Posts

Showing posts from March, 2010

Shostakovich?

Image
Been there, done that ... Now try it with candles. With thanks (again) to blogger sans frontieres Antoine Leboyer . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Music from a war zone

Image
Coverage elsewhere of the interruption of yesterday's Jerusalem Quartet concert at London's Wigmore Hall by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Not only should the Israelis be asking why such protests happen, they should also be asking why support for the protesters is increasing. Header image is the CD of Palestinian classical music recorded in Gaza in 2006 by Ad Vitam Records, a company that believes in solving problems by working together rather than by disrupting concerts or by targetted assassinations . In my profile of Ad Vitam last year I quoted the company's credo that their recordings should "build bridges of expectations, hope and trust". 40% of the sales revenue from the Gaza CD goes directly to the musicians in Gaza whose livelihood is threatened by the current political situation there. Unlike the Jerusalem Quartet the Ensemble musical de Palestine does not have an exclusive recording contract with Harmonia Mundi nor did they receive support from the

ECM and the art of piracy

Image
As yet another EMI chief executive ends up on the editing room floor the major corporate labels continue to blame piracy for their problems. But illegal copying is an interesting gauge of demand. In many cities in Morocco 100% of the CDs on sale are pirated , and you won't find any copies of the latest offerings from teenage Chinese pianists or barely post-teenage celebrity conductors among them. But significantly there is an awful lot of counterfeit ECM product available. Which, as the CD inlay seen above shows, does bring a different kind of problem. As books have been devoted to the graphic art of ECM it is worth dwelling for a moment on the graphic art of piracy. It must be assumed that the illegal copy of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan and Jan Garbarek's Ragas and Sagas seen above predated the availability of cheap image scanners as the pirated copy has new artwork replacing the ECM original seen below. On the pirated version below, Herbert Maeder's typically atmospheric

Salzburg Festival - no point in looking back

Image
Beleaguered Salzburg Easter Festival's new supremo Peter Alward reassures Guardian readers that his sponsors have remained "amazingly loyal". Elsewhere Bloomberg reports that "the annual 10-day Easter event is sponsored by Vontobel Holding AG, Audi AG, the Nippon Foundation and Vienna Insurance Group", while the Salzburg Easter Festival website confirms that the Nippon Foundation has made "annual contributions since 1996". At least one of those loyal sponsors has an interesting history. The Nippon Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic organization doing praiseworthy work in education, social welfare and public health in Japan and many other countries. But that benevolence comes at a cost. Ryoichi Sasakawa who founded the Nippon Foundation in 1962 is seen in a US Army photo above. His obituary in the New York Times obituary in 1995 explains the context of the photo: Mr. Sasakawa, a native of Osaka, was the last living member of a group accuse

Phantom of the opera

Image
Led Zeppelin, Graham Nash, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Nick Drake (who drove there in a Ford Cortina) are among the rock musicians who have visited Marrakech. But the connections between the Moroccan city and Western art music are more tenuous. In 1986 work started on the Theatre Royal, an ambitious project designed to give Marrakech a world class venue for opera and theatre. My header photo, taken a few days ago, shows the impressive exterior of the new Theatre Royal with the fly tower in the background. Website travel-in-morocco.com explains: The Marrakech Theatre Royal on Avenue de France is a marvel of architecture, with a 1200-seat open-air theatre and an 800-seat opera house. Inaugurated on 19 September 2001, the Theatre Royal is a creation sure to enhance the red city’s reputation as mediator and focal point for intellectuals the world over. It also constitutes a cultural and artistic centre in the heart of the Pearl of Southern Morocco, with shows, receptions, concerts a

Just tuning up

Image
L'orchestre by Moroccan artist Uayia, photographed by me at a recent public exhibition in Marrakech . Say good bye to Western art music 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

