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Showing posts from September, 2008

Karajan on the music of today

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This 1963 Stereo Review interview with Herbert von Karajan was tucked inside a copy of Curt Riess' 1955 biography of Wilhelm Furtwängler that I bought years ago from a rare book dealer. In it Karajan ranges from baroque to contemporary music. A fascinating document that is worth reproducing even though it is rather difficult to read in this format. Left clicking (in Windows) on the individual images does enlarge them. Sorry about the legibility and cropping, but transcribing the complete text is beyond even me. However the following exchanges do particularly demand to be captured: Pendergast - ' In rehearsing the orchestra, you seem to put great emphasis on conveying the proper rhythms to the players. Is this perhaps the most difficult task for the conductor?' Karajan - ' Yes, it is. It is very strange, but with our race and in our latitude, rhythmic control is the most difficult thing for a musician to achieve. There is hardly a musician among us who can play the sa

Third Construction

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Turner Prize nomination ? New York stock exchange after melt-down ? CERN Large Hadron Collider after magnet failure ? New ECM CD sleeve ? Scene from Fritz Lang's Metropolis ? Graphic inspired by John Cage's 3rd Construction ? No, an image from the post scheduled for On An Overgrown Path this Friday . Image (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Don't put down the hybrids

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Lou Harrison once said 'Don't put down the hybrids, because there isn't anything else'. The composer may have lived in a straw bale house , but he wasn't talking about the Toyota Prius . In his search for new musical contexts and new audiences Harrison produced a remarkable series of pioneering hybrid compositions. Among them is his jazz influenced 1959 Concerto for the Violin with Percussion Orchestra with a score that calls for 'found' instruments including brakedrums, flower pots and plumbers pipe. Young composers today are taking the same path as Lou Harrison and the result is a growing number of hybrid musical projects that use 'found' elements to explore new contexts and reach new audiences. My photos were taken last night at a performance of 'The Body Electric', a new hybrid commission that uses music and light in conjunction with the 'found' element of Norwich's historic Norman Castle . The music is by Mukul Deora who

Pierre Boulez is Mr Cool

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'Pierre Boulez is Mr. Cool - I'm surprised this look didn't catch on. It works for me'. That email came from Sergio Mims . It is a fascinating link, but I have some bad news for Sergio. You will see from the credits that John Drummond directed that wonderful BBC footage . But this passage in Drummond's autobiography Tainted by Experience recounts how the Mr. Cool image did not work for Pierre. 'Boulez was about to begin rehearsing a new production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in Frankfurt, to be directed by Wieland Wagner. He asked me to join him there. For a few days I stayed in a preposterous former grand-ducal hunting lodge in the Taunus hills outside Frankfurt, and drove back and forth with Boulez to the daily rehearsals. I cannot claim that Wieland Wagner made a great impression. He was certainly a great director, but not demonstrative. Most of his conversations with the Wozzeck, Walter Berry , were tête à tête and inaudible. I spent more time watching the

Take the "A" Train

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Some time back I made the embarrassing mistake of writing about an up-and-coming contemporary composer called 'Tarik O'Reagan'. Since then Tarik O'Regan has appeared several times on the path with his name spelt correctly, and he even scored a post about his new take on Machaut titled Scattered Rhymnes . On BBC Radio 3 today (Sept 28) Tarik O'Regan was Iain Burnside's guest, catch the interview on i-Player until October 4 . I'm glad to report that in almost 1700 posts Ronald Reagan has only featured here once . And I'm not the only once to misspell musician's names . There are audio samples of Tarik O'Regan's music on his website . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Celebrating the genius of Jacqueline du Pré

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BBC4 TV is showing Christopher Nupen's film of Jacqueline du Pré, which includes her performing the Elgar Concerto, tonight (Sept 26) at 7.30 UK time . This means it will be available until October 2 on i-Player. This is the first in a BBC4 series of Nupen's legendary documentaries about musicians. The others portray Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin and Nathan Milstein, as well as a film about Amman-born musician Karim Said, a protégé of Daniel Barenboim's. Jackie also made a classic recording of the Beethoven Sonatas with Barenboim, which is a nice cue for Elgar carrying on Beethoven's business . 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 art of typography

