We went to Glyndebourne's controversial new Hänsel und Gretel on Friday. I can understand why this Hansel in a supermarket (above) and cardboard box (below) from French director Laurent Pelly may not be to everyone's tastes. But, we thought this one of the most uplifting and life-affirming evening's we have spent in the theatre for years. Special mentions for Elizabeth DeShong as Hänsel, Bernarda Bobro as Gretel (both above), conductor Robin Ticciati, and the Glyndebourne Touring orchestra. They did full justice to Engelbert Humperdink's ravishing score despite the Theatre Royal, Norwich's dry as as a bone acoustics. The rapturous reception of the Norwich audience to this wonderful evening of live music reminded me of Steve Hagen's words in his 1997 book Buddhism: Plain and Simple:
... As the millenium draws to a close, we've become jaded about great art and music simply because, with our technology, we've made it all too commonplace. When we can see reproductions of van Gogh's Sunflowers regularly, we no longer see their incredible screaming vitality. And how much power is left in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony after the hundredth hearing? (It might help to remember that for the people of Beethoven's day, just hearing it at all would be a rare event.)
To avoid becoming any more jaded I'm off up a French mountain for a while, so the path will be taking a break. Support other music blogs while I'm away, and here's some more van Gogh.
Tickets for Hänsel und Gretel were purchased from Theatre Royal, Norwich. Photo credits Glyndebourne. 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's not a genius prize. But I can reblog this post from Classical-Iconoclast without too much embarassment as I did not write the Gergive article; the author was another prickly music lover.
Please read this article "Why I am sorely disillusioned by Gergiev" on the blog On An Overgrown Path. Now this is intelligent, analytical, well reasoned writing by someone who knows what he is talking about. Personally I couldn't care less about Gergiev's politics but they are symptomatic of G's approach to music. I love a lot of Gergiev's work, even when he's crass. But the scary thing is that his new popularity demonstrates something even more scary in this superficial soundbite era of "instant" thrills. People no longer seem to value listening, learning, thinking. Read Overgrown Path, it is what seriously good blogging can be. I wish I could write as well as that.
If the LSO want the full score it is here. Song credit Mark A. Mandel. 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
Is this a CD, a book, or a multi-media package? Is this early music, archive recording or new music? Is this classical, sacred, ethnic, or world music? Is this entertainment or scholarship? Is this Eastern or Western music? Is this classical music helping to change the world? Is this digital content or a visual feast? Is this my CD of the year? Is the music really spanning one thousand years? Is this a great humanitarian statement or a coffee table book? Is this music for a virtuoso audience? Is there really no MP3 download option? Is this music for innocent ears? Is this the perfect Christmas present? Is this 435 page full colour volume a statement that small is no longer beautiful? Is this a record? Is this the future of recorded music? The answer on all counts is yes. Or, in other words, this is Jordi Savall's latest project.
Jerusalem originated as a concert series commissioned by the Cité de la Musique in Paris to celebrate the three major monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. This was developed by the creative team of Montserrat Figueras, Manuel Forcano and Jordi Savall into a celebration of the grandeur and folly that marks the history of the city of Jerusalem. Everything about Jordi Savall's latest project is epic. The cast includes the usual musicians from Spain, France, England, Belgium and Greece that make up Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya. In addition there are Jewish and Palestinian singers and instrumentalists from Israel, as well as from Iraq, Armenia, Turkey, Morocco and Syria. The music from Palestine is played by the Sufi Group Al- Darwish. As well as music from Jerusalem's time as a Jewish, Christian, Arab and Ottoman city there are pleas for peace in Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian and Latin, plus a 1950 archive recording of a Hymn to the victims of Auschwitz recorded in 1950 by Shlomo Katz and a closing fanfare composed by Jordi Savall in 2008.
The beautifully balanced programme is sequenced into seven 'chapters' on two 78 minute hybrid CDs supported by a lavish colour book with background articles in eight langauges. The performances are outstanding, even by Jordi Savall's uncompromising standards. The sound quality surpasses demonstration level. There is really no need to review Jerusalem. Timothy Leary once said 'thinking is the best way to travel'. Well, I've found an even better way. Buy Jordi Savall's latest project.
Listen to Jordi Savall in conversation with me here. Jerusalem was purchased in the UK. Release dates may vary between countries. 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
Adding images to a masterpiece by Benjamin Britten is a high risk venture. But director Derek Jarman was never one to shirk a challenge, and his 1988 film War Requiem has just been re-released in a twentieth anniversary edition DVD. Jarman's dramatic visual realisation is set to, and fully respects, Britten's music. The only addition is a superb opening cameo appearance by Laurence Olivier reciting the Wilfrid Owen poem, Strange Meeting, which Britten set for Peter Pears in the Requiem's Libera me. This was Olivier's final performance, and the 82 year old actor died the following year.
Derek Jarman, who died of Aids in 1994, jokingly referred to this film as 'The Three Queers' Requiem. This is a reference to his own role as director, Britten's as composer, and Wilfrid Owen as the homoerotic poet whose texts are combined with the Latin Requiem Mass in Britten's masterpiece. The stunning and shocking film has Jarman's signature homosexual overtones, and it serves both as a Requiem for those fell in battle, and for the victims of the terrible Aids epidemic that swept through the arts community in the 1980s. It works on many levels. If you love Britten's work it is an illuminating commentary on his pacifist views. If you still don't 'get' the War Requiem, and I know there are some who don't, this film may just make the work 'click'. The only problem is that Derek Jarman's direction is so strong that it is almost impossible to hear Britten's music after seeing the film without recalling the graphic images that accompany it. In this respect War Requiem is right up there with Lucino Visconti's use of the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony in his film Death In Venice.
War Requiem is viewed by many to be Jarman's finest achievement. But it was almost overlooked at the time of release as it was considered to be more music video than feature film. But the critics are right when they categorise the film as Jarman's greatest work, and this re-release will, hopefully, bring it the audience it deserves. For the 2008 re-issue an illuminating interview has been added featuring producer Don Boyd, Nathaniel Parker who plays Wilfrid Owen, and, for my money and despite Olivier's appearance, the star of the film, the brilliant Tilda Swinton as the nurse. The soundtrack uses Britten's own classic recording of the War Requiem. The DVD sleeve says 'Remastered audio of original Decca recording'. I don't know precisely what that means, but the sound quality from the DVD is simply stunning, and better than the CD transfers. In today's crazy world you can buy the DVD of War Requiemfor £12, which is less than the audio original. For American readers Amazon.com offer a Region 1 DVD. But check before buying; although the release date is given as September 2008 the sleeve is the original 1988 version.
Below is the trailer for the 2008 release of War Requiem. If you prefer your Britten 'straight', if you see what I mean, try the Britten-Pears Foundation introductory video.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Derek Jarman's War requiem was borrowed from Norwich Library Services - can this really be true? 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
Both of these types of pieces are essentially contrapuntal and can be very demanding on the members of the audience requiring them to become at times 'virtuoso listeners' as they penetrate the interaction and winding ways of the musical lines.
So writes lutenist Hopkinson Smith about Francesco da Milano'sFantasias and Recercari which feature on the superb new Naïve CD seen above. And how right Hopkinson Smith is about the need for virtuoso listeners. So much futile effort is being extended today on trying to reach non-existent new audiences for classical music when, what is really needed, is to develop, extend and challenge existing audiences.
For an example of a virtuoso audience look no further than any Britten Sinfonia concert. This ensemble refused to play the celebrity music director game and instead poured their considerable talents into developing a virtuoso audience that fills concert halls for everything from the Tunisian oud to Handel's Messiah. When a critic of the stature of Richard Morrison writes in the Times of a Britten Sinfonia concert that 'this is the future of classical music', it is time to sit up and take notice.
The ears of a virtusos listener are open to everything from early to contemporary music, and beyond to world music and jazz. And that is the polar opposite of today's audiences where specialisation increasingly means dualism. I shudder every time I see initiatives like the Boston Symphony Orchestra's recently announced subsidised tickets for concert goers under-40. Quick fixes to reach new audiences are so yesterday. The way forward is imaginative and intelligent programming that will turn existing audiences into virtuoso listeners, who then create a virtuous circle as marketing ambassadors spreading the word that classical music is alive, kicking and happening. It's not wishful thinking. Who would have bet on a mainstream critic like Richard Morrison enthusing over a fusion of classical and world music?
I said earlier that today specialisation among audiences actually means dualism. Here, in conclusion, is a section from Steve Hagen's incomparable book Buddhism Pure and Simple. It is as relevant to classical music as it is to anything:
For those unfamiliar with the term as it's being used here, dualism simply refers to the world of left and right, dark and light, good and bad, pure and impure. It's the psychological backdrop for our everyday world of chasing after some things and running away from others, the world in which if you differ from me, then there's something wrong with you.