Chance music from Jewish voices

Image
‘Israel’s first lady of song’ was the accolade bestowed on Naomi Shemer (1930-2004), who is seen above. Several of her songs have became popular anthems in her homeland and she created Hebrew versions of many well-known songs including the Beatles ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Let it Be’ . Her best-known composition is 'Yerushalayim shel zahav' ( 'Jerusalem of Gold' ) which has achieved the status of unofficial Israeli national anthem . Jerusalem of Gold is the opening track in a Jewish Voices programme I am presenting in my webcast Chance Music series . It is performed by the Israeli singer and guitarist Hezy Levy and is coupled with another Naomi Shemer composition, Song of the Grasses . Both tracks are taken from the Ad Vitam CD Singing Like the Jordan River which featured here last year . The central work in my Jewish Voices programme is by the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim , seen in the photo above. He was born Paul Frankenburger in Munich in 1897 and worked as assista

Path to a forgotten maestro

Image
Wild Somerset Child has left a new comment on your post " Remembering a forgotten maestro ": I know it is a long time since this post appeared - I have only just discovered it when checking the exact date on the internet of when my father died. It was lovely to read what you said about him (Maurice Miles). Maurice Miles was the first principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra when it was founded in 1966. He championed the music of Arnold Bax, and Arthur Butterworth and conducted the first performance of Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis in 1940. That touching email arrived today from his septuagenarian daughter Ms. Ann Somerset Miles who is herself a prolific blogger . Read my 2007 tribute to her father Maurice Miles here . The quick montage of Maurice Miles against the background of Leith Hill, Dorking was created by me and is (c) On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

We could be looking at thousands of dollars

Image
Yes, that is Glenn Gould. But this path starts with another musician. Steve Reich's Come Out is an electronic composition created from the voice of an African-American youth. No conventional instruments or musical notation are used in the pioneering work. But if I want to broadcast/webcast Come Out there is no problem. Future Radio is party to a performing rights agreement which directs royalty payments to the composers and publishers of music works. Despite not being a conventional music work Come Out is covered by that agreement. So far so good: Come out is broadcast, the listener has access to a seminal 20th century work and the copyright owner is rewarded. Glenn Gould's Solitude Trilogy is a series of three radio documentaries made for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) between 1967 and 1977. Two of the documentaries use short music excerpts but, like Come Out which dates from the same period, they are voice compositions. But, despite using speech as his r

Wagner Sutra

Image
P. M. Doolan has left a new comment on your post " Wagner and the Tantric Orchestra ": I only came across your blog entry today, but I had posted an article " Wagner and Buddhism, Tristan and Isolde " on my blog two days ago - what a coincidence. It might interest you to know that Wagner first played some chords of Tristan on piano in the Villa Wesendonck in Zurich (where I live) and the Villa Wesendonck today is the home to the biggest collection of Tibetan Buddhist art in all of Europe. More Buddhism from Jonathan Harvey in Wagner Dream. Then there is the connection between Wagner and the Cathars ... Header image has nothing to do with the Villa Wesendonck. I photographed the Richard Cole print against the background of the book Tibet - Life, Myth, Art by Michael Willis before tweaking the colours. Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2010. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

A few notes are worth a thousand words

Image
It is impossible to categorise a track by John Zorn. You're likely to hear fragments of everything from classical masterpieces to thrash metal, from jazz licks to film music soundscapes. This music is the soundtrack of postmodernism, the aural equivalent of surrealist collage. "I've got an incredibly short attention span," Zorn says. "My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast." That quote is from a Tom Service article and it does make John Zorn's music sound rather daunting. Which is a pity, because like many composers a few notes of John Zorn's music is worth a thousand words. You could do a lot worse than start with Uri Caine plays Zorn's Masada Book Two on the composer's own Tzadik label . Lots of music but few words on the CD which is seen below. It comes with the very post-modern documentation of absolutely no explanatory text, a blank label and the most obscure sleeve typography ever. If you insist on a desc

Don't fence musicians in

Image
Posters on the railing of Market Square in Cambridge show what a rich musical life the city has. The Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra's website says: Our concert programmes are drawn up by the conductors and committee in consultation with the whole orchestra, with the players themselves able to vote on parts of the programme. The final ballot has now been concluded and the 2009-10 season will be as follows... York Bowen's Viola Concerto and Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony, which is being played by the Orchestra in London on March 5 . If that's what democratic programme planning achieves more orchestras should try it. More on York Bowen here . Photo taken in the glorious spring sunshine today and (c) On An Overgrown Path . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk