The future of classical music - again

Greg Sandow writes a high-profile blog on 'the future of classical music' and I received the following email this morning:

I thought your readers might be interested in this week’s post on the NPAC (National Performing Arts Convention) blog: Greg Sandow writes about how distinguishing between “high” and “low” art and “popular” culture versus, simply, “culture” limits audiences. All comments – agreements and arguments alike - are welcome.

Best, Amanda
Amanda Ameer
web www.firstchairpromo.com
aim firstchairpromo

As regular readers will know I'm very interested in the future of classical music so I checked out First Chair Promotions website which told me they are - 'a fully integrated firm devoted to supporting unique artists and their vast ranges of interests and talents. First Chair promises the most innovative iniatives in marketing and publicity and is committed to breaking down conventional media and collabaration boundaries.'

First Chair Promotion's clients include Hilary Hahn who is managed by leading music power broker and talent agency IMG Artists, singer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane who is also contracted to IMG, bass/baritone Eric Owens who, sorry to be boring, is also with IMG, soprano Measha Brueggergosman who is, you guessed it, signed to IMG, England's own King's Singers, yes they are too, and 'critic/composer/consultant' Greg Sandow .

Just people doing their job, nobody is hiding anything, you can find it simply by Googling, and it is the future of classical music.
Photo of opening night of 2006 BBC Proms conducted by IMG artist Jiri Belohlavek and played by IMG ensemble BBC Symphony Orchestra (c) On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Stravinsky - oh wow sacred cow!

'The more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives ... It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general' This extract from a New York Times article by Janet Rae-Dupree could be the mission statement for the Michael Clark Company's Stravinsky Project.

Last night's double-bill by the company at the Norwich Festival, showed the power of working outside comfort zones with an ultra-modern Rite using nudity in the sacrificial dance as a talisman against dementia. Budgetary comfort zones also took a battering as the forty-minute Rite in the first half used the economical four hand reduction, while for the second half two more Steinways, a supplemented Britten Sinfonia, four soloists, the New London Chamber Choir and conductor Jurjen Hempel were added for a marginally less modern, but still sublime, twenty-five minutes of Les Noces - see header production shot.

Visual comfort zones were also up for grabs, with the second half of Les Noces (except it wasn't - see below) opening with a stunning video of Stravinsky himself conducting the closing pages of The Firebird (how did the players ever follow his beat?), with the maestro's virtual performance drawing enthusiastic applause from both the live and recorded audiences before the real dancing started. The Stravinsky video filmed at the Royal Festival Hall was courtesy of the BBC, and is a timely reminder of the priceless riches locked away in the BBC archives while their 'culture channel', BBC4, fights Alzheimer’s with challenging programmes such as Val Doonican Rocks.

Aural comfort zones become dead-meat with the Michael Clark Company with the exemplary musical forces 'benefitting' from substantial amplification and remixing via a state-of-the-art sound system. Strange when the words don't actually come from the mouths of the New London Chamber Choir, but if it stops dementia who is complaining? (Apparantely some of the audience did by walking out of the previous evening's performance of a different programme which featured very loud music by the Sex Pistols and Wire).

Pesky box-office comfort zones were also ignored by billing the two works as Mmm.. and I Do rather than The Rite and Les Noces. Thankfully there are some big sponsors behind the Stravinsky Project, but I wonder whether the 40% audience capacity would have been bigger had the publicity talked a little bit more clearly about a good old fashioned Rite of Spring?

But overall one of the most stimulating and dementia defeating evenings we have spent in the theatre for a long time. And the headline is for real, it is back-projected during The Rite, sorry Mmm... .

Now watch a video sample of Mmm.. here, read about the four pianists in Les Noces here and about the piano reduction of the Rite here, while Stravinsky has a topical Tibetan connection here.
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I don't worry about status

My photo shows Sir Colin Davis conducting the Chamber Orchestra Anglia in Elgar's First Symphony in an open work shop yesterday afternoon at the Norwich Festival.

We talked to the 80 year old Sir Colin after he had topped two full length rehearsals with a full-on play through of the three last movements of the symphony. I commented to him that there weren't too many conductors of his status who would give up a day to rehearse a student orchestra. Back in a flash came his reply -'Oh you see, I don't worry about status'.

The student musicians really played their heart's out for Sir Colin. But, as my photo below shows, they do seem to have picked up some of the bad habits of their professional colleagues. (Why is it always the brass players?)


More on Sir Colin and Elgar 1 here.
Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Summer in the city

Summer has arrived early in Norwich, the sun is blazing, the Festival is in full swing, live music rules, and here are just some of the events we will be enjoying this week:

May 10 - afternoon, open workshop with Sir Colin Davis rehearsing the Chamber Orchestra Anglia in Elgar's First Symphony (free!): evening - Stravinsky project, Britten Sinfonia make the music and Michael Clark Company dance a double bill of music by the master ending with Les Noces sung by New London Chamber Choir.