More Francesco da Milano here. Hopkinson Smith CD was purchased from the invaluable Prelude Records. If I hadn't seen it on their shelf you would not be reading about it 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
Copyright hit a nerve in my recent posts on the Naxos Hansel and Gretel and the Modern Jazz Quartet re-releases. So today's story that musicians are pressing for an extension of mechanical copyright in the EEC from 50 to 95 years makes interesting reading. In the United States the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended copyright on mechanical recordings to 2067. As a result, no sound recording can be considered, definitively, to be in the public domain in the US before that date, even if the recording was made before 1923 and even if it was recorded in another country where it has already entered the public domain. This disparity between US and EEC copyright law allows recordings such as the 1953 EMI Hansel and Gretel to be copied by Naxos and others for resale in the EEC but not in the US. But the record companies are using technology to keep recordings in copyright.
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
Dear Pliable, Recent postings have prompted me to return to my original story about Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra. Jfl posted a valuable article from the New York Times (8th November 2008), in which Gergiev is reported as remaining ‘unrepentant, even proud, of his role’ in the Kirov’s victory concert for Russia in Ossetia: ‘Morally, I am 100 percent sure I did the right thing.’ And as for Western criticism? ‘So what? I am Ossetian.’ Well, that’s fine, then.
It appears extraordinarily disingenous of Gergiev to accept Western patronage while dismissing his paymasters as politically irrelevant. Even more pertinent to the LSO, however, is Michael McManus’s piece ‘Podium Politics’ in November’s Gramophone. McManus, a one-time parliamentary candidate, reports that during a concert break in one of the LSO’s recent Edinburgh performances he was quizzed by orchestra members and asked: ‘What’s the truth about Ossetia then?’ McManus’s conclusion is: ‘Evidently their principal conductor had also been sharing his trenchant views with them, in no uncertain terms.’ This is utterly indefensible. If there’s one thing orchestral musicians hate, it’s being talked at, but it beggars belief that LSO players should now have to take political lectures from Gergiev. The old ‘buccaneers’ would have chewed him up and spat him out. What is going on?
Norman Lebrecht puts his finger on it in his trenchant online article ‘Gergiev is selling us short’ for La Scena Musicale (www.scena.org) in October. The LSO comes a poor third behind Gergiev’s loyalty to his Caucasian origins and his Mariinsky empire. ‘The LSO used to be London’s top draw. No longer. At the South Bank, the London Philharmonic has rejuventated its concerts... under Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nezet-Seguin..., while the Philharmonia has received a much-needed glamour infusion from the ex-LA maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen.’ Even more damning is Lebrecht’s judgement that: ‘Against stiffened competition, the LSO has allowed itself to become an unprotected subsidiary and bag-carrier of Gergiev Global.’ Ouch!
This view is increasingly supported among the broadsheet critics. Anthony Holden, reviewing Vladimir Jurowski’s ‘Revealing Tchaikovsky’ Festival in the Observer (9th November 2008), reports that: ‘The festival also demonstrated how much the LPO has improved under Jurowski’s leadership, as has the Philharmonia... Suddenly, the South Bank has two world-class orchestras ready to challenge the recent dominance of the LSO.’(Jurowski is seen in the accompanying photos - Pliable).
Richard Morrison, writing in the Times (26th September 2008), says of Jurowski and the LPO: ‘What impressses about Vladimir Jurowski almost as much as his insouciantly assured conducting technique and the high intelligence of his interpretations is the boldness that he shows in programming the London Philharmonic’s concerts. This isn’t yet the most virtuoso orchestra in London. But true music-lovers are flocking to hear it because Jurowski is devising such intriguing combinations of works, then coaxing his players to perform them so persuasively.’
The LSO now faces serious challenges in terms of repertoire and performance. I have already referred in detail to Sir Colin Davis’s tenure as Principal Conductor as a Golden Age on account of the exceptionally high quality of performance and breadth of repertoire, in much of which he remains not only a fount of experience but a supreme exponent. Criticisms of 19th Century bias are silenced by a procession of high quality reviews and peerless live performances that fill CD shelves and win awards. Sir Colin’s performances of 20th Century music continue to be outstanding, and he is giving premieres of 21st Century works.
Looking through the 2008-2009 Barbican season, Sir Colin is conducting 10 of around 60 home performances, including works by Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Elgar, Mozart, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Verdi and Walton’. The latter’s ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ was as bristling and uncompromising a start to Sir Colin’s season as one could have wished, and I have no reason to believe that the remaining concerts will not play to his strengths. I shall be hearing them.
While Sir Colin conducts 10 performances as ex-Principal Conductor, Gergiev, as Principal, is conducting a mere 11, including works by Bartok, Berlioz, Korngold, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Wagner. However, having already endured an aural battering in two concerts from the Rachmaninov ‘mini-festival’, I no longer feel I can trust Gergiev even in his native repertoire. The cavalier change of a promising programme for 29th January (see your posting) to a repeat of the ‘Rite of Spring’ and ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ from 27th January only reiterates what is already a dreadfully lazy and inept combination. In any case, I still have powerful memories of Kertesz and Haitink in ‘Bluebeard’. Interestingly, I note that ticket sales for 29th January are neither strong in the Stalls nor the Balcony and frankly terrible in the Circle. That tells its own story, and I shall be returning my own tickets to add to the great un-sold.
In the 2007-2008 season, Gergiev again conducted a mere 10 concerts and delivered, allegedly under some protest, his highly controversial Mahler cycle. Although Gergiev, like all principal conductors, extends his engagements with the LSO through its tours, what happens at home remains vitally important, and the current impression is not flattering.
Meanwhile, on the South Bank, Vladimir Jurowski is conducting 14 of 42 concerts in the 2008-2009 season as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (from September 2007) with whom he works intensively as music director of Glyndbourne Opera (from January 2001). He is also a principal artist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE). He and the LPO are on tour in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
Jurowski’s opening concert for the 2008-2009 season, challenging and intelligent, was regarded as nothing less than a manifesto: Vaughan Williams’s Eighth Symphony, Turnage’s ‘Mambo, Blues and Tarantella – Violin Concerto’ (world première), and Ligeti’s Atmosphèreseliding without a break into Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Three days later, Jurowski conducted a concert of Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, Hartmann’s Gesangsszene and Brahms’s Second Symphony. Exemplary planning and execution garnered the highest praise.
In October and November, Jurowski acted as artistic director of the ‘Revealing Tchaikovsky’ Festival. I had hoped that Gergiev might offer us something special on Tchaikovsky; indeed, I have heard him give a searing Pathétique. However, Gergiev’s desultory Rachmaninov mini-festival, two piano concertos and three symphonies cheek by jowl in blaring, under-rehearsed performances did not inspire confidence. While Gergiev is a man of intense emotions, Jurowski is an intellectual and philosopher, and this is apparent in the excellent Festival brochure and programming which demonstrate Tchaikovsky’s greatness by placing him in his wider musical and cultural context. Stravinsky’s Fairy’s Kiss, in delectable tandem with Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, was followed by the lovely Iolanta.
With the OAE, Jurowski presented two versions of the Romeo & Juliet Overture and a related duet around the literary connections between Tchaikovsky and Shakespeare. And so it went on, with illuminating refractions from Kalinnikov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schumann, Shostakovich and Taneyev. Pre-concert talks, chamber concerts and other diverse events provided further stimulus to an exemplary model of what excellent programming can achieve.
Belatedly, and now with much regret, I caught up with our ‘other Russian in town’ on 5th November. The hyper-sensitive Tchaikovsky found kindred spirits in both Schumann and Byron’s Manfred, and his glorious Manfred Symphony was preceded by Schumann’s wonderful Overture and Shostakovich’s tormented Second Cello Concerto. Jurowski struck a perfect balance between brooding poetry and dynamic energy in the Overture, giving space to lyrical passages without enfeebling Schumann’s propulsive rhythms. Mario Brunello’s lyrical approach to the haunted Shostakovich was superbly accompanied by the LPO’s spikey woodwinds, confidently duetting horns and tick-tocking percussion.
Jurowski’s Manfred Symphony was magnificent in its structural grip and subtle integration of disparate moods and tempi. The LPO strings striding down into the sonorous depths of the double-basses plumbed Manfred’s tortured soul. Violins were ravishing in their high-flying melodies and exquisite as gossamer at the end of the second movement, richly supported by vibrant violas and cellos. Woodwinds were a fulsome choir and richly characterful as soloists; brass were bright, burnished and refulgent. The tonal weight of the orchestra at full stretch in the first and last movements was truly awesome, and on this form the LPO is a world-class orchestra.
