzky.
After failing to secure further performances of Tabuh-Tabuhan McPhee returned to Bali in early 1937, and he contunued to study the culture and the arts of the island. He and his wife had been living separate lives for some time, and they were divorced in 1938. The gamelan groups, with their male players with naked torsos, seemed to meet an emotional as well as musical need, and McPhee was known to have had a number of male lovers. During his stay in Bali a young male child dancer, Sampih, lived in McPhee's house. Tragically, Sampih was murdered long after McPhee had left the island.
By 1938 the political climate in Bali had changed. The Dutch colonial authorities had started to hound homosexuals, despite their acceptance by the Balinese, and the spread of Fascism in Europe semed likely to spread to the Dutch East Indies. McPhee returned to New York in February 1939, a decision also prompted by his reduced financial circmstances following his divorce. From 1943 to 1947 McPhee lived in the famous communal house in Middagh Street, Brooklyn Heights that was also home at varying times to Benjamin Britten, W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles, Peter Pears, Oliver Smith and Gypsy Rose Lee.
Britten's initial interest in Oriental music is attributed to his friendship with McPhee, rather than his own visit to Bali in 1956. Paul Bunyan was composed while Britten was in New York with McPhee, and Balinese influences can be heard in the 'Moon Turns Blue' episode in the Prologue. McPhee is also thought to have given Britten a grounding in American jazz. In 1941 McPhee and Britten recorded McPhee's transciption for two pianos of Balinese Ceremonial Music in New York, and this recording is available on Chandos 1011 coupled with 2003 recordings of Tabuh-Tabuhan and the Suite from Britten's ballet The Prince of the Pagodas.
The years in New York were difficult for Colin McPhee. Without the company and sponsorship of a wealthy wife, living in sordid accomodation and with little acceptance of his music, he relied on writing to generate an income, and the alcohol misuse that was to finally kill him started at this time. The only glimmer of hope was a CBS radio broadcast for schools in 1947 of two movements of Tabuh-Tabuhan rescored for reduced forces.
But an apparent breakthrough came in 1952 when World Music came to America in the form of a Balinese gamelan group. The resulting interest in Eastern music prompted Leopold Stokowski to conduct the US premiere of Tabuh-Tabuhan at the Carnegie Hall in October 1953, and the reviewers, led by Virgil Thomson, gave the work a positive reception. This performance and the growing interest in cross-cultural music prompted further performances of the work (including a recording by Howard Hanson) and new commissions followed.
It would be nice to report a happy ending to the story. But it was not to be. It seemed that the creative fires that had blazed in 1936 had been dimmed by the physical, emotional and financial traumas of the following years. A noteworthy Second Symphony was premiered in 1958, but McPhee's other compositions of the period lack the creative fire that shines through Tabuh-Tabuhan.
But his last years at least gave a degree of reward. In 1960 Colin McPhee took the option chosen by many American composers of the time and became a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. He was well-liked and respected by his students despite his deteriorating health. But advancing cirrhosis of the liver killed Colin McPhee on January 14, 1964. Roy Harris and Charles Seeger spoke at his funeral, and a telegram from Leopold Stokowski was read out.
Although Colin McPhee is usually only remembered for Tabu-Tabuhan, his legacy is considerable. He was a pioneer of World Music, and his use of repeating musical cells predated the minimalist composers by several decades. But it was probably through his writings that McPhee was most influential. His book A House in Bali asserted that music and the environment in which it is performed are inseperable (a topical subject this week). But McPhee's life work was his monograph Music in Bali which was finally published two years after his death, and is still regarded as one of the definitive work on the subject. His writings influenced a generation of composers, and Lou Harrison has recounted how McPhee's 1949 article on the five-tone gamelan music of Bali had a major impact on him.
I will be celebrating the music of Colin McPhee and Lou Harrison in my Future Radio programme on Sunday December 9. At 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here) I will be playing Tabuh-Tabuhan and Lou Harrison's 1985 Piano Concerto. There are many links between the two composers, from their fascination with the East, through their homosexuality to the sublime slow inner movements of both works. Broadcasts of either work are rare, so don't miss this collision of East and West on Sunday. There is more on the Lou Harrison Concerto here.
Tabuh-Tabuhan was first performed in 1936. Now read about some other new music first performed at that time, but in very different circumstances.
Principal sources: * Colin McPhee - Composer in Two Worlds by Carol J. Oja, Smithsonian Institution Press ISBN 0874747325, out of print. * A House in Bali by Colin McPhee, Oxford University Press ISBN 0195804481, out of print. * February House by Sherill Tippins, Scribner ISBN 0743257243 * Benjamin Britten, A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter, Faber ISBN 0571143253
Listen to Tabu-Tabuhan by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream, on Sunday December 9 at 5.00pm UK time. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.
Taxco photos are (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk.