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1981 LP sleeve of Brahms Double Concerto with Zino Francescatti and Pierre Fournier accompanied by Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra . The striking cover is by Henrietta Condak who is listed as one of the notable women working in design 1900-1980 . I don't believe the graphics ever transferred to the CD jewel box, and strangely the recording itself, which was made in 1960, doesn't seem to have fared too well in the CD catalogue. My copy of the CBS LP has beautifully silent Dutch pressings as opposed to the gritty surfaces of American CBS records of the period. More vinyl heaven here and more art of typography 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

India through the looking Glass

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Readers' erudition never failed me yet. Shimmy very quickly identified the two musicians in the foreground of the session photo above as Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar. The location and date are Madras, 1990,and the recording was the collabaration between Glass and Shankar titled Passages which resulted in the CD seen below. My opening line is a parody of Gavin Bryar's Jesus' blood never failed me yet . It was Ravi Shankar who featured in my applause in the wrong place story . Philip Glass once said 'World music is the new classical' . Passages proves him right, so does Kundun . Now sample the essence of India in words and images . 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

Taking the spin out of Beethoven's Fifth

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Relax everyone. Close down the music blogs, grab back that money from Alex and cancel those new music commissions. The BBC has saved classical music and the Telegraph has the scoop - 'BBC's Maestro sends Beethoven sales soaring ... Symphony No 5 in C minor was first performed by the composer in 1808 but 200 years on it has been revived for a modern audience after rapper Goldie and comedian Sue Perkins took to the stage to conduct the piece. High street music shop HMV said that demand for the classical piece had increased by 295 per cent since the TV show.' But before I put On An Overgrown Path out to pasture let's drill down a little further. HMV Group are completely independent of EMI and run high street retail stores in the UK and elsewhere. They major on DVD's, computer games and rock music. As I write today the lead items on their UK website are Sex and the City - the Movie and a CD by Pussycat Dolls . With the exception of a handful of city centre outlets

Give us something else - give us something new

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That great visionary Carl Nielsen wrote 'even if we reached agreement on the fact that now the best and most beautiful has been achieved, mankind thirsting more for life and adventure than perception, would rise and shout in one voice: give us something else, give us something new' . Today I celebrate two projects that bring something else and something new; both are for the piano and both from across the Atlantic. First for 'something new', and an uplifting story from blogger Michael Strickland who be more familiar as a serial comment poster on the Path using his sfmike handle. Michael tells us that pianist Sarah Cahill , who is seen above, has commissioned eighteen composers to write music for the piano on the subject of peace . The project is called 'Sweeter Music' and the impressive list of contributors includes a refreshingly large number of women composers: Meredith Monk , Frederic Rzewski , Terry Riley , Yoko Ono , Bernice Johnson Reagon , Pauline O

More questions than answers

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Judging by the site traffic today applause between movements at concerts is a hotter topic than tuxedos . So I thought it would be interesting to have a show of hands on the question. At the top of the right side-bar is one of those deeply trendy voting widgets. Have your say before voting ends next week. Now for another question. Elsewhere On An Overgrown Path there is a funny story about applause in the wrong place. The subject of that story is the gentleman wearing spectacles in the front row of the session photo below. But identifying him alone is too easy. So who will be the first reader to tell us who he is, and who it is next to him in the front row nearest the camera? Remember this quiz? 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