Although still only 36 years old, Jurowski has been causing a critical stir since his LPO debut in 2001, and a survey of broadsheet reviews attests to his remarkable gifts. Russian by birth, Jurowski’s German training and experience account for his depth in Austro-German reportoire. He is undoubtedly a prodigious talent with a refreshingly transparent technique; solos are beautifully tiered and graded, cues and dynamics are crystal clear, and with the smallest of gestures, such as a little nod or flick of the elbow, he will get the violins to nuance an exquisite phrase. Intensely concentrated, he does not throw himself about during the loudest passages.
Jurowski makes a fascinating distinction between what is expressive and emotional in music. ‘Expressivity is the active force that unlocks the emotion… It doesn’t matter what I feel about the music…I agree with Stravinsky that music can but express itself.’ (Interview with Edward Seckerson in The Independent, 19th September 2007). To see how he achieves this, watch the newly-released EMI DVD of the Met’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’. Mature beyond his years, Jurowski already displays the enviable ability to take an overview of a piece and yet give detail time to breathe within the space needed. He releases emotion through the subtlest expressivity, yet unleashes energy that can be breathtakingly thrilling. The LPO has done marvellously well in nurturing this exceptional talent, and music-lovers are in for wonderful treats on the South Bank.
And what of the LSO? They could have had Chailly, or maybe even Haitink in the interim, but the biggest and best catch, Mariss Jansons, slipped through the net. The Great Gordan (Nikolitch) has gone, and Guest Leaders trail in and out. The Gewandhaus’s amazing Sebastian Breuninger, by far the best in a fabulous Haitink-led Strauss concert last June, has not been seen again. As an émigré myself, imagine my surprise when I found not only Andrew Haveron (frequent LSO Guest Leader), but also the LSO’s Principal Second Violin, Evgeny Grach, guesting for the LPO! It was comforting to find myself in such distinguished LSO company.
After decades of commitment to the LSO, I now feel an increasing sense of loss. I am sorely disillusioned by Gergiev who, in his pomp, is at once more inflated yet less effectual as a musician, and I shall definitely be returning my tickets. In the interim, I can barely wait for my next outing with Jurowski and the LPO in December: Mahler’s Symphony No.10 – Adagio, and Act 2 of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. I have signed on as a Friend of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Thanks for that 'Hedgehog'. Back in 2006 I ran a post about Vladimir Jurowski titled Zen and the Art of Shostakovich. Your observation that 'Jurowski is an intellectual and philosopher' resonates so strongly with that post that I thought it worth quoting Jurowski's words again.
'When I played Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony in Russia, I put it together with his song-cycle on Japanese texts. There I am emphasising the rather tragic aspect of the symphony, which is often neglected, and also the oriental touch about the first movement. I mean like Zen, like Japanese Zen. If you listen to the flute duet in the middle of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony, with the tam-tam and the harp - it's the most peculiar music, and the only thing it makes you think of is the last movement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. That piece is totally Zen, and Shostakovich said the one piece he would take to a desert island would be Das Lied. But Russians have always had their own specific perception of Buddhism. If you read Tolstoy, a lot of his writings coincide with Buddhist thought, and I think the most Buddhist aspect of Russian culture is its passivity. Now, Shostakovich cannot be counted as passive, but this passage in the Sixth Symphony is completely static.
I discovered the Tao Te King of Lao Tse about five years ago. It's one of the most important books in the history of mankind. We were never able to have a Bible at home, but this was 1987, so Gorbachev's glasnost was beginning to have its effects, and there were unofficial booksellers on the streets. It was a Bible in Russian, and I still have it. My parents thought I was losing my mind.The way yoga changes your perception of the world is amazing. It's another kind of ecstatic experience.'
Here, to illustrate what 'Hedgehog' described as Vladimir Jurowski's subtle sensitivity is an excerpt from his interpretation of another Mahler work, Das klagende Lied, a performance that also provided the accompanying screen grabs.
Neither 'Hedgehog' nor On An Overgrown Path have any connection with the London Philharmonic or any other orchestra other than as ticket buyers. 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 was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour
This quotation from Luke 23:44 stands at the head of the score of Edmund Rubbra's crowning achievement, his Symphony No. 9 'Sinfonia Sacra'. The superlative world premiere recording of that work is seen below. The conductor of the 1993 Chandos CD was Richard Hickox conducting his beloved BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales. Today, the music world is reeling at the truly shocking news of Richard Hickox's sudden death on Sunday at the age of 60. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music before becoming organ scholar at Queen's College, Cambridge. His repertoire was wide, and his first performances included the premiers of The Three Kings and A Dance on the Hill by Peter Maxwell Davies. A successful international career meant Richard worked with many leading orchestras and opera companies, but the sense of loss is so great because of his unique contribution championing lesser-known twentieth century music.
Richard Hickox's driving passion was British composers. Because he championed names such as Malcolm Arnold, William Alwyn and Edmund Rubbra Richard never became a jet-set conductor. We must be thankful for that; because, instead of becoming just another celebrity name on the music festival circuit, he contributed more than 300 CDs to the catalogue, including the complete symphonies of Rubbra, Alwyn, Arnold and Tippett. I spend a lot of time listening to Richard's recordings. This is not only because they are very good. It is also because, in many cases, they are the only commercial recordings of works that are never heard in the concert hall. And we are not talking about 'justly neglected masterpieces'. He championed music that has been quite scandalously ignored by higher-profile conductors, despite its obvious merit.
We have lost a truly great musical figure. Richard Hickox was a wonderful musician. But he was also prepared to devote much of his career to going where others fear to tread. That is something very rare among top conductors today. Nothing can offset the feeling of loss. But at least Richard's passion will live on in his wonderful recorded legacy.
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 infuriating thing is that the BBC can be both so good and so bad within a very short space of time. On Saturday's CD Review on Radio 3 Jonathan Swain reminded us just how good the BBC can be. His review of the available recordings of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Job - A Masque For Dancing was a textbook example of informed and intelligent radio. His advocacy of the work was so powerful that I listened again to Tod Handley's 1984 LP of this overlooked masterpiece as soon as the programme finished.
The bad thing is that Jonathan Swain, and several other excellent presenters, have been sidelined to specialist review and overnight programmes as Radio 3 continues to trade excellence for access. Clearly BBC director general Mark Thompson never listened to Russell Brand on Radio 2. I also suspect that Radio 3 controller Roger Wright doesn't spend enough time listening to his own station's output.
Jonathan Swain's passionate case for Job was a million miles from the cool and ironic style loved by the New York in-crowd. If I need reminding why I hate cool and ironic I will return to Sequenza21's recent interview with composer Rodney Lister and his comments about Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony.
Vernon Handley's Job is available as an EMI CD. 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 chill financial wind blows Woolworths teeters on the brink of financial collapse in the UK. There is more to the company than retail stores. A lot of the CDs, videos and books that move from publisher to retailer in Britain and elsewhere do so through three distributors owned by Woolworths, Entertainment UK, Total Home Entertainment and Bertrams. Under different ownership and in happier times I was a director of two of those companies. Many of the books and CDs featured on the path are handled by these distributors, including Valentin Silvestrov's Songs of Silence which featured here recently and was bought from Entertainment UK's online store Direct Offers. Elsewhere another financial failure has left the Brilliant Classics label without UK retail distribution. This is not disintermediation caused by a shift from physical merchandise to downloads. The trees are becoming firewood.
Photo taken this morning in Hethel Woods and (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. 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
Benjamin Britten was born in the house seen in these photos on November 22nd, 1913. The house is 21, Kirkley Cliff Road, Lowestoft in Suffolk. It was Britten's home until 1934, by which time he had composed his Simple Symphony op. 4, based on music written in the house between the ages of nine and twelve.
The two photos above shows the attic room that was Britten's bedroom for twenty-one years, and it is here that he composed much of his early music. The top photo shows the room today; the lower one was taken by Britten himself in late 1934. On the writing desk, where he composed, can be seen a small bust of Beethoven.
The North Sea, with its many moods, is a leitmotif that runs through all Britten's music. The breakers can be heard from his bedroom, and the photo was taken by me looking out to the shore on a typically grey and murky autumn day.
This is the same view photographed by Britten himself in December 1934. The view to the sea is the same, but progress hasn't yet claimed the grass in front of the house as a car park.
This photo shows the exterior of 21, Kirkley Cliff Road, or Britten House as it is now known. The Grade II listed Victorian townhouse was bought by Ann and Colin Ceresa several years ago and has just opened as a five star guesthouse after complete renovation. My photographs are the first glimpses of Britten's childhood home after its restoration to its former glory.
