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Showing posts from November, 2009

New music in the paradise garden

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Gaston Bachelard's image of an ecstatic paradise garden is linked with the Buddhist vision of the pure land , a state of mind beyond suffering where there is no grasping, in Jonathan Harvey's Fourth String Quartet. Dating from 2003, the Fourth Quartet uses electronics to explore spectralism , the deconstruction and manipulation of sound as an abstract medium to expose what the composer describes as : 'the materiality of the sound itself... the ‘suchness’ – to use a Buddhist term – the ‘thing in itself’: the grain, the richness, the quality of the sound'. The Fourth Quartet is available in a 2 CD set and audio download of Jonathan Harvey's complete string quartets and trio performed by the Arditti Quartet on the French Aeon label . This survey of the composer's quartets was, in my opinion, one of the highlights of 2009's new releases. The recordings were made in the studios of Südwestrundfunk Baden Baden and the electronics for the Fourth Quartet were p

The lost art of listening

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'Music for young people. The Art of Listening . Dr George Firth director of Scotland of the Arts Council for Great Britain. Mary Firth (pianist). An Opportunity for those under 35'. This last item, The Art of Listening , was a favourite subject, often repeated. In Sir George Trevelyan's view listening was as active as speaking, neither was to be undertaken casually. That course, which was organised by Sir George Trevelyan at Attingham Park in Shropshire in 1948, introduces a theme later pursued by Benjamin Britten and others. In 1964 Britten wrote about the 'holy triangle of composer, performer, listener' which 'demands as much effort on the listener's part as the other two corners of the triangle' . But in today's technology obsessed age that holy triangle is so often reduced to a profane duo of composer and performer, with the listener consigned to the passive role of technology jockey. This is an absurd situation, because music literally ca

Somehow indicative of the times

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Drew80 has left a new comment on your post " Here comes ovation inflation ": You are always essential reading, Pliable. Observing the Dudamel phenomenon has been highly amusing. I have no idea whether Dudamel will turn into a fine conductor—only time will tell—but he certainly attracts the lunatics. Otherwise sane people have gone berserk, praising 250 youth musicians sawing away at “The Rite Of Spring ”, a composition that turns into sludge when performed by such a vast number of players. A conspicuous example of the widespread Dudamel foolishness is a photograph I saw on some website of two goofy-looking concert-goers proudly wearing to a Dudamel concert yellow Venezuelan jackets plastered with Venezuelan flags. Need I add that the goofy-looking concert-goers were not Venezuelan? It was, at once, cringe-inducing, idiotic, frightening and bizarre—yet somehow indicative of the times. Another indication of the times here . But more importantly, where is your pie ? Any copyri

EMI keeps playing with its Rattle

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PR-speak reaches a crescendo in an EMI Classics press release announcing a new exclusive recording contract with Simon Rattle. The president of EMI Classics Global Eric Dingman, whose CV includes almost twenty years with Labatt Breweries, gushes: 'I am delighted about the ongoing partnership with Sir Simon which will continue to produce ground-breaking recordings and projects, adding to the great wealth, depth and breadth of repertoire that Sir Simon is building with EMI Classics.' Bang on cue the conductor himself joins in the refrain with: 'In a time when recording contracts are rare enough to be an endangered species, I feel both lucky and privileged to be working further with EMI Classics, my loyal and brave partners of more than 30 years'. One of Simon Rattle's truly ground-breaking projects was his 1995 recordings with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra of the Passacaglia , op, 4 (1925) and Ciaconna sinfonica (1936) by the exiled German composer Berth

The Tao of music

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However, back to the beat - something it seems we must return to with regularity in some form or another, if we wish to cooperate with the natural regulatory forces of existence. I instinctively knew at the age of four that rhythm was the palpable expression, at the deepest level, of the universe in motion... Understand the rhythm of life - not intellectually but by feeling it in your body - and you understand the rhythm of the way the forces of expansion and contraction, the yin and yang of Taoist philosophy , the zeroes and ones of our present technological reality, alternate with each other. Understand that and you understand the rise and fall of fortune. Understand that and you have a chance of seeing through the everyday game to the eternal state behind it. Those words come from the newly published The Man Who Drove With His Eyes Closed by the idiosyncratic Taoist Stephen Russell , who was an early exponent of group drumming as music therapy. Now for a question: which famous mus

Last music critic standing

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Elsewhere there are attempts to drum up interest in a poll to find the last contemporary composer standing. Whatever next - perhaps a poll to find the last music critic standing ? 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 can see for miles and Miles