Classical music virus spreads to Edinburgh

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Many of this year's BBC Proms were marred by meaningless dribbles of applause between movements . I know there is no rule saying no applause between movements. But, by the same token, there is no rule saying wind should not be broken by members of the audience during the performance. The only consolation was that the applause virus was confined to the Proms, meaning that it appeared in just one location for a couple of months a year. But now comes very bad news. Tonights' BBC Radio 3 recording from the Edinburgh Festival with Ivan Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra in the Usher Hall featured the dreaded applause between the movements of the Brahms/Schoenberg Piano Quartet in G minor. Something needs to be done quickly to stop this potentially fatal virus spreading world-wide. The only links between the Proms and the Edinburgh Festival concert were that both were relayed on BBC Radio 3 and both were introduced by Petroc Trelawny . That must mean a lengthy quaran

Tangled Up In Blue

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The graphic art of famous musicians has provided some fascinating posts on the path and we recently travelled to Scotland to add the paintings of none less than Bob Dylan to the thread. While touring in the early 1990s, Dylan created a collection of drawings that were published in a book titled 'Drawn Blank' in 1994. These expressive works capture Dylan's chance encounters and observations and were created to " relax and refocus a restless mind ". Ingrid Mössinger - the curator of the Kunstsammlungen Museum , in Chemnitz, Germany - came across 'Drawn Blank' during a visit to New York in 2006. Instantly excited about Dylan's work, she contacted the artist and arranged for the first public showings of the works. Dylan had made the drawings intending to create paintings based on them at a later date, and he used watercolour and gouache to elaborate them for the exhibition. We caught up with the exhibition at the Breeze Gallery in Peebles Scotland wher

Who needs a music director?

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As Dylan said 'The times they are a-changin'' . And it's not just in the financial sector. As one major orchestra allegedly gags the press to protect its music director another ensemble is showing the way with a new programming model that jettisons the role of music director and rethinks the creative process. Since 1992 the Britten Sinfonia has built an enviable reputation for innovative programmes and high artistic standards and the ensemble has featured on these pages several times . And it has all been done without a music director or principal conductor. The Britten Sinfonia is not positioning itself as a conductor-less orchestra in the style of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra or the post-Toscanini NBC Symphony . In fact far from it; the artists who have conducted, directed or played with the Sinfonia in recent seasons include Pierre-Laurent Aimard , Thomas Adès , Angela Hewitt , Masaaki Suzuki , Pekka Kuusisto , Nitin Sawhney , James MacMillan , Ian Bostridge ,

Youth is a state of mind

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I've written here many times that youth is a state of mind, not a time of life . But the sheer vitality of our young people is awesome. This photo was taken yesterday evening in the 1970s segment of a fund-raising fashion show in Norwich . All the costumes were made by students from garments found in a charity shop. The young lady on the left modelling the Vivienne Westwood outfit is our daughter. Photo credit is BBC and there are more images on their website . Of course, the year is 1972. 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

Close voices from far-away

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' Buddhism teaches that all beings, regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation, have the same spiritual potential; that all can develop greater awareness, kindness, compassion, understanding' - from prospectus of Dhanakosa Buddhist retreat centre in Scotland. My photo was taken close to Dhanakosa on the shore of Loch Voil where it is easy to hear close voices from far-away . Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The new Elizabethan age

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This thread takes us from Odaline de la Martinez, who has featured in several recent posts , to the two women composers seen above. Ms. de la Martinez has just released a new CD of Elizabeth Maconchy's music for voices which links nicely to my recent appreciation of Maconchy's string quartets. The Cuban born but UK resident Odaline de la Martinez has been a longtime champion of British women composers whose numbers include Elizabeth Maconchy to the left of my collage and Elisabeth Lutyens to the right. Lutyens' music has also featured on the path recently and it was very rewarding to see the website of Conrad Clark linking to my portrait and podcast of Lutyens and describing them as 'an excellent intro to her'. Clark is a respected sculptor and designer. He is also Elizabeth Lutyens son. Now hear the podcast of conductor and composer James Weeks discussing Lutyen's music with me . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use",