This photo shows the house seen from exactly the same viewpoint at the time that the Britten family lived there. Robert Britten, Benjamin's father, was a dentist who built up a substantial practice at the house. 21, Kirkley Cliff Road remained a dentist's surgery after it passed out of the Britten family, and dental equipment was still in the house when it was purchased by its present owners.
The listed house retains may original features, as can be seen from my photo of the entrance hall.
This photo shows the fifteen year old Britten leaving for school through the same entrance hall.
The drawing room is now the breakfast room for the guesthouse.
In Britten's day the drawing room housed the all important piano. This undated photo shows the young Benjamin at the keyboard. His prodigous talent is already evident as he appears to be playing four scores simultaneously.
This is another photo of the house which was Britten's home throughout his education. Although he was a boarder at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk and at the Royal College of Music in London, Lowestoft remained his home base until he started work with the GPO Film Unit in London in 1935. The photo below of schoolboy Britten was taken in the house when he was aged around eleven.
It is wonderful that 21, Kirkley Cliff Road has not become a stuffy museum. Under Ann and Colin Ceresa's ownership it remains a working and welcoming home, and one that can be enjoyed by Britten's many admirers around the world. Benjamin's bedroom is one of the eight comfortable guestrooms. Visit the Britten House website for more details and tariffs. I would like thank Ann and Colin for giving Overgrown Path readers this exclusive view inside Benjamin Britten's home as we celebrate his birthday.
All contemporary photos are (c) On An Overgrown Path except the header which is courtesy of Britten House. 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 is a version of Hamlet called the bad quarto, which was the first to be printed, in 1603. It is a pirated edition, designed by an unknown bookseller to cheat Shakespeare of his royalties. To make it, the pirate hired one of the minor actors, the man who played Marcellus, to write out what he could remember of the play. In the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's plays were first performed, the actors were only given pieces of paper holding their own lines. They never possessed a complete copy of the script.
As a consequence Marcellus's largely irrelevant words are perfectly rendered, the speeches of other characters he shares scenes with are competent, and the rest of the play when he was not on stage is a garbled mess. It is a pointless jumble, the work of the finest mind in English literature filtered through the memory of a bit-part player, catching snatches in the wings, then scribbling them down months later in a scam by a venal London merchant. His ineptitude is funny only because we have the original to compare it to. In Marcellus's version, Hamlet's famous soliloquy begins: 'To be, or not to be, Aye, there's the point.'
From Ivo Stourton's recommended first novel The Night Climbers. It may be heresy to mention venal London merchants and that guardian of the Bard's genius, the Royal Shakespeare Company in the same sentence, but I will anyway. Last night we saw the RSC's new production of Romeo and Juliet with Anglo-Asian Anneika Rose and David Dawson in the title roles. The setting is mafia territory in the 1940s complete with knives and guns, with which I have no problem. Modern stagings are fine, if the text of the play or opera are totally respected; with Wagner's Ring providing enduring evidence that the text can survive the most bizarre stagings.
But the RSC's new Romeo and Juliet, which is directed by man of the moment Neil Bartlett, commits the cardinal sin of letting the gimmicks come between the Bard and the audience. Cheap Harry Potter-style sound effects are used to, spuriously, underline key moments in the drama, and voices are electronically processed to explain that the crypt scene, which looks like a crypt scene, is actually taking place in a crypt. Worst of all, the Prince's crucial final speech is drowned out by the on-stage musicians. It was good to see a capacity audience including many young people and school parties. Any live theatre is infinitely preferable to the dross of today's television. But is Shakespeare Hogwarts-style really the only way to reach new audiences?
And staying with venal London merchants I'm bracing myself for this committed curmudgeon's birthday treat next week. Glyndebourne's new Hansel and Gretel is set in a cardboard box and a supermarket - I joke not. I just hope there are no bleeping bar-code readers in the Glyndebourne production to mar that most sublime of all opera scores. As I write Naxos' UK copyright-exempt CD transfer of the 1953 EMI Karajan and SchwarzkopfHansel plays. There is so much more to Engelbert Humperdinck's score than the well-known overture. The close of Act 1 is as moving as anything Wagner wrote and this super-budget priced double CD (or the more expensive EMI original) should be in every collection. Not only is Walter Legge's production lasting proof that great art has no need for cheap gimmicks, it is also one of the great achievements in the history of recorded sound.
Prince A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
The Night Climbers by Ivo Stourton was borrowed from Norfolk Library Services. Naxos' Hansel and Gretel was bought online. 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 premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw at the Teatro la Fenice, Venice in 1954 was one of the events that changed the direction of twentieth century music. The photograph above was taken in Venice at the time of the premiere and shows Britten with some of those who helped reshape post-war music. Directly across from the composer is Peter Diamand, who was a co-founder and general manager of the Holland Festival, director of the Edinburgh Festival, director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and artistic adviser to the Orchestre de Paris. On Diamand's right is an exceptional musician whose reputation, like their face in this photo, has been overshadowed by the brilliant circle in which they moved. For the moment let's just call that person our incognito hero, or IH for short.
Our incognito hero came from a musical family and studied at a leading music conservatory. In 1930 a scholarship allowed the adventurous IH to travel and study music in the, then, political tinder-boxes of Austria, Germany, Holland and Hungary, as well as investigating stone circles in Sweden and Greek temples in Sicily by way of relaxation. Folk and early music were life-long passions, but a residency in Switzerland in 1939 to study the music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was cut short by the outbreak of war.
As the fascist blight spread our incognito hero made a truly valuable contribution by serving on the Bloomsbury House Committee refugee committee, which helped many exiled musicians from Germany and Austria start new lives and careers. IH then went on to play an important role in supporting amateur music in wartime Britain. After the war our hero continued to travel in Europe and in 1951 ventured further afield, spending two months studying the folk music of India and teaching at Rabindrath Tagore'sSantiniketan University in West Bengal. This was a decade before an Indian connection became an essential entry on the CV of ambitious contemporary composers.
It was in the role of musical animateur that our hero really made an impact. From 1942 to 1951 IH lived and worked in the pioneering creative community at Dartington Hall in Devon that later played host to Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna and Karlheinz Stockhausen. From 1943 IH held the influential position of director of music at Dartington. Music critic and broadcaster John Amis described our hero's contribution there as follows:
Some of the best lectures in the early years came from IH who could talk about the basic elements, 'Rhythm' or 'Melody', in such a way as not only to instruct but to touch you by (their) exposition of the simple facts of musical life. I have seen Paul Hindemith and Artur Schnabel in IH's audience jingling pennies in their handkerchiefs to imitate percussion instruments, and loving it.
In 1952 Benjamin Britten invited our incognito hero to Aldeburgh to work as his music assistant, and IH's work included orchestrating Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb for the 1952 Aldeburgh Festival. IH held the influential position of the artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival for the 1956 and 1957 seasons and, while in Suffolk, wrote books on Purcell, Byrd, Bach and Britten. In 1964 our hero left Aldeburgh to concentrate on editing and promoting the music of a famous father who had died thirty years earlier. He was Gustav Holst, and our incognito hero is, of course, Imogen Holst, who is seen, out of the shadows, below.
Imogen Host is remembered today mainly for her contribution at Aldeburgh, and for her work championing her father's music. But she was also a very talented composer. Her compositions included a 1928 Phantasy Quartet which dates from her time as a student the Royal Academy of Music in London. This lyrical quartet shows the influence of one of her teachers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and is a noteworthy example of English Pastoralism. But the quartet is untypical of her output and it would be a pity if it branded Imogen Holst as a Classic FM composer. The 1930 Sonata for Violin and Cello was written in Vienna and its confident use of dissonance marks her emergence as a contemporary voice. The sinewy String Trio No. 1 was written in 1944 for the Dartington Trio and uses a bitonal effect with the two violins ganging up on the usual victim, the viola.
After a fallow period while at Aldeburgh, Imogen Holst returned to composing in the 1960s. Her output included the three short studies for solo cello on tunes from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book titled The Fall of the Leaf which have gained some acceptance as repertory pieces, and her 1968 Duo for Viola and Piano. The latter reflects the turbulence of its year of composition and experiments with twelve-tone techniques. In 1982, two years before her death, Imogen Holst composed her valedictory String Quintet, a magnificent work that, sadly, has yet to take its rightful place in the chamber repertoire.
Below are two striking photo portraits of Imogen Holst. She never married, but the early portrait shows her as a striking beauty. If I have achieved anything in this article, it is, I hope, to make you want to hear more of this little-known composer's music. Now here is the very good news. All the works I have described are recorded for the first time on a new CD of Imogen Holst's String Chamber Music played with outstanding commitment and technical fluency by Court Lane Music and issued on the ensembles own record label.