May 13 - cutting-edge circus performance, live music and video from NoFit State Circus, seen in my header photo.

May 16 - Barcelona Sunset, Catalunyan contemporary dance company Erre Que Erre bring film, live music and dance, includes music by the Beach Boys, Tina Turner and Kraftwerk. YouTube sample here.

May 17 - Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI in Orient-Occident in the 15th century church of St Peter Mancroft.

And I haven't mentioned the Hilliard Ensemble, King's College Cambridge Choir, Willard White and many more Festival visitors. Can it get any better? - the full Norfolk & Norwich Festival programme is here.

Amid all the excitement don't forget Jacobus de Kerle's Missa Pro Defunctis and James MacMillan Veni, Veni, Emmanuel on Future Radio on Sunday May 11 at 5.00pm UK time and 12.50am May 12.

More summer in the city here.
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The music of a relatively unsung master

No sooner have I written about the 'unsung master' Philippe de Monte than Hyperion release a CD of his motets. Johann Kuhnau is also worth a visit.
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Danger - musicians having fun

In their 1951-2 season the Hallé Orchestra perfomed all six of the symphonies Ralph Vaughan Williams had then written. Five of them were conducted by the inimitable John Barbirolli, while No. 1, the Sea Symphony with its Walt Whitman text, was conducted by Vaughan Williams himself. When the symphony was performed in Sheffield with the composer conducting, the orchestra was a 'cello short, and at Vaughan William's request Barbirolli, a talented 'cellist, took the vacant seat.

I was reminded of this story when listening to Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXl's superb new CD Estampies & Danses Royales. The programme of music from the thirteenth century Chansonnier du Roi is for instrumental forces only, so soprano Montserrat Figueras (aka Mrs Savall) wasn't needed for the sessions. But she wasn't going to miss the fun, and there she is on the recording playing the kithara, a rare instrument which featured here recently.

Fun is what this new release is really all about. It is superb music brilliantly played and recorded; but above all there is a quality that seems to be disappearing from recordings and live concerts - the sound of musians having fun. As contemporary composer Kurt Schwertsik said - 'I believe the function of art is to denounce seriousness. It should be fun. There's a halo of awe around modern music. You achieve more if you're not serious'.

Vaughan Williams, Savall, Barbirolli and Schwertsik in one post? - that's what I call fun! And there's more musicians having fun here.
The Kurt Schwersik quote is from the excellent CageTalk (ISBN 9781580462372). 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

BBC - fifty ways to leave your listener

I spend little time tuned in to the BBC these days for obvious reasons. But regular readers who do still tune in tell me things aren't getting any better, in fact they are getting worse.

At least in the past the mistakes were made with style.
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The individual is sovereign

'That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign' - from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, who was born in London on 20th May 1806 and died in Avignon, France, where my pictures were taken, on 8th May, 1873.

Mill wrote against repression in Ireland and as a Member of Parliament introduced the first vote on women's suffrage. He campaigned for free speech and proportional representation and against slavery. But we are most indebted to him as a defender of individual conscience and expression. He is buried alongside his wife in the cemetery of St. Veran on the outskirts of Avignon and his tomb, seen in my photos, is marked 'En hommage à John Stuart Mill Défenseur des Femmes'. The plaque has been added by Centre d'Hébergement et de Réinsertion Sociale "Stuart Mill", a refuge for women victims of violence in Paris.


Now playing Motet (Excerpta Tractati Logico-Philosophici) by Elisabeth Lutyens sung by Exaudi directed by James Weeks. Lutyens was a defender of individual conscience and expression but was not a supporter of organised feminism as this extract from Meirion and Susie Harries' excellent biography of her tells - 'Why, she asked, did people speak of 'women's music' and 'female composers' and yet stop short of implying that male homosexuals wrote 'queer music?''If women are to be butts,' she argued, 'let homosexuals be also ... and impotence or any other private sexual consideration, all of which, no doubt, affects one's work.' In 1973 she would write to The Times complaining that William Glock was labelled a supporter of Women's Lib because he had included four pieces by female composers in that season's Proms, and yet no one drew the obvious inference that he had programmed the work of no less than sixteen male homosexuals.'

More on Elisabeth Lutyens here, and listen to a podcast about her music here.
Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Double vision

Stereophonics on V2 Records 2005



Stockhausen on BMC Records 2006

More double vision here.
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Carter on Cage

'This reminded me that when Elliott Carter visited Keele University on October 17, 1977, he answered questions in front of an audience after a recital of his music. He was asked, "Mr. Carter, what do you think of John Cage?" and replied "I don't think of John Cage."'