Music has not one history but many

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'Kagel was to continue to insist that music has not one history but many, especially since the early twentieth century, and that the norms of musical life are only social conventions. In the particular case of Anagrama he also unloosed sonic possibilities that stimulated many of his contemporaries' - Paul Griffths writes in A Concise History of Western Music about Mauricio Kagel (above) who died today aged 76. The use of a speaking choir in Anagrama links it with Darius Milhaud's little known music drama Christophe Colomb . Kagel was not among Milhaud's students, but many other important twentieth-century musicians were . 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 banks implode and lives are ruined

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When I was in search of Pablo Casals recently I sung the praises of his Salve Montserratina but went on to say - 'Sadly you will have to take my word about the relative merit of Casals' music. With the exception of a few mixed choral programmes it is very poorly represented on the CD ... Pablo Casals' sacred choral music is most definitely worth searching out; but, like us, you may have to travel to France to hear it.' Well, it is nice to be proved wrong, and even nicer to be proved wrong by the BBC. On 4 October at 4.00pm UK time BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting Choral Vespers for the Feast of St Francis of Assisi in a recording made in Montserrat Abbey , Spain, with the BBC's Pilgrim Consort. And, joy of joy, you can watch a video of the Pilgrim Consort singing Pablo Casal's Salve Montserratina via this link . As banks implode and lives are ruined this is a unique opportunity to experience something timeless and inspirational - don't miss it . Header pho

All you need is ...

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LOVE Hey guys, remember that blogging is doing it for our time . 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

More Maestros Myths and Madness

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Back in 2006 I received an email from Norman Lebrecht inviting me to share with him some inside stories from my time at EMI, and Norman also asked me to pass the message on to a very good friend who held a key position during EMI's 'Indian summer' of classical recording. At the time Norman was researching his controversial book, ' Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry ', and knowing this we decided not to take up his invitation. But some colleagues who had a part in the madness decided to tell all, while others, including my boss at EMI, Peter Andry, chose to publish their own versions of events. Peter Andry was educated in Australia before joining Decca in England in 1954. He moved to EMI as a producer in 1957 working for David Bicknell who ran HMV while Walter Legge was still managing the Columbia label. Following Legge's departure in 1964 Andry took over the management of all EMI's a

Straight from the conductor's mouth ...

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Which year did a woman first conduct at the BBC Proms ? Not an easy question to answer, as I explained here recently . So I went to the lady herself, and here is the answer straight from the conductor's mouth: Dear Mr Shingleton. Many thanks for your message. I visited your site and it looks truly interesting. Thank you so much for including me in it. The date you're looking for is 1984, when I was the first woman to conduct a BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. May I also interest you in my latest series/festival? It's a festival of American music and since 60% of your visitors are American, they might want to know about it. I'm enclosing a PDF of the Festival Leaflet. (Seen above) With thanks and best wishes, Odaline de la Martinez FRAM Strange to think it took until 1984 for a woman to conduct at the BBC Proms. Fifty-four years earlier the first woman had conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, and she was American. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as

Are segues the next big thing?

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When I was being trained as a BBC studio manager I was taught how to segue seamlessly from one 78 grams deck to another, mainly to provide sound effects for drama productions. A few years ago Classic FM started segueing between CD tracks and, predictably, BBC Radio 3 copied them. Now it has spread to the concert hall; at the penultimate BBC Prom concert the BBC Philharmonic segued from Penderecki Threnody 'For the Victims of Hiroshima' to Beethoven's Elegischer Gesang , Op.118; which at least stopped the audience applauding in the wrong place . Are seques the next big thing? Or rather are they the next old thing? After all the Beatles did it on Sgt. Pepper (see above) and Mahler used it in the form of attacca in his symphonies. Now read about some Magnificent Mahler-lite from Manchester . Image of Beatles on Segways from Vehow .Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and