This is quite outstanding music which mirrors contemporary trends while retaining a unique voice. If the composer had been a male emigrée from Central Europe who spent their sunset years on the campus of a liberal arts college, I am sure this story would read very differently. But, even in 2008, the importance of geography, gender and celebrity culture mean this important new release has attracted only minimal attention. But you can rectify that by buying Imogen Holst's String Chamber Music as an MP3 download or CD here. ImHo this is music that really must be listened to with innocent ears.
Header photos credit Erich Auerbach, footer is from CD sleeve. Full listing of personalities in the header image from left to right are Marion Harewood, Peter Diamand, Imogen Holst, Lord Harewood, Anthony Gishford, Mrs Stein, Mrs Diamand (back to camera) and Britten. The two men behind Britten are unidentified but are probably Basil Douglas and Erwin Stein. Imogen Holst's String Chamber Music supplied by Court Lane Music in response to request from On An Overgrown Path. All books purchased at retail with exception of Imogen Holst - A Life in Music and Gustv Holst, A Biography, which were borrowed from Norfolk Library Services. 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
A classical chamber orchestra on the opening night of the London Jazz Festival with a Tunisian oud player? Purists on every side must have been steaming from all orifices. But this is the future of music. And it works, as this exhilarating fusion showed.
Nothing demonstrated that better than Arvo Pärt's 1977 minimalist classic, Fratres. It opened the concert, played “straight” by the excellent strings of the Britten Sinfonia under Joanna MacGregor's(below) direction, with its elegiac refrain rising and falling over a drone like a sombre ritual. Then, at the end, it was repeated as an encore - but with a difference. This time the great Dhafer Youssef(above) and the virtuoso percussionist Satoshi Takeishi added a subtle, shadowy patina of Arabic cries and whispers. It was as if the ancestral Estonian modes summoned by Pärt in Northern Europe had stirred strange, kindred echoes in North Africa. Pure musical magic.
And it wasn't the only heartstoppingly beautiful moment in this “East meets West meets North meets South” programme. Youssef's own pieces - gentle-spirited, syncopated improvisations in sophisticated metres, showcasing his stunningly pure voice (electronically enhanced with overlapping echoes), his shofar-like falsetto, and dextrous fingerwork on his Arabic lute - gained a dimension, sonically and expressively, when accompanied by the strings. Meanwhile, Takeishi, squatting beside his exotic drums and cymbals, supplied deft and supple solos, as did the ubiquitous jazz bassist Peter Herbert. And the Britten Sinfonia brought to the party some cool culture-hopping of its own. With MacGregor at the piano and Jacqueline Shave supplying fleet-fingered fiddle solos, it played three of MacGregor's exuberant arrangements of songs by the renowned Romanian gypsy singer Gabi Lunca.
Then Shave led two evocative pieces by Bartók. The Burletta from the Sixth Quartet was properly savage. But Pe Loc from the Romanian Folk Dances was the real show- stopper, with Youssef's voice and Takeishi's brushed drums again adding a mysterious and mystical subtext. No, Bartók didn't write it like that. But yes, that dedicated follower of folk fashion would have loved the intrusion.
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Dutch Culture Minister halts Concertzender closure
DEN HAAG 17 NOV 17.35h - Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk has approached the Board of Directors of the Dutch Public Broadcasting System (NPO) to insist that classical internet station Concertzender remain on-air. This promise was made by the Minister in response to questions posed to him by Parliament Member Boris van der Ham (party D66).
Concertzender heard last week that the NPO would terminate its financial support as of January 1st. "I am ready to enter into discussion with the Board of Directors to figure out how the valuable contributions of Concertzender to the Dutch music culture can be given an appropriate place in a new structure," says Plasterk.
Van der Ham had asked Plasterk for clarification regarding the situation in the middle of October. According to Van der Ham the Concertzender makes a positive community contribution, with "exceptional programming of serious music which is not available from other public radio stations."
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More innovative classical music marketing from Switzerland 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
My site traffic analysis shows that the enforced closure of Dutch classical music webcaster Concertzender was the big music news story over the weekend. As American expatriate composer Vanessa Lann lamented, the station closure is 'very, very bad for Holland (and the rest of the international listening public)' and as Dutch blogger Rolf Otterhouse wrote, the internet broadcaster is 'an innovative and enthusiast team... with a passion for classical, contemporary, jazz and world music'. Despite this there has been little interest in the fate of Concertzender outside Europe, and, to date, I haven't seen one US music blog run the story. I wonder if the coverage would have been different had an American classical music station been axed?
More music beyond borders here. Header image is geographic plot of all Overgrown Path readers as I write the story at 3.30pm UK time - Californians are in bed, lucky people. 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
A visit to the Norwegian website Hifiisentralen prompts me to ask, does the sound matter any more? Hifiisentralen linked to my recent Radka Toneff post, and I noticed that many of the comments on the Norwegian site included details of the member's audio system. Blogs today are full of mentions of MP3s, iTunes, SACD, 5.1 and other miraculous acronyms. But when did you last see any discussion of the other links in the audio chain - the amplifier and loudspeakers?
A while back hi-fi brands such as Quad and Acoustic Research were mentioned as frequently as record labels and recording artists. It could be that audio systems are so good today that we don't need to talk about them anymore. Or, it could be that we are so obsessed with storage and transmission media that we have forgotten the other vitally important components.
Personally, I tend to the latter explanation. It is a simple law of physics that you need large speakers to reproduce extended bass. And I'm not only talking about for listening to organ recitals. As I write the new Simax CD of George Crumb's Makrokosmos I-II with pianist Ellen Ugelvik plays. Crumb's music just doesn't make sense unless you can physically experience the visceral quality of the sound, and you need serious loudspeakers to do that. Yet, much listening today is done on PC speakers, or even worse in-ear headphones that are prevented, again by the laws of physics, from reproducing the soundstage in front of the listener lovingly created by the recording engineer. Strange when concert hall acoustics are a million dollar science.
Elsewhere there is evidence that content producers are confusing the medium and the message. So often 'perfect sound' digital recordings fail to match analogue alternatives from decades ago. While in the car a couple of weeks back I heard a Bach keyboard concerto recording bought in by the BBC from a Canadian broadcaster and aired in the Radio 3 afternoon 'graveyard' slot that should never have been allowed past the audition stage, both for sound and performance quality. Naxos has done many great things, but a thread here a while back asked whether they dumbed-down production standards. And one of my own webcasts included some unwanted ornamentations.
* For information the main Overgrown Path listening room has a front end of Thorens TD 125 turntable with SME Series IIIS tone arm and Audio-Technica AT-F3 cartridge, Denon TU-260 tuner and Arcam Alpha 9 CD player. The amplifier is an Arcam 10 with moving-coil phono card, and the speakers are Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus 803s. Sennheiser 580 headphones are also used. There is a mains conditioner constructed by our electronics graduate son to smooth the sometimes noisy rural electricity supply. The secondary audio systems in other rooms all put the emphasis on loudspeaker quality. Online sources are usually auditioned via KEF Q50s floor-standers in my study. The Thorens front-end can be seen in this article.
The Simax CD of George Crumb's Makrokosmos I-II was purchased from Prelude Records. All audio equipment mentioned in this article was bought at retail price. 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
Rolf Otterhouse is not taking the enforced closure of Concertzender in Holland lying down. More power to Rolf. Check out his website here, listen to Concertzender, while you can, here.
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* Update 16/11 - but it wasn't necessary... 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
Alma Mahler (above) - the beautiful wife of composer Gustav, whose affairs with the painters Klimt and Kokoschka, and the architect Walter Gropius, were legendary - once invited him to play in her house. "It was extremely hot, and I said to her, 'Mrs Mahler, may I take my jacket off?' She said, 'Mr Pressler, as far as I'm concerned, you can undress completely.'
Pianist and founder of the Beaux Arts Trio Menahem Pressler talking in today's Guardian. Alma Mahler is captured in song here. Header photo of Alma Mahler from University of Pennsylvania Library, Alma Mahler Werfel Collection. 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 Concertzender Radio heard last night (you wrote about it on the 8th of September) that they are being taken off the support of the Dutch Arts Broadcast system, so they are effectively going off the (internet) air. What a huge mistake. It is one of the few excellent sources of culture in this country. Once it's gone, it will be a permanent blight on the Dutch artistic conscience.Very, very bad for Holland (and the rest of the international listening public). Vanessa Lann
On Thursday November 13th at 5:30pm, the chairman of the Concertzender Nederland organisation came to report to the employees and volunteers that the Dutch Public Broadcasting System (NPO) plans to pull the plug on the Concertzender. In the very near future, all funding will be cut.