This quote comes from editor Peter Dickinson's introduction to CageTalk (ISBN 158046 2375), a book which I strongly recommend. Dickinson's English roots and the fact that much of the material originates from BBC interviews gives this Cage anthology a refreshingly cosmopolitan feel. The interviewees include Merce Cunningham, Bonnie Bird, David Tudor, Virgil Thomson, Karlheinz Stockhausen, La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros. I will be dipping into CageTalk again several more times, meanwhile Cage is happening here and Carter here.
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Saving the art of words

My photo shows a halakis, or storyteller, in the Jemaa El Fna in Marrakech, Morocco. Every evening there are several halakis continuing the great oral tradition of storytelling in Marrakech's public space, and they are real performance artists who attract large local audiences of all ages. Storytelling was traditionally an important way of passing down ideas and legends in a society where 47% of the adult population are still illiterate and where the legacy of gender discrimination means that in the twenty-first century 60% of Moroccan women remain illiterate, a statistic that is missing from most of the 'lifestyle' coverage devoted to Marrakesh and other fashionable cities.

But despite this dependance on oral communication the art of words is under threat as young Moroccans turn to new technolgy for their entertainment. Spanish author and Marrakech resident Juan Goytisolo has eloquently pleaded the case for the storytellers and in 2001 UNESCO named Jemaa El Fna as 'a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity' and it is planned to make recordings of the halakis available online.

More proof that words are the new music.
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Reflections on Riccardo

Muti is in the news with one American orchestra today. So here are some reflections on his time with another one.
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Glock around the clock

Another contribution to the Glock centenary - Sir William with Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington Summer School in 1979. Glock is often criticised for ignoring the music of certain British composers. So it is interesting to note that there is not a single note of Max's music in the 2008 BBC Proms Season. But, don't worry, there's lots here, and a new CD here.
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A stong commitment to the new

'It has been said that William Glock had a greater influence on musical culture in post-war Britain than anybody, and perhaps that is true. He would have been happier, I am sure, with a more modest epitaph: that he helped to make the understanding of music more acute. Inside and outside the BBC, he sought constantly for a repertory that was stimulating, and he made a strong commitment to the new, but one might say he did as much for Haydn and Schubert as for Stravinsky and Boulez. As for his BBC legacy, it needs re-articulating and defending by his successors in the same way as John Reith's does; it cannot be denied. More particularly, at the Proms every summer we take it for granted, and there, surely, there can be no going back' - from Stephen Plaistow's Guardian obituary of Sir William Glock (above) who was born on 3rd May, 1908 and died on 28th June, 2000. His centenary passes without any celebration on BBC Radio 3. But find lots more celebration here.

Photo credit Sunday Times/Thomson Regional Newspapers. 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

There are additional dimensions

'String theory predicts the existence of more than the three space dimensions and one time dimension we are all familiar with. According to string theory, there are additional dimensions that we are unfamiliar with because they are curled up into complicated shapes that can only be seen on tiny scales' - caption for computer generated images of grid of Calabi-Yau shapes of higher dimensions from string theory. The images by computer illustrator Jeff Bryant , one of which is seen above, are part of the Beyond Measure - Conversations Across Art and Science at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge until June 1. The exhibits also include a score by the composer Guillermo Gregorio. Get there if you can.

There's eye-music here.
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We'll never turn back

News of the victory of hard line right-wing candidate Boris Johnson in the election for London mayor causes many of us to be afraid. So I was glad I had to hand We'll Never Turn Back, the inspirational new CD from Mavis Staples.

The Staples Singers were a major voice in the American civil rights movement and they sung the great freedom songs including Why Am I Treated So Bad? When Will We Be Paid for the Work We've Done? and Long Walk to DC. On the new CD Barack Obama supporter Mavis Staples revisits twelve of the classic freedom songs in an album produced by Ry Cooder and with a line-up of musicians including Ladysmith Black Mambazo. This is no gentle walk to memory lane, the urgent, upbeat and powerful music really rocks, and here is Mavis Staples explaining what it is about:

With this record, I hope to get across the same feeling, the same spirit and the same message as we did with the Staples Singers - and to hopefully continue to make positive changes. We've got to keep pushing to make the world a better place. Things are better but we're not where we need to be and we'll never turn back.

Amen to that.


Now read about Love of the Blues.
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Classic architecture - classic recordings

I am sure every reader will know the name of the recording ensemble featured on the LP sleeve above. But how many know the story of the building which they take their name from? Read the story of St Martin-in-the-Fields here, and read about the Academy here.
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BBC Radio 3 - how do you spell schadenfreude?