Bernstein creates a Mass of interest

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Email received - Bob: I've read your postings regarding Bernstein's Mass and thought this might interest you. NYC students are writing their own choral anthems inspired by Mass and will be performing them (with select excerpts from Mass) at a Carnegie Hall concert in October . Additionally, later that month, "[a] massive choir of five hundred young people performs the Bernstein Mass with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony at the United Palace Theater ." I think Bernstein would approve! Sorry if this is old news. Keep up the good work. Kind regards, Tim My photo shows Lennie with Robert Corff in rehearsal for Mass. And here is another reader saying Mass is not a dishonest piece . 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

Making music in his own voice

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It's interesting to look at the reader stats to find which posts hit the hot buttons. John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen always do the numbers, but Pablo Casals (above) was a real surprise. Here is just one of a number of interesting responses to my recent post on the great Catalan cellist. It comes from Erich Edberg's fine blog : 'Casals made music in his own voice, in his own style, and did so with the greatest of love and respect for the composers and music he loved. The 20th-century modernist movement, of which Stravinsky was such an important part, was obsessed with the fantasy that musical works, including pieces written before 1900, could somehow stand on their own, were in essence fixed and permanent, and that the personality and voice of performers should, in effect, be obliterated or at least avoided. This caused much frustration, since a piece is inevitably reborn and to some degree or another transformed with each performance. When you write a piece for ot

None of the tricks of modern music

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How mighty they are, those hymns and those antiphons of the Easter office! Gregorian chant that should, by rights, be monotonous, because it has absolutely none of the tricks of modern music, is full of a variety infinitely rich because it is subtle and spiritual and deep... Those Easter "alleluias", without leaving the narrow range prescribed by the eight Gregorian modes, have discovered color and warmth and meaning and gladness that no other music possesses - Thomas Merton , The Seven Storey Mountain. But Thomas Merton was no reactionary. In 1966 Joan Baez visited him at his Trappist monastery at Gethsemani, Kentucky and they drunk beer together ( Trappist I hope ) and discussed sixties music . He was also a great fan of Bob Dylan and played Dylan's records in his hermitage (the Trappists are a silent order !), while Merton's poetry was influenced by the folksingers' lyrics. Thomas Merton shared many of the values of the sixties counterculture , particular

Taking Stockhausen

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Good to see the Guardian waxing lyrically about the London Southbank Centre's forthcoming tribute to Karlheinz Stockhausen . But it wasn't always so. In 2001 the Barbican presented a Stockhausen mini-festival. Writing in the Guardian in the same year Andrew Clements found the event "too depressing for words" while over on the Observer his colleague Sean O'Hagan concluded that Stockhausen was "someone who is constantly referred to, but seldom listened to. On this hearing it is not difficult to see why." More Andrew Clements invective here , here and here . Perhaps Stockhausen's posthumous popularity is just part of a dream ? Is Pierre explaining to Karlheinz that he should never believe the critics? Photo shows Stockhausen left with Boulez in 1963 at Donaueschingen , credit G. W. Baruch. Source of quotes is The Life and Music of Sir Malcolm Arnold by Paul R.W. Jackson (ISBN 189283810) page 216/7. Any copyrighted material on these pages is includ

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves

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Rather than joining in with Rule Britannia at Saturday's Last Night of the BBC Proms I will be listening to Vernon Handley's recording of Malcolm Arnold's Fourth Symphony . There has not been a performance of an Arnold symphony at the Proms since 1994 , but his Fourth has a certain relevance to the Last Night 'celebrations'. Here is Sir Malcolm writing in a 1971 article: The year of my Fourth Symphony, 1960 was also the year of the Notting Hill race riots*, and I was appalled that such a thing could happen in this country. The fact that racial ideas have become increasingly strong in this country dismays me even more. In my Fourth Symphony I have used very obvious West Indian and African percussion instruments and rhythms, in the hope, first, that it sounds well, and second, that it might help to spread the idea of racial integration. * Sir Malcolm has confused his dates. The Fourth was premiered in 1960, the riots were in 1958. Notting Hall is more than a sl