In a studio in the MCO building in Hilversum, Bierman informed the employees and volunteers present that the NPO no longer considers the Concertzender suitable for the public broadcasting roster. The Concertzender is primarily interested in content – music – and not in the size of the audience. Despite over 135,000 Internet listeners per month - and we're not counting the listeners via the cable, Digitenne or RadioOnDemand – the NPO's board of directors doesn't consider the Concertzender to be a good fit with their radio strategy, which primarily targets market share.
We are hereby informing our 6,000 donateurs, 125 volunteers, and thousands of interested parties and collaborators in the music sector of their decision. The music sector will be very interested to hear about this. For it will have an impact there as well. The Concertzender records around 250 concerts every year and support and promotes musical innovation. We have received masses of letters of support from all over the world (see http://czmoetblijven.blogspot.com for examples).
The future? It's uncertain. The Concertzender hopes to continue to fulfill its role as a music broadcaster by and for the music sector. Without NPO financing, if necessary, although we feel that the Concertzender is exactly the kind of broadcaster that the public broadcasting system was designed to include. We would therefore welcome a continued role within the NPO, but one that acknowledges the identity and value of the Concertzender as a whole.
Update 16/11 - more on the Concertzender closure here and here.
Here is an example of a contemporary Dutch composer's courage. 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
A reader wrote to say the Modern Jazz Quartet, who featured here this week, does not fall within their concept of classical music. I cannot resist a challenge like that, so here is another recommendation for raga a good bargain. Ravi Shankar made his recordings of Raga Nata Bhairav and Raga Mishra Piloo in the year which was both an Anuus mirabilis and Annus horribilis, 1968. For the sessions the legendary sitar player was joined by Alla Rakha Khan, tabla, and Kamala Chakvravarty, tamboura.
Now here is the good news. The morning and evening ragas are available as budget reissues. I actually bought my copy online for £2.99 ($4.43US) delivered. That particular deal is now off the table (tabla?), but there are some good prices elsewhere. And the money kind of flows the right way. The re-isssue is from the copyright owners Angel Records, as part of their Ravi Shankar Collection. But the original recording was made World Pacific Records label prior to their purchase by EMI in 1979 as part of the United Artists package. If you buy it you may, at least, help my pension prospects.
Alla Rakha and Kamala Chakvravarty also played with Ravi Shankar at the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. There is some atmospheric YouTube footage from Monterey below of the Shankar set, like the MJQ you are either going to love it or hate it. (The set is also available on CD as part of the Ravi Shankar Collection.) You do actually get to see the musicians after seven minutes of the ten minute clip. It was a few years later that Ravi's fans had problem with Eastern tunings.
Does Ravi Shankar's collabaration with world music champion Philip Glass fall within the concept of classical music? 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
He was also deeply influenced by the Anonymous Movement, a group of artists in the 1920s who refused to sign paintings: they insisted that works of art must stand on their merits, not on the artist's personality.
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Either you are for or against The Modern Jazz Quartet, there is no middle ground. I am very much in the 'for' camp, and have always been a big fan of their chamber style jazz with its classical resonances. Yes, they can sometimes lapse into easy-listening mode; but that's a small price to pay for standards such as Django - see video below, the sound improves after one minute. Talking of small prices Avid Jazz have remastered and repackaged a quartet of classic early JMQ albums onto the super-budget priced double CD seen above. I paid just £5 ($7.80US) which must be the modern jazz bargain of the year, and there are similar priced double CDs of Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk. Don't be put off by the 1950s recording dates, the stereo sound and new transfers by Dave Bennett are excellent and put a lot of digital offerings to shame. And a bonus point for the artwork and booklet essay which would not be out of place on a a full-priced release.
Jacques Loussier is one of many MJQ imitators. Loussier's Messe Lumieres was commissioned for the consecration of the new Cathedral of the Resurrection at Evry in France. If any reader can find me a recording of his elusive Messe Lumieres I would be absolutely delighted - read more here.
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Rudolf Mauersberger composed his funeral motet Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst (How lonely sits the city) to a text from the Lamentations of Jeremiah in Dresden after the terrible bombing of the city(photo above) on February 13-14th, 1945. The photo below shows the first performance of the motet. This was given in the ruins of the Kreuzkirche in Dresden, where Mauersberger was cantor, on August 4th, 1945 .
In the performance below Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst is sung by the Monteverdi Choir of Würzburg directed by Matthias Beckert. The first performance of the the motet in 1945 was given by the boys of Dresden's Kreuzchor who lost eleven of their number in the Allied bombing of the city. Now read about Rudolph Mauersberger's overlooked masterpiece that was inspired by this tragedy, his Dresden Requiem.
+ In memory of all victims of war: Armistice Day, 11 Nov, 2008
Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst, die voll Volks war. Alle ihre Tore stehen öde. Wie liegen die Steine des Heiligtums vorn auf allen Gassen zerstreut. Er hat ein Feuer aus der Höhe in meine Gebeine gesandt und es lassen walten. Ist das die Stadt, von der man sagt, sie sei die allerschönste, der sich das ganze Land freuet?
How lonely sits the city that was full of people. All her gates are desolate. The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street. From on high he sent fire; into my bones he made it descend. Is this the city, which was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?
Complete text is Lamentations of Jeremiah: 1, 1.4.13; 2, 15; 1,9; 5,17.20-21; 1,9.
Now see Dresden risen from the ruins. The publisher of Rudolf Mauersberger's motet Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst is Merseburger-Verlag. His Dresden Requiem (Dresdner Requiem) is published by Carus-Verlag. 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 assessment by a reader of Valery Gergiev's tenure to date at the London Symphony Orchestra continues to reverberate around the world. In Italy it has prompted an article titled Overgrown Path stronca Valery Gergiev. The word stronca translates as demolishes. Meanwhile, back at the LSO's London base there is the mystery of the misplaced mandarin. On Jan 27, 2009 Gergiev and the LSO were scheduled to play the Rite of Spring and a concert performance of Bartok's Duke Blue Beards Castle (yes, in that order), followed on Jan 29 by the suites from Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges and Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin coupled with another performance of Blue Beard. But the nicely themed Jan 29 concert has been dropped in favour of a repeat of the Rite plus Blue Beard programme. No reason has been given for the change. I am quite sure it had nothing to do with rehearsal time; perhaps someone simply wanted to give audiences two chances to hear one of the most unbalanced concert programmes ever conceived?
You can find the misplaced mandarin 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
I found your article about Silvestrov's Fifth Symphony, and other Fifths very interesting. I'm sure you will probably be aware, but I just wanted to remind you that the London Philharmonic Orchestra are performing Silvestrov's Fifth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall on 22 April 2009 under Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski.
Below is a YouTube video that uses one of Valentin Silvestrov's beautiful Silent Songs (Stille Lieder). More audio samples here.
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March 29, 2009 - this post originally juxtaposed Thomas Merton's poem For My Brother - Reported Missing In Action, 1943 with the photographs taken by me of the USAAF 389th Bomb Group base at Hethel which can be seen above. This article, which was linked to by several USAAF veteran's websites, has now been removed following receipt of an email, extract below, from the composer Francis Pott. Yes, technically I wrong to use the text of the 1943 poem. But in this instance I have a feeling that Thomas Merton himself would have agreed that it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.
... I don't see any acknowledgment ... for the Thomas Merton poem. I have set other text by Merton in the past and went through an arduous process to clear permission and pay for the privilege. Can you assure me that you have done the same thing? If not, you will presumably be in breach of intellectual property law and Merton's executors should be aware.
All the photos show Station 114 at Hethel, which was the home base for the 389th Bomb Group of the 2nd Air Division of the USAAF from June 1943 to May 1945. The crucifixion was painted in the chapel by the assistant to the Roman Catholic chaplain and remains in good condition today. Details for visitors on the 389th Memorial Exhibition Museum website. More memories of Hethel here. The memorial stone is in the churchyard of All Saints, Hethel.
All photos of Hethel are (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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
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
Was Claude Debussy engaging in a bit of world music, I wonder, when on encountering gamelan Indonesian music at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle he went home and began composing the Estampes for piano? The problem seems to be with the word "world"; as an adjective it has come to mean a sort of anthropological, homogenised muddle, and so does little to reflect the careful, earnest engagement of artists such as Dhafer Youssef ...
At a time when the Arab world is enduring on the one hand the harsh gaze of Europe and America, and on the other political oppression at home, one can take heart in the fact that at least Arabic music is going through a kind of renaissance. Dhafer Youssef is part of a new generation of musicians that is as deeply rooted in its secular and mystic heritage, as it is keen to engage with international audiences. There is something both compelling and profoundly stirring, for example, in the classically engaged and intensely felt compositions of the Iraqi virtuoso oud player Naseer Shamma, or in the intellectual and emotional brilliance of the Tunisian Anouar Brahem and the experimental urgency and flamboyance of the Palestinian Kamilya Jubran (the latter's only album, Wameedd, is recorded with the Swiss jazz trumpeter Werner Hasler).
