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Showing posts from October, 2012

Music from the uproar

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Hello Bob, Thanks so much for getting in touch. We will get a copy of the album in the mail once things return to a bit more normal after the hurricane here in NYC.... That email from a publicist in New York came in response to my request for a review CD. Quite appropriately the disc in question was Missy Mazzoli’s new opera Song from the Uproar . The story of how the opera’s heroine perished in a flashflood is here . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Could LSD have saved Tchaikovsky?

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Classical music and hallucinogens may seem an unlikely combination, but there is a reason why consciousness altering substances have featured in several recent overgrown paths. As was described in my recent post Elgar takes a trip , prior to the global proscription of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in the late 1960s the drug had been used with promising results in experimental psychotherapy. Among those participating in the clinical trials more than fifty years ago were sufferers from severe depression. Statistics show that between 20% and 25% of adults will have an episode of mental illness in any given year and as a journalist who has experienced severe depression explained “…mental illness is a taboo…. few people talk about it or let on – unless they are so ill that they can't help it”. Depression can hit anyone, including musicians. Tchaikovsky was one of classical music’s many depressives, as the final tortured Adagio lamentoso of his Sixth Symphony testifies, and it ha

Bohemian Fifths and birthdays

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I am having a difficult time with all the celebrations of my birthday, which are very touching but take a lot of time and energy which one would rather spend on writing new works. Benjamin Britten writes presciently to Hans Werner Henze in November 1963. Henze, who like Britten clearly understood a composer's duty , has died aged 86 , the photo above is from the cover of his autobiography Bohemian Fifths , which is well worth seeking out . I have always particularly admired Henze’s Double concerto for oboe and harp which was available in a now deleted Deutsche Grammophon CD with the Collegium Musicum Zürich directed by Paul Sacher, but which lives on as an MP3 download . Thankfully DG’s pioneering recordings of Henze conducting his first six symphonies have been saved from the corporate dumpster by the label that music lovers owe so much to , but which reviewers choose to ignore - Brilliant Classics . More on the Dutch label's dumpster diving here , while elsewhere Paul Sach

Another composer anniversary hiccup

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My post ' Britten’s passion for the East ' tried to give a balanced view on this sensitive subject, and I wrote "what could seem 'strange and suspicious' decades ago is now 'touching, sympathetic and very beautiful'". How wrong can you be ? Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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

Try downloading this

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Readers will know I am huge fan of Jordi Savall’s idiosyncratic commitment to tactile product in the form of gorgeous CDs with lavish accompanying books . But this is ridiculous… Jordi’s record label Alia Vox has set up its own online store , and currently has some tempting deals on back catalogue. One disc filled a gap in my collection so I ordered it. A few days later a parcel was delivered by FedEx from Spain. My photo shows the single CD with the box it came in. As I wrote here a few years ago, I have seen the future and it is cardboard . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2012 Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

How many management agents are facing the axe?

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Every day brings deeply disturbing reports of orchestras facing the axe as a result of funding cuts. But there is a conspicuous absence of reports of management agents facing the same axe. As explained here last year , management agents are the intermediaries who earn a fee of around of 15% for booking a soloist or conductor, or even the whole orchestra, for concerts. And that fee for a single concert can be 15% of £20,000 in the case of a star conductor or £10,000 for a star soloist - exact figures are impossible to find because of the secretive nature of the agency network. Derailing the management agency gravy train will not solve the structural crisis facing classical music, because the root cause is the global banking crisis which has prompted deep funding cuts. But breaking the hegemony of the agents could deliver much needed savings while also bringing other valuable benefits, including the very attractive one of opening up career opportunities for the unsung heroes of c

Whatever happened to the composer's duty?