'As a by-product, this development will put an end to today's star system. The indispensable quality of "stardom" is its rarity. But, on the one hand, the difference between a star and a non-star performance will not be tolerated much longer by a growingly knowledgeable public. On the other, the stars themselves will fade. Even now, their strength is being progressively dissipated by the incredible fatigue of their enforced nomadic life, and in the end they will be unable to deliver what is expected of them.
The true future of opera lies in the ensemble principle, by which I mean well-matched ensembles of fine singers working together and staying together. This mode of organisation has never completely disappeared. A few, very few, theatres have always maintained it, and elsewhere, now and then at the insistence of a maestro, a performance reflecting it turns up. So the ensemble principle will not need to be re-discovered. Even the public knows about it. And once the public starts asking for it, sooner or later it will get it' - Antal Dorati writes in his 1979 autobiography Notes of Seven Decades(Hodder ISBN 0340159227).
The exigencies of the star sytem mean that Punch and Judy receives a tiny mention in this new Royal Opera House national press campaign, but its composer doesn't. Never mind, read about him here, and continue playing spot the composer's name here, before reading more about Maestro Dorati here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
'Snape is a straggling village just off the road to Aldeburgh. The River Alde, broad and marshy in its lower reach, becomes a small stream above the sluice at Snape Bridge. In 1938 the Garrett family was still operating the big Maltings by the old bridge, and lorries, barges and railway goods wagons came and went. Britten's Mill stood about half a mile north of this activity, in Snape village proper, but in a few minutes he could be walking on the reed-fringed path that wound past the Maltings towards Iken Marshes, with only the wildlife of the estuary for company' - from Benjamin Britten, A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter.
The photo was taken on Monday (Dec 3) from the reed-fringed path through Iken Marshes that Britten used to walk. The viewpoint is a mile downstream from Snape, the white speck on the horizon in the centre is the roof of the Maltings concert hall. Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
This wonderful video clip of Scott Ross playing Scarlatti's Sonata K209 has come via Nuno Lemos' Portugese music blog.
More Scott Ross on YouTube here, and on the Pathhere. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
... just tuned in and wonderful - thanx for the link!
Posted by Rod... to On An Overgrown Path at 1:39 AM
This comment was typical of many received here and at Future Radio - that's me in the studio above. Many thanks to the station for making the webcast possible and to Dan Nyman in particular for setting up the technical side of the all-night vigil. Also to Daan Vandewalle for his contribution, and to the many readers who listened via the internet.
Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
"The German psychologist Dr. Weisenhutter interviewed the musicians of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and found them beset by psychogenic illnesses. The players are impotent. They hate new music. After playing it they cannot engage in sexual activity. This is understandable, for musicians are emotional people and if a musician is not convinced of the validity of what he does, his sexual life is bound to suffer" ~ from Boulez - Composer, Conductor, Enigma by Joan Peyser (Schirmer ISBN 0028717007)
Be prepared for a disturbed night, or worse. At 12.01am tonight UK time the first complete broadcast of Alvin Curran's Inner Cities will start. The four and a half hour cycle will be broadcast in full without any announcements or advertisements, and pianist Daan Vanderwalle will be introducing the performance with me. The programme starts at 12.01am on Wednesday December 5 in the UK, which is afternoon or evening Tuesday December 4 in North and South America. Convert to your local time zone here.
Read the full Inner Cities story here. Now, can I attempt some Putin style vote rigging? If you think projects like the complete Inner Cities webcast should be a regular feature please go to the Future Radio web sitenow, and send a message of support to the station via either the the studio messenger or email links. The station can't measure the internet listeners, but it can measure messages, so every response counts.
Photo credit Andrology.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
The challenges facing the new nations of the former-Soviet Union have featured here frequently, and a year ago I wrote about the music of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. Recently I have been very moved by a new Ondine CD of his choral music sung by the Latvian Radio Choir with the Sinfonietta Riga directed by Sigvards Klava(header image). Vasks' music has never been inaccessible; but this new release is particularly approachable, and should appeal both to contemporary music aficionados and to those whose interest is great sacred music across the centuries.
And more musical engagement with the former Soviet Union here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Religion suffered terrible oppression in the Soviet Union, and one of the post-Perestroika miracles has been the resurgence of faith in the region, despite the continuing political turmoil. One example of the religous resurgence is the Convent of St. Elisabeth in Minsk, Belarus which is seen in my photographs here.
The Convent was founded in 1999 and is now home to seventy-five nuns and novices. The buildings are new, and funding for the project is a continuing struggle in the tough economic climate that prevails in Belarus. The Sisters of St. Elisabeth raise foreign currency by selling crafts made in their workshops and recordings made by their excellent choir. Two of the lay Sisters from the Convent stayed with us here in Norfolk last week while fund raising, and their CD shown below is a real discovery.
Rachmaninov's concert setting of the Orthodox All-night Vigil is well known. But the choir of St. Elisabeth's Convent in Minsk give us a different take which combines Greek, Slavonic and Bulgarian Chants. It is something of a revelation to hear women's voices singing the Orthodox liturgy, and the Convent choir acquit themselves wonderfully. Their recording of the All-night Vigil is only available direct from the Convent, email monaster-nov at yandex.ru for more details.