Unlike, for example, the Arabic novel, which apart from very few exceptions is struggling to gain the attention its literary heritage promises, Arabic music like Youssef's seems to have found ways to remain vital and ambitious, relevant, and engaged.
Libyan novelist Hisham Matar gives us the best article about music I have read for a long time in this week's New Statesman. Dhafer Youssef plays with the Britten Sinfonia at the London Jazz Festival on November 14, and thanks to the Sinfonia's blog for the heads up on this article. Youssef featured here recently in Avoid three kinds of master. That post was about the CD seen above which was recorded with Markus Stockhausen who is seen on the left below, and it took its title from a Sufi inspired poem written by monk, writer and thinker Thomas Merton. Earlier I had linked Markus' father, Karlheinz Stockhausen with Thomas Merton in a post about the 1960s. Many bright lights were extinguished in 1968. Among them was Thomas Merton who died on December 10, 1968 aged 53. So many of these paths are linked; the great pro-peace activist Merton was born in Prades, France in 1915. Prades was the adopted home of Pablo Casals after he fled from Spain and Franco's fascist regime in 1939. So the path comes full circle as Spain spent seven centuries under Arab rule; a period in which a truly multicultural civilisation flourished and three monotheistic religions and peoples of diverse origins lived in harmony.
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Above are the programmes from the Berlin Philharmonic archives for their 1944/45 season detailing the last five concerts that Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted with the orchestra before the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The Gerhart von Westerman work was a first performance. The note after the concert on 22/23 January 1945 explains that only the first two movements of the Mozart Symphony G minor were performed on the 23rd. No explanation is given as to why, but we must assume that an air raid interrupted the performance.
These were not the last concerts given by the Berlin Philharmonic before the Nazi surrender. After the interrupted concert on January 23 Furtwängler fled to Switzerland via Vienna. But the orchestra stayed in Berlin and gave their final concert under the Nazis on March 28 conducted by Robert Heger. Read the chilling story of that last concert here.
A full analysis of the new music performed under Furtwängler is here. My source for the programmes Wilhelm Furtwängler, Die Programme der Konzerte mit dem Berliner Philharmonischen Orchester 1922-1954, published by F. A. Brockhause, Wiesbaden 1965. The collage is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. 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 jazz meets classical path was started by Radka Toneff's exquisite album Fairytales. This 1982 classic of the gramophone features just two musicians, Radka Toneff and pianist Steve Dobrogosz. The latter also composed two of the songs, including the haunting final I Read My Sentence. Steve was born in North Carolina in 1956 and trained as a classical pianist before moving to Sweden in the late 1970's. After a decade working in the Scandinavian jazz scene he started composing for the classic forces of orchestra and choir. His compositions are performed around the world and his 1992 Mass, featured in the video below, has been heard by thousands.
Steve Dobrogosz's music is tonal, tuneful, honest and hugely popular. So is that of John Rutter, Eric Whitacre, Howard Goodall and Morten Lauridsen. But the music blogs, including this one, routinely ignore or even disparage their output; despite the fact that it provides a vital stepping-stone to Mahler and Messiaen. In the last century Carl Orff's Schulwerk (School Music) and Paul Hindemith's Gebrauchsmusik (Utility Music) were created to reach new audiences. But these concepts are now as deeply unfashionable as the tonal music by contemporary composers that is performed by amateur (and professional) forces around the world every day. The hip music blogs enthuse over hot new ideas such as Second Life orchestras and classical music nightclubs. Aren't we all missing the point that Eric Whitacre outsells Mozart, yet alone John Adams?
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My 2005 post about the late and very much lamented Radka Toneff (above) has been attracting a lot of readers recently. Interest in the Norwegian jazz singer, who died in 1982 aged just 30, has been fuelled by a new biography in Norwegian Radka Toneff. Hennes korte liv og store stemme and by a new CD compilation titled Butterfly. Her 1981 album Fairytales is one of the most beautiful things ever committed to disc by any artist, and in that comparison I happily include jazz, rock, folk and classical artists. Why this album is not generally available totally escapes me. But don't let the cost put you off, the Japanese release is worth every penny (cent?). You can listen for yourself here; but be prepared for the credit card hit, it doesn't take more than a few bars to become addicted.
Esbjörn Svensson was of course Swedish. On Sunday we mark the fortieth anniversary of the death of another great Swedish jazz pianist who is seen in the photo above. On November 9, 1968 Jan Johansson died, aged 37, when his car hit an airport bus while he was on his way to a concert in a church in Jönköping, Sweden. I know that my 2005 post Sweden's best kept secret has introduced Jan Johansson's music to thousands, and also formed the basis of his Wikipedia entry. There are audio samples on my earlier post. Like Radka Toneff's albums those of Jan Johansson are not widely available, but you will be well rewarded for the effort of finding them. I have spent a lot of time recently listening to his Grammy winning Musik genom Fyra Sekler med (Music from past centuries) which mixes jazz, early music (with period instruments) and folk. It is a very early example of exactly what Philip Glass meant when he said world music is the new classical. To misquote the nursery rhyme which also provided my headline:
I see no reason why Radka Toneff, Esbjörn Svensson and Jan Johansson Should ever be forgot...
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Maurice Ohana's musical influences are truly multi-cultural. He was born in Casablanca , Morocco in 1913 one year after the Treaty of Fès imposed French rule on the country. He came from Sephardic-Jewish stock and his parents were of Spanish-Gibraltarian origin and held British nationality as a result of the Gibraltar connection. This meant that Ohana was a British citizen until he became a French national in 1976. But although the British side of his parents determined his nationality it was his Spanish ancestry coupled with his exposure to traditional tribal music from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa and Afro-Cuban folk-music that helped forge his musical style. The photos accompanying this post were all taken during my recent visit to Morocco and I hope they give a flavour of the unique culture that helped mould the young composer.
The teenage Ohana left Morocco to study architecture in Paris, a vocation he shared with Iannis Xenakis. But he soon switched his studies to music and became a concert pianist on graduating. He worked as pianist with a Spanish dance group and became immersed in the music of Falla, Albéniz and Granados. But he saw his future as a composer and in 1937 enrolled in the composition class at the Schola Cantorum in Paris where Renaissance polyphony added another layer to his cosmopolitan composition style. His studies were cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War and, unlike several other composers, Ohana was committed to fighting the horror of Fascism. He escaped to Britain via Portugal in 1940 and saw active service with the British Army in several theatres of war.
When Ohana returned to Paris after demobilisation in 1946 he found himself marginalised by what he considered to be doctrinaire groups who had pursued their music careers during the German occupation. Although Ohana's voice was contemporary and he certainly wasn't swimming against the tide of modernism he felt out of sympathy with Boulez and other members of the Darmstadt School. So Ohana joined with three like-minded composers to form the Groupe Zodiaque which was committed to freedom of musical expression developed from sources such as folk music and plainchant rather than the perceived tyranny of tone rows. This group gained support from Henri Dutilleux and other contemporary composers. But Ohana's refusal to align himself with the fashionable avant-garde left him unclassified and largely unknown outside France. Sixteen years after his death he remains an overlooked figure, a sad and surprising situation given the huge impact of Hispanic culture on contemporary North America.
But at this point I am going to break from the chronological narrative because I've noticed several readers logging off with a resigned sigh saying 'Oh no, here we go again, Ohana is just a late-20th century John Foulds'. Please stop before you leave. Because Maurice Ohana was not a disciple of Darmstadt and IRCAM does not mean he was a reactionary who spent his time writing 'comfort music'. His stylistic influences were pretty eclectic even if they did not include the holy trinity of Boulez,Messiaen and Stockhausen. That great figure of twentieth century music Igor Stravinsky was a major influence with Ohana's Livre des Prodiges (“Book of the Prodigies”) for orchestra paying homage to the Rite through quotation, while some of Ohana's progressive counterpoint recalls Witold Lutoslawski and there are also hints of Carl Orff in his writing for voices.
Among Ohana's early influences are de Falla with whom he shared a passion for the harpsichord, and Ohana's own wonderfully edgy contribution to the harpsichord repertoire looks forward to Xenakis and shares Elisabeth Chojnacka as an advocate. Ohana's orchestral balances were of the moment and favoured piano and percussion over strings, and he explored new techniques including the use of micro-intervals and writing for the voice as instrument rather than narrator. But counterbalancing these contemporary credentials were references to the past including Medieval and Renaissance Spain and Andalusian flamenco.