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Benjamin Britten spoke of “the composer’s duty, as a member of society, to speak to or for his fellow human beings”. Yet it is a paradox of twenty-first century classical music that activism only becomes a priority when times are bad and livelihoods are threatened. It was not always so, and Britten’s War Requiem , commissioned for the consecration in 1962 of the new Coventry Cathedral, is a passionate statement of the composer’s pacifist beliefs. More recently John Tavener spoke to his fellow human beings with his lamentably overlooked ecumenical Requiem commissioned for Liverpool’s 2008 tenure as European City of Culture. But commission's like the Tavener Requiem are rare and contemporary classical music has largely abandoned site and event specific works in favour of more modest and new media friendly projects. Lack of funding is, of course, the main reason for this. But money has not disappeared entirely, and composers should take note of how the mantle of social engagement h

May I always listen to the Anniversary Waltz...

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Not only has David MacDonald , seen above, correctly identified Thomas Tallis as the trending mystery composer , but he also devotes a segment on his latest SoundNotion.tv podcast to the vexed question of What do composer anniversaries achieve? - watch on YouTube from 59.00”. Site traffic data, Facebook endorsements and re-tweets show a high level of interest in my posts on composer anniversaries, while the SoundNotion.tv coverage confirms the topic is newsworthy. But, predictably, there have been no links from vertically integrated sources, and I do not expect the subject to be discussed on BBC Radio 3’s Music Matters . But I will be watching BBC TV's Panorama tonight to see if it sheds any light on another overgrown path that has suddenly become very topical . Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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 copyrigh

Thomas Tallis’ tipping point

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While classical music’s movers and shakers were turning a mobile phone ringing in New York into a Mahler anniversary storm in a teacup , others were helping Thomas Tallis find his tipping point. Last week I published the Google Trends graph below and asked “would any reader like to make an informed guess via the comments who the trending composer is?” It did not take composer David MacDonald of SoundNotion.tv fame long to identify correctly both the mystery composer as Thomas Tallis and the trend tipping point as the April 2012 publication of E.L. James’ novel Fifty Shades of Grey . And that leads down an overgrown path well worth exploring: because in their anxiety to keep the composer anniversary bandwagon rolling, the resolutely anti-elitist movers and shakers have dismissed erotic fiction as insufficiently elitist to be associated with classical music. Which overlooks the inconvenient truth that single-handedly E.L. James has managed to do for Tallis what the combined force

What do composer anniversaries achieve?

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2013 will be a bumper year for composer anniversaries, with Wagner, Britten and Verdi among those vying for media attention. But what do composer anniversaries actually achieve? Received wisdom tells us that they fill concert halls and woo radio audiences, and as a result ‘raise the profile’ and ‘increase awareness’ of the birthday boy in particular and classical music in general. But there is another view that says these anniversaries achieve little more than further raising the profile of already highly visible composers at the expense of those more deserving , while in the process providing a nice little earner for record companies, concert promoters and other intermediaries. As an example the Britten100 celebrations are being fronted by Albion Media , an international PR and media agency that also represents orchestras, musicians and media owners - a volatile mixture of interests that could, possibly, encourage hagiography at the expense of more balanced critical reassessment .

Music for the perplexed

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“The modern experiment to live without religion has failed, and once we have understood this, we know what our 'post modern' tasks really are” wrote E.F. Schumacher in 1977. Today Schumacher is remembered for his pioneering advocacy of intermediate technology in Small Is Beautiful . But he was a multi-faceted personality whose personal path took him from living without religion to esoteric traditions such as Buddhism and Gurdjieff’s 'Work' and finally on to the Catholic Church, a journey that inspired his neglected A Guide for the Perplexed from which the quote above is taken. I think Fritz Schumacher would have approved of the newly released CD Trialogue which mixes sacred vocal and instrumental music from South India, Morocco and Medieval Europe in a project that wisely takes the path of unity within diversity rather than fusion. Singers Aruna Sairam , Noureddine Tahiri and Dominique Vellard are supported by a transcultural ensemble of instrumentalists, and all a

Aldeburgh’s answer to Mozart balls revealed

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Friday’s post about words as sound shapes segued seamlessly into Exaudi’s Sunday afternoon Aldeburgh open session which featured two newly commissioned vocal works challenging that conceit of the information age that what cannot be articulated in words is beyond comprehension. First up was Matthew Shlomowitz’s a cappella Instrumental Music which investigates the relationship between the human voice and musical instruments – check out the composer’s website for samples of his compositions. Following Instrumental Music was Aaron Cassidy ’s wordless tribute to Francis Bacon A painter of figures in rooms ; this “takes the human voice apart and puts it (mostly) back together again” and could just be the Stimmung for the information age. Much credit goes to Exaudi and their director James Weeks for smashing the fossil and starting all over again , and to Aldeburgh Music for supporting their residency which was the prelude to a Wigmore Hall concert . But, as seen in my header p

Anyone for classical music Zumba?