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We Want Miles is at the Cité de la Musique in Paris until Jan. 17, 2010 and we will be there . Miles Davis in France opens up another music and place path. Miles' Joaquín Rodrigo inspired Sketches of Spain album featured in a post last year in which I asked was Rodrigo was out of step with his time musically and politically ? Which has a certain topicality as Rodrigo was born on November 22nd, 1901. Staying with Miles but travelling a few thousand miles east takes us to the new album seen below. Miles from India is a cross-cultural and very electric (in the volts sense) celebration of Miles' music which brings together leading American and Indian musicians under producer Bob Belden . Joe Zawinul's music also features on the album, and the title track is credited to fusion specialist John McLaughlin, who appeared here recently, as composer, guitarist and producer. No matter where you are in the world, you can have a blue moment . Miles From India was bought online. Al

Here comes ovation inflation

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At the end last night's performance of The Pitmen Painters in Norwich the gentleman next to us was on his feet applauding almost before the play had ended. Had he seen something I had missed in an evening that for me was little more than an entertaining tableau of class and gender stereotypes devised by Billy Elliot creator Lee Hall with one eye on being politically engaged and the other on the box office? Or was it simply another example of ovation inflation? Elsewhere I see that Gustavo Dudamel now receives a standing ovation before he conducts a note, while at the BBC Proms applause between the movements is commonplace . How long before standing ovations between the movements becomes the latest expression of reputation inflation ? We paid for our tickets for The Pitmen Painters at the box office. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The Duke Meets Darius Milhaud

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Two of the compositions introduced on 'Brubeck plays Brubeck' are now recognized as jazz standards: They have been recorded and performed many times by many different artists, most notably by Miles Davis with Gil Evans' orchestral arrangements and by Bill Evans solo piano . My publisher has informed me that at last count there were over 60 different versions of 'In Your Own Sweet Way' recorded by various jazz artists. 'The Duke ,' which might be the first jazz composition to have the bass line go through all 12 notes of the musical scale in the first 8 bars, has been a challenge for many musicians. My original title for the piece was 'The Duke Meets Darius Milhaud' . Dave Brubeck writes in his supplementary 1998 note for the CD release of ' Brubeck plays Brubeck' . Dave Brubeck was a pupil of Darius Milhaud, as were Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Karlheinz Stockhausen. They all put in an appearance in On the path of Stockhausen's teach

Sheet music

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What is it about composers' bedrooms ? The room in which Robert Schumann was born is here . Photo sample of Britten House , Lowestoft is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2009. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Another UK record store closes every 2.7 days

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Rock star Sting has called the X Factor "televised karaoke" and said judges like Simon Cowell have "no recognisable talent apart from self-promotion". The singer, 58, told London's Evening Standard that the Saturday night show was "a soap opera which has nothing to do with music". This no-punches-pulled story on the BBC website raises some interesting points. Let us forget for the moment that Sting has a new Christmas CD to flog, that he records for Polydor who are the bitter rivals of Sony BMG to which X Factor finalists are contracted, and that the X Factor show is aired on ITV, which is the BBC's biggest rival. Beyond these obvious points there is an even more insidious side to X Factor, and it is one Sting is not going to talk about because Universal Music, who own Polydor, play the same game. Graham Jones, one of the founders of independent distributor Proper Music , who distribute ECM in the UK , takes up the story: Finalists in the X F

Tippett in focus

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The neglect of Sir Michael Tippett's four symphonies has been the subject of an interesting discussion on an earlier post . So as today's article is being uploaded immediately after Armistice Day and Tippett was a committed pacifist , I am featuring two LPs of the composer's symphonies as powerful visual reminders of what is missing from the catalogue. Sir Colin Davis' pioneering 1960s Argo recordings of the first three symphonies have never been bettered, and my 1968 LP of the Second Symphony is seen above. We must be grateful for Richard Hickox's complete cycle with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; but Davis and a top of their game London Symphony Orchestra excel in Tippett's signature sprung rhythms and, as a bonus, are captured in superb anadulterated pre-digital sound . Colin Davis' interpretations have appeared in various guises in CD transfers, but are currently not available. Which is quite quite deplorable considering they are the definitive

The deaths of three young strangers

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We forget that the necessary ingredient needed to make the past work for the future is our energy in the present, metabolizing one into the other - Audre Lorde The 20 year old British commanding officer and 21 year old bomb aimer whose war graves are seen in the montage above were crew members of an RAF Lancaster shot down over occupied France while returning from a bombing raid on Milan in 1943. Five crew members parachuted from the stricken plane, but the young pilot and bomb aimer died in the crash. They are buried in the graveyard of the 13th century church in Vandenesse-en-Auxois. A few miles away above the village of Créancey is the commemorative plaque marking the spot where an American pilot died when his USAAF fighter crashed into the hillside during the liberation of France in September 1944. Fighting in western Europe had stopped in the first global conflict of the twentieth century at eleven o'clock on November 11th, 1918 following the signing of the World War 1 Armis