But I'm going off track again. Ohana would probably have hated my dogmatic attempts to categorise his output, and anyway the music is his most eloquent advocate. For just £12 ($24) you can buy Erato's superb 4CD overview of Maurice Ohana's music which includes what is arguably his finest work Syllabaire pour Phèdre from 1967 together with Livres des prodiges from 1979, plus his first cello concerto and some of his fine music for harpsichord played by the incomparable Elisabeth Chojnacka and much more supported by a fine essay from the composer's biographer Caroline Rae. As I said at the beginning I'm just the conduit. But, believe me, the music of Maurice Ohana is well worth unlocking. My copies of the Erato discs have received far more than the industry standard 1.3 playings and they will be receiving an airing soon on my Future Radio programme. So for this contemporary composer from Casablanca it really is - play it again Ohana
Maurice Ohana website here, read about the Sephardic Jews here. Reblogged from May 21, 2008. With thanks to David Derrick for giving me the key to this particular door. All photos except header (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Clint Eastwood directed two films about WWII. First, there was Flags of Our Fathers, about the young American soldiers who were sent to Iwo Jima and returned to find that a photo had been taken of soldiers placing a flag on Iwo Jima, a photo mistakenly thought to be of them. The film (below) focuses on their consciences about this event, and the mistake, and on the American perspective of the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Then Eastwood made Letters From Iwo Jima, in Japanese, about the Japanese soldiers who fought in the exact same battle of Iwo Jima - from their perspective (below). The viewer already knew what was going to happen, but he or she would see the same events through altogether different eyes, in a different context.
In my cello concerto, Divining Apollo (below), the first two movements contain wild repeated patterns played by the members of the ensemble, against a cello part which is serene and fragile (based on overtones/harmonics) and continuous and also largely covered up by the other players. It is confusing because the listener can see that there are significant gestural patterns in the soloist's part, but it is not clear what these patterns are, or if they are important thematically, or what the foreground of the piece actually is. Then, there is an intermission - a break in the entire programme of the concert. The audience goes out of the hall and has a drink, or a conversation, etc.
After the intermission of the concert, the remaining two movements of the piece are played. All of the notes and rhythms are taken from the notes and rhythms of the first half of the concert, but the dynamic levels have changed, the conductor's groupings of the measures have changed, and the seating position of the soloist has radically changed. This half of the piece is, then, a true "concerto," in that the soloist's perspective is clear and prominent, and his material can finally be understood by the listeners (who have "heard it all before" a half hour earlier in the part before the intermission).
Just as the god Apollo could see into the future, the illumination, or light, which is shone on the cellist's material in the second half of the piece allows for an understanding/realization of what has been occurring in the piece all along. The cellist's part before the intermission had been " divining" what would come, but the listeners had probably been more occupied with the raucous, Dyonisian, gestures of the ensemble players. As in Clint Eastwood's films, both parts can stand on their own as individual pieces, although the meaning behind what makes the piece a "concerto" must come from the experience of the two back to back. It's like the first half is, actually, a "prequel" to the real "Apollo," which comes if you stay around until after the intermission.
Programme note by composer Vanessa Lann (left of photo 4) for her new Cello Concerto Divining Apollo, which was given its first performance by Hans Woudenberg with Reinbert de Leeuw and the Schoenberg Ensemble at the Amsterdam Cello Biennial on October 23rd. Review in Dutch here. The photos by Patricia Werner Leanse were taken at the Amsterdam performance. The third photo down shows the placement of the cellist while playing in the second movement of the piece immediately before the intermission. For the first movement the cellist sat among the other players, and for the third movement after the intermission he sat on the other side, and in the concluding movement took the conventional soloist's place, next to the conductor. The solo cello part also became increasingly 'soloistic' with each new position. In photo 4 Vanessa is explaining to the musicologist Thea Derks the advantages of listening with innocent ears.
That's three cheers for contemporary music. Header photo is from Letters from Iwa Jima, the second and footer from Flags Of Our Fathers. 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
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
Look again at the photograph above and see if your assumption about the pilot sitting in front of a Soviet Yak-9 fighter is correct. Because the Soviet Union was the first country in the world to give women legal equality their military flying schools were open to both men and women. This meant that during World War Two Russian women piloted both fighters and bombers. Despite technical equality women flyers were not given military roles until after the German invasion in June 1941. As the Nazi threat increased Russian women were hastily trained for aircrew combat duties, and were issued with male flying clothing - including underwear. It is one of those women pilots in the photo.
Training of the women was overseen by the legendary Soviet woman aviator Marina Raskova who had previously studied piano at academy level. Three all-female regiments (squadrons in Western parlance) were formed by the Russians, and between 1941 and the end of the war they flew more than 30,000 missions. The photo below shows three of the Soviet aircrew preparing for a sortie. Marina Raskova was killed when her bomber crashed in January 1943 en route to the front at Stalingrad. She was given the first state funeral of the war and was buried in Red Square. In June 1943 an American Liberty Ship was named after her.
Russia's western allies also used women aircrew, although the attitudes towards them were sometimes less enlightened. In Britain women flew planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a civilian organisation that pioneered equal opportunities for those with physical disabilities and equal pay for women. But the British government kept the ATA's use of women secret for the very chauvinist reason that they didn't want the Germans to know they were so desperately in need of pilots that they had to call upon women. Across the pond WASP (Women Airforces Services Pilots) was formed in August 1943 in America by merging two existing organisations. My photo shows three WASP crew members at Laredo, Texas in 1944. The WASP flew sixty million miles, carried out 80% of US ferrying missions in the war, and thirty-eight of them died on flying missions. But the story of the WASP does not have a happy end.
Unlike their British counterparts the WASP were paid 30% less than their male colleagues, and, in common with ATA pilots, they did not have military status. In 1944 a bill was introduced into Congress to make WASP a woman's service within the USAAF. The bill was defeated and WASP remained civil servants without the benefits contained in the GI Bill. As well as the loss of medical coverage and life insurance this meant that when a woman crew member died on duty the US government was not obliged to pay for her body to be shipped home and buried. But worse was to come. After the defeat of the militarisation Bill pressure came from a powerful lobby of male civilian pilots who wanted the WASP jobs. This resulted in the disbandment of WASP in December 1944, eight months before the war ended. It was not until 1977 that President Jimmy Carter granted WASP veteran status.
German women were not allowed to fly in combat for the Third Reich. But a small number flew ferry missions for the Luftwaffe in the dangerous skies over Gerany. One was Beate Uhse who ferried classic German warplanes such as the Stuka and Messerschmitt 109 to combat zones. After the war Uhse struck the ultimate blow for women's liberation. In 1972 she opened the world's first sex shop in Flensburg in Germany. She died in 2001 but her name is immortalised in Beate Uhse AG, Germany's most successful erotica chain.
The story of the American and Soviet women military pilots World War II is magnificently told in Amy Goodpaster Strebe's new book Flying For Her Country(Praeger Security International ISBN 9780275994341). My text and photos are based on her book, which was borrowed from the invaluable 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in Norwich. The copy of the book was donated by Marion Stegeman Hodgson, who was herself a WASP. The Woman's Collection at Texas Woman's University provided material for the book and I know the path has at least one regular reader at TWU. The photo below shows a WASP in conversation with a male colleague on the wing of an A-25 Helldiver at Camp Davis, North Carolina.
Marina Raskova was killed when her bomber crashed flying to Stalingrad. A reproduction of the Madonna of Stalingrad, which was drawn by a German doctor and clergyman who died in the siege of the city, is housed in Coventry Cathedral, where the War Requiem was first performed. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin was destroyed by Allied bombers in November 1943. A wonderful new church with a fine organ has risen from the ruins in Berlin, and houses the original Madonna of Stalingrad.
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The BBC has, quite rightly, been taking a lot of stick recently. But last night we watched BBC 4 television for three and a half hours solid, which is the longest I've watched TV for in a long time. The programmes were a sequence of tributes to Neil Young. They started with an atmospheric 1971 BBC studio recording of Young performing solo, then a new interview with the Canadian singer, followed by the recently released Déjà Vu video documenting C,S,N & Y's 2006 Freedom of Speech tour - video above and website below. It's easy to take cheap shots at ageing hippies. But I asked some time back why aren't we marching in the streets? Good to see someone still believes that music can help save the world, even if he is 63 in a couple of weeks.
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"What passes for risk-taking in television today is showing people having sex on Big Brother. That's not a risk - it's just grubby."
Independent producer John Lloyd commenting in the Guardian about the BBC radio 'lewd messages' fiasco. It's a comment worth pondering on as risk-taking is the lifeblood of creativity. Among John Lloyd's credits are the late night satirical TV show Spitting Image which ran from 1984 to 1996. My header video comes from the series and is a parody of the popular BBC TV quiz show Mastermind. It is sobering to think the sketch dates from 1992.
Like John Lloyd, Tom Lehrer was a master of creative risk-taking. 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
* 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.