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Learning and experiencing music through movement as taught by Dalcroze Eurhythmics was mentioned in yesterday’s post about Rudolf Steiner , and that path now leads to Gurdjieff’s Music for the Movements . This was composed in collaboration with Thomas de Hartmann to accompany the ‘sacred dances’ that formed part of G. I. Gurdjieff’s consciousness expanding ‘Work’, and both the Gurdjieff Movements and Dalcroze Eurhythmics are examples of music as utility rather than entertainment. It could well help the case for funding concerts and music education if classical music emphasised utility more and entertainment less – dance is just one aspect of the overlooked music therapy movement . Do any other bus pass holders remember the BBC ‘Music and Movement’ programmes which ran from the 1940s to 1970s? These were presented by Ann Driver who was a pupil of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze but broke with him after he criticised her for not crediting his system in the title of the programme. The mind,

Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations

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Combining ideas from Wagner and Schuré with his own doctrine, [Rudolf] Steiner produced the Mystery Plays , which were to become the focal point of activity at Dornach and have remained in the anthropological repertoire to this day. These plays, which trace the spiritual evolution of the same characters through four stages (a fifth was never written), combine the arts of speech, movement, colour and design in a Wagnerian synthesis which is given a new twist by Eurythmy. Steinerial Eurythmy (as distinct from Dalcrozian Eurhythmics ) is define as visible speech and song; it is based on the idea that we are affected not only by the sense of words but also by their sound. This sound is produced as invisible waves disturbing the air, and the waves can be translated into visible shapes, resembling the lines of force embodied in Steinerian painting and sculpture. But words also signify something, and the shapes can therefore be used simultaneously to articulate meaning. Yesterday’s question

Was Wagner a Sufi?

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Gustav Mahler once observed that it is not the music that is composed, but the composer himself. So this path enters unexplored territory in search of what composed Mahler's demigod Richard Wagner, and en route uncovers some surprising links between Wagner and paranormal experiences and the Sufi tradition. The meandering journey of exploration starts with artist Phil Travers who in the late 1960s created a series of album covers for rock group the Moody Blues. His creations, which included the Threshold of a Dream artwork above, were a visual extension of the Moodies' credo that an album was a total sensory experience rather than a succession of unrelated music tracks. This approach was shared by other bands and evolved into the concept album, a genre which included Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from the Beatles, Pet Sounds from the Beach Boys, The Wall from the Pink Floyd and Tommy from the Who, as well as other albums from the Moody Blues. Concept albums

Towards genuinely non-digital content

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While the new BBC director general George Entwistle bets the shop on producing “genuinely digital content” other more enlightened souls are leading the way back to genuinely non-digital content. High-end speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins has just announced the release of a 24-bit studio-quality download version of Mike Oldfield’s audio classic Tubular Bells . Although still working in the digital domain this lossless format reproduces the sound almost exactly as captured at the original sessions, thereby eliminating the quality degradation experienced with lossy digital formats such as MP3. Studio quality downloads are a commendable way of combining the benefits of digital distribution with (almost) non-digital sound quality. Much attention is given to the demise of major labels and other macro changes in the record industry, but micro developments by niche players such as Bowers & Wilkins are being overlooked. Another example of disruptive innovation by a different aud

If information was knowledge...