There is an all-night vigil of a very different sort at 12.01am this Wednesday, December 5th when I will be playing Alvin Curran's Inner Cities complete. The four and a half hour performance will be not be interrupted by any announcements, commercials or news bulletins. More details of this broadcast premiere here.
Good to see An Overgrown Path featuring on the Virtual Guide to Belarus, and more on Russian Orthodox music here. Listen by to Inner Cities at 12.01am UK time on Wednesday December 5 by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert broadcast times to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
See the Suffolk seascape that inspired so much of Benjamin Britten's music in real time via the new Snape webcam, screen grab above. You will also see the weather that I'm experiencing!
Check out the multi-media clips while on the Aldeburgh Music website. And more images of Aldeburgh here. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Techno trivia time. The home of On An Overgrown Path is now http://www.overgrownpath.com/. No need to change anything, visitors to the old domain name are automatically redirected.
Now playing - Leoš Janáček In The Mists played by Leif Ove Andsnes. It's on the same CD as On The Overgrown Path. But if you are thinking of starting a blog you are out of luck, www.inthemists.com is taken.
Calligraphy from one of my Istanbul articles. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Around forty million people are living with HIV around the world, and that number increases every day, with ignorance and prejudice fuelling the spread of a preventable disease. Since HIV was first identified a quarter of a century ago, it has been a stigmatised disease, resulting in silence and denial. Stigma discourages people from testing for HIV or disclosing their status to their partner, and this fuels the spread of the disease. Today is World Aids Day, an event committed to breaking down the stigma and silence.
Classical music, and the other creative arts, have suffered terribly from the impact of Aids. I have already written in these pages about the magnificent recording by Scott Ross (left) of the complete Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas. Here, as a small contribution to World Aids Day, is Michel Proulx’s account of Scott’s last years. The idiomatic translation is Michel’s own from his biography of Ross.
From then on, he did nothing but tour and record, and from records to concerts, rapidly becoming the most media covered harpsichordist, to the point of attracting to the instrument, thanks to his performance, a variegated public of which a good part should never have got interested in the harpsichord but for him.
But already there was an urgency. When Catherine Perrin saw him in 1984, at a time when the rumour about AIDS was swelling in a terrifying rumble, he confided with her of his fears. He actually had had bronchitis, the winter before, which had degenerated in pneumonia, and knowing that this was one of the associated diseases, he said he was “mort de trouille” (he got the wind up). And he added that he didn’t want to do the test because he was sure to get confirmation of his fears. There may lie part of the reason for the intense activity which he spread during his last years.
In April 1989, he went to Rome, at the Villa Médicis, where he gave a masterclass for the French Television. One can see him very thinned down and weakened by the attacks of the disease. As he had no Social Security (Medicare), he did not take care of himself well, and it is also possible that he saw no good reason for looking after himself correctly. I have been told that he took whatever he could find as medicine, and one might speculate that (but what is it that couldn’t be done with ‘ifs’) maybe he would have survived, with good medical care.
Actually, he was an illegal alien for the French administration who wanted to have him expelled, and would have, had it not been for the intervention of some friends of him, of which some influent members of the Regional Council for Culture, who represented the Prefect how silly he would have looked for the media, if this happened.
In the course of his last months, he was looked after by his friends, especially David Ley, harpsichord maker, who had built his second double manual instrument, and Monique Davos, who had been an assistant director for the first Festival de Radio-France et de Montpelier, in 1983. According to testimonials, there was a sort of competition between both these persons for the care of Scott, and Mrs Davos was an advocate of the use of intensive medication. It seems that this was the cause of a Homeric struggle between her and those who wished him to die in peace. It was James Ross Jr. who finally brought Scott back to Assas, by the end of May.
On the following June 13, he passed away in his little house in Assas. His brother James, who had insisted upon coming to see him, assisted him right at the end. As, obviously, Scott had prepared nothing for the circumstances, it is James who took care of everything and it is he who asked for the rights of his records to be paid to the profit of an organization devised to help young harpsichordists. Unfortunately, I could find no trace of that organization, if ever it existed, nor could I trace back Scott’s brother who seems to have vanished in the haze.
After the cremation at the Grammont Funeral Center in Montpelier, Scott’s ashes were dispersed over the village of Assas from a small aircraft, according to his last wishes.
The recording of Scarlatti's 555 sonatas was started by Scott Ross on 16th June 1984. Ninety-eight sessions were required, and the last take was completed on 10th September 1985. In all, there had been eight thousand takes. Scott Ross died of an Aids related illness on 13th June 1989, he was 38
Follow this link for more Scott Ross resources. 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
* Jordi Savall in conversation talking about the relationship between early and contemporary music, about why he set up his own record label and about music as a force for good - DOWNLOAD.