Noddy, Big-Ears and the new CD

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The books are very much of their time, particularly the titles published in the 1950s. They present Britain's class system — that is to say, "rough" versus "decent". Many of Blyton's children's books similarly reflected negative stereotypes regarding gender, race, and class. The most startling incidence of this type of material to a modern audience might be the use of a phrase like "black as a nigger with soot" appearing in Five Go off to Camp .At the time, "Negro" was the standard formal term and "nigger" a relatively common colloquialism. Compelling reading from the Wikipedia biography of Enid Blyton . Released this week is a CD of music by Carey Blyton , who was the nephew of the famous author and lived from 1932 to 2002. To be fair Carey Blyton was probably very fed up with being labelled as Enid's nephew, and among his musical credits were a schools cantata, incidental music for three BBC TV series of Doctor Who an

I am not a sycophant edition

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The musical exploits of the Savall family quite justifiably receive high praise On An Overgrown Path . Two years ago I enthused over daughter Arianna Savall's CD Bella Terra , and that particular album has been a long term favourite on my iPod. So it is disappointing to give a thumbs-down to Arianna's newly released Peiwoh , despite its stellar line-up of musicians which includes Pedro Estevan and brother Ferran, whose gritty album Mireu el nostre mar was one of the highlights of last year's new releases . In the notes for Peiwoh Arianna Savall acknowledges the influence of the Canadian harpist and singer Loreena McKennitt, whose music I am not familiar with, although I understand she sells shed-loads of records. But having listened to some samples on Ms. McKennitt's website I have a fair idea where this album went wrong. There are some beautiful sounds on Peiwoh , but it lacks the edge and musical development that I need. But if you like your Bach to come complet

Life is a cabaret, old chum

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What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play. Life is a cabaret, old chum, Come to the cabaret. 'Deutsche Bank will present a free webcast of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle performing Brahms's Third and Fourth symphonies on Monday, November 9 at 8.00 p.m. EST on its website, http://www.db.com/ The webcast celebrates the start of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle's U.S. tour that begins at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday November 11, and the recent release of the Brahms symphonies on CD' - Deutsche Bank website . 'Our partnership with the Berliner Philharmoniker has been and continues to be unique, by combining classic music sponsorship with innovative cultural education work. Deutsche Bank is thus fulfilling its commitment as a responsible corporate citizen, by creating social capital – all around the globe' - Josef Ackermann Chairman of Deutsche Bank AG on Berliner Philharmoniker website 'State prosecuto

World premiere for post-music symphony

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My photo was taken yesterday evening in the darkness of the new Britten Studio at Snape during the premiere of Longshore Drift created by experimental electronic musician Chris Watson . In the foreground and around the perimeter of the studio are the blue-illuminated monitor speakers used for by the third order 64 channel Ambisonics surround sound system which conveyed height as well as lateral information. In the centre of the photo at the system's controls is Tony Myatt Director of the Music Research Centre at York University who built the Ambisonics system specially for the event. My rehearsal photo below shows the layout of the studio more clearly. Chris Watson's 35 minute soundscape was part of the output of a week long Faster Than Sound residency at Snape which explored the natural soundscape around Britten's Aldeburgh. Birdsong was the staring point for Longshore Drift's , but this was layered with a range of 'found' sounds including the low frequen

A radical traditionalist

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Good evening, and welcome to this Britten Sinfonia pre-concert event , at which I am delighted to be joined by tonight’s conductor and pianist, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and soloist Tamara Stefanovich . Tonight’s concert, which has the theme Dialogues , is a celebration of the music of the contemporary American composer Elliott Carter who will be 101 in a few weeks time. We will be discussing his music a little later; but first, and rather perversely, I want to talk about a composer whose music does not appear in tonight’s concert. Benjamin Britten gives his name to tonight’s orchestra and Pierre-Laurent Aimard is the artistic director of the festival Britten founded at Aldeburgh here in East Anglia. In the speech that he gave when accepting the Aspen Award in the Humanities in 1964 Britten set out his vision of a holy triangle of composer, performer and listener. Today, particularly in modern music, that holy triangle sometimes becomes a profane duo of composer and performer, with th