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‘We need to be ready to produce and create genuinely digital content for the first time. And we need to understand better what it will mean to assemble, edit and present such content in a digital setting where social recommendation and other forms of curation will play a much more influential role’ - new BBC director general George Entwistle in his first speech to staff . ‘If information was knowledge, dictionaries would be saints’ – Sufi saying EMI’s new five CD Vernon Handley retrospective contains around 3500 megabytes of digital information. But, far more importantly, it also contains a generous helping of that increasingly unfashionable commodity - knowledge. As well as the obvious choices of Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony and Elgar’s Violin Concerto with Nigel Kennedy there are surprise delights including Sibelius' Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little and Fauré's Pavane . The ill-wind of EMI’s demise is blowing some good in the form of cleverly compiled bargain priced

A highly recommended rip-off

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Today the BBC launches iPlayer Radio , a new service that takes audio content out of the existing BBC iPlayer and offer it instead as part of a separate service on desktop and mobile. A BBC spokesman says iPlayer Radio will "make it easier for people to enjoy the BBC's vast audio archive" which is welcome news. But let's hope that the BBC also irons out the pricing anomalies. Because as I write you can legally listen to Bernard Haitink’s towering 2012 BBC Proms performance of Strauss’ Alpine Symphony for free. But listening to Sir Adrian Boult’s legendary 1976 Proms performance of Elgar’s First Symphony will cost you £12.99. The reason is that the Strauss comes via the BBC iPlayer while the Elgar has been licensed by the BBC to ICA Classics for CD release in a deal that deserves close scrutiny. ICA Classics is the audio-video label of ICA Artists , the management agency led by former IMG Artists executive Stephen Wright. Archive recordings - including the 1976

Hot or not?

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Views from readers on recent format changes to On An Overgrown Path would be appreciated. For the past six weeks a new experimental “active view” format was used giving easier access to archive articles and capitalising on the graphic element of the posts. Slightly questionable readership data from Google indicated that a significant uplift in site traffic resulted from switching formats. However my own crude testing highlighted possible compatibility problems when viewing the new format with browsers other than the native Chrome, although no complaints have been received from readers. So I have reverted today to the old-style format. Feedback on preferred format would be appreciated either via comments or email to overgrownpath ( at ) hotmail ( dot ) co ( dot ) uk. Changes were prompted, incidentally, by a new version of the Google Blogger editor used to create the blog. This “upgraded” version is one of the most flawed pieces of software I have ever had the misfortune to use, but b

Smash the fossil and start all over again

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No matter how powerful the teacher, his followers can always be trusted to bring his world to a halt. This they generally do by creating a cult of personality around the teacher himself, and fossilizing everything in exactly the form it was given. Using this fossilized teaching, they engage in mechanical repetitions of certain patterns of behaviour, assuring themselves and each other that they will attain liberation and higher consciousness as long as they never, never make the slightest change in anything the master taught. But life is change, and what is appropriate for one period is not necessarily valid for another. So all this effort to hold on to certain forms only results in the arrest of development. So another teacher has to appear, smash the fossil and start all over again.' Robert de Ropp is referring to the Gurdjieff cult. But his words apply equally to the cult of the anniversary composer . Quote comes via Stairway to the Stars: Sufism, Gurdjieff and the Inner Tradi

With a little help from our friends

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October 4th is World Animal Day . Which explains why this morning I thought I saw a Sufi cat . Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2012. Ginger can be booked via his agent Catskonas Holt. Report broken links, missing images etc to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Also on Facebook and Twitter .

Oh! What a forgotten war

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Sahrawi musician Aziza Brahim was born in a refugee camp in the Tindorf region of Algeria in 1976. These camps were opened to house Sahrawi refugees fleeing from invading Moroccan forces at the start of the Western Sahara War which lasted from 1975 to 1991. The war was fought between Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the region, and the Algerian-backed Sahrawi Polisario Front , which works for independence for Western Sahara - the Sahrawi are mixed-culture nomads who are the long-term inhabitants of the region. Although a UN monitored ceasefire came into effect in 1991 the conflict remains unresolved. With Morocco occupying most of the disputed territory many Sahrawi refugees still live in the camps after almost forty years - the exact numbers are disputed but estimates range between 45,000 and 165,000. A UN proposed plebiscite on independence has been repeatedly blocked with the connivance of the Western powers , and in the ensuing vacuum the killings have continued, with