'According to official listening figures released yesterday ... BBC Radio 3, controversially overhauled last year to loud complaints from some listeners, saw its share of listening slump to a record low. The classical music, arts and culture station sank to its lowest share of listening, 0.9%, and saw weekly reach fall to 1.795m, a drop of 155,000 on the previous quarter and just above its all-time worst figure of 1.78m.

The shakeup in November 2006 saw Performance on 3 moved to 7pm, Late Junction moved to a late night slot and controller Roger Wright having to deny charges that he had reduced the amount of live music. Wright, who also took charge of the Proms last year, argued at the time that while there was less "live as live" performance, there was more "as live" recorded pieces and that listeners tended not to differentiate. A Radio 3 spokesman said it was "disappointing to see that classical music listening figures are down generally".'

There can be little surprise about today's Guardian report on RAJAR audience data for quarter ending March 2008 from which the quote above is taken. And it is typically disingeneous of the BBC to use the excuse that "classical music listening figures are down generally." Time and time again I have reported here how intelligent, imaginative and challenging programmes - the very qualities dumbed-out of today's Radio 3 - have boosted classical music audiences.

On Sunday May 4 you can listen to In Memory of the Six Million on Future Radio at 5.00pm (repeat at 00.50am on May 5) featuring this music:

Richard Strauss - Metamorphosen, realisation for string septet played by supplemented Brandis Quartet

Benjamin Frankel - Violin Concerto ‘In Memory of the Six Million’ played by Ulf Hoelscher with Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Werner Andreas Albert.

Or listen to BBC 'Radio 2.5's' week long Composer of the Week featuring music by Noel Coward and Warsaw Concerto composer Richard Addinsell.

On May 17-18 you can wallow in Radio 3's wall-to-wall Chopin Experience, or reflect on Future Radio's Inner Cities webcast and anticipate their upcoming complete webcasts of Kaikhosru Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum and of a lilas, an authentic Morrocan gnawa trance ritual in a world premiere broadcast.

BBC Radio 3 has a lot in common with today's big banks. They both blame market conditions for problems that are, in fact, caused by their own incompetence. And like banks the management rewards for failure at the BBC are not very different to those for success.
Image credit of BBC Radio 3 'photo opportunity' from TimesOnline. 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

Body Mandala - a contemporary classic?

Why do we make life so complicated? Making a great recording is really quite simple. All you need is some outstanding music, an orchestra and conductor who thrive on risk taking, a first-rate recording venue and a visionary record label to release the result. Which is precisely what this new release of Jonathan Harvey's music delivers, and believe me it is a truly great recording.

69 year old Jonathan Harvey worked at both IRCAM in Paris and Stanford University, California before a period as Composer in Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2005-7. On this CD the BBC Scottish perform five of his compositions under their dynamic, and outgoing, young Israeli Chief Conductor Ilan Volkov. There is a transcedental theme to the programme, with the song cycle White as Jasmine, which is beautifully sung by Finnish soprano Anu Komsi, using Hindu texts and three of the four orchestral works reflecting the composer's preoccupation with Buddhism.

From the three Buddhist inspired works Body Manadala must surely become a contemporary classic. It is has its origins in Buddhist ritual music, and uses Western instruments to mimic the famous Tibetan low horns called tungschens seen on the excellent cover above. The opening of Body Mandala with its low horn calls echoes Philip Glass' 1997 score for Martin Scorsese's Kundun, but whereas Glass stays in his own stylistic comfort zone Harvey takes us post-Boulez and beyond. The sole work without religous connections is Timepieces which uses two orchestras and two conductors (Stefan Solyom conducts the second group) and three rhythms to pay homage to Gruppen, a seminal work by another Harvey influence, Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Everybody involved in this recording deserves credit, with special mentions for independent label NMC who continue to tread where the majors fear to go, and to BBC Scotland staff engineer Graeme Taylor for capturing the ravishing sound of the refurbished Glasgow City Halls. But the real heroes are the BBC Scotish Symphony Orchestra and Ilan Volkov who delight in music making on the edge while their compliant cousins in the BBC's London based BBC Symphony remain happy to provide a platform for Jiri Behlolavek's global ambitions. What a delicous irony that the BBC Scottish are now upping the ante on the BBC management in London who tried to disband them in 1980.

Highly recommended, particularly to those who are "tired of the Brits shoving their immature wunderkind composers down our throats". Lots more Jonathan Harvey resources here.
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The art of the headline

The fight to the death in the U.S. primaries has taken world media attention away from an important election that takes place today. The contest for the powerful post of London mayor is a two horse race between current incumbent Labour candidate Ken Livingstone and Conservative Boris Johnson. Today's poll has produced one of the more memorable Guardian headlines seen above, read the rest of the story here.

More on the art of the headline here.
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