Posts

Showing posts from June, 2013

New music from beneath the sands of Egypt

Image
In an attempt to make the moment even more special, I felt that some quiet music might add to the occasion. Unfortunately modern archaeologists from Egypt, America, Europe, and elsewhere are unable to reliably reconstruct the long-lost melodic funeral dirges that accompanied the rites of the pharaonic dead. This being the case, I chose to foster a somewhat calming and dignified atmosphere and selected to accompany our work three Beethoven sonatas softly broadcast from a portable tape player. The melodies of the Moonlight , Pathetique , and Apposionata sonatas served as a kind of tribute, although clearly European, to a tomb from a mostly extinct culture. That description of the opening of tomb KV60 in King's Valley, near Luxor, Egypt in 1989 is taken from Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist by Donald Ryan. From the 16th to 11th century BCE tombs were constructed for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom in the King's Valley,

Artistic director takes public stand against dumbing-down

Image
“That elusive experience of momentarily "crossing over" is, for me, the raison d'être of music, and unlocking the secret of how it is achieved also unlocks the secret of how classical music can reach new audiences.” What a wonderful statement in your post of last Sunday (6/16) . Yes, that’s it! And then on Wednesday (6/19) : “One of the biggest obstacles in the fight against the classical music revisionists has been the emotive pejorative "dumbing-down" with its connotations of elitism. Now Nicholas Carr has shown a way round that obstacle by talking about 'deep' as opposed' to 'shallow' cerebral experiences…” I needn’t further enumerate all the ‘dumbing-down’ ideas that continue to be utilized by the classical music establishment that fail to produce the desired result. As one who still owns some of those old Argo vinyl recordings of the King’s College Choir (!) and trained at St. Peter’s Choir School in Philadelphia, I’ve been fascinate

How new classical music audiences are seeing the light

Image
If classical music wants new audiences it should feast its eyes on the photo above. You may not be able to hear the blazing music of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under George Benjamin in that 2010 concert. But you can certainly see the blazing visual music created by kinetic artist and portrait painter extraordinaire Norman Perryman . Today Norman is celebrating his 80th birthday. Not only does he have more energy than people a quarter of his age, he also has more creativity than them. If there were more Norman Perrymans in classical music it would be a better place and audiences would be younger and bigger . Happy birthday Norman! Also on Facebook and Twitter . Photo credit Ronald Knapp. 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).

Excuse me but you are treading on an MP3 file

Image
The writing that enshrines the Doctrine - that is, books or portion of books - is reverenced almost more than anything else by the Tibetans. They will not pack up their belongings for a journey without making sure that the books have the place of honour on top and will not be crushed under everyday objects. If a Tibetan is handed a book, he will lay it on his head, murmuring a prayer that he may be helped to profit by its wisdom. People are almost morbid about a book or an image coming into contact with shoes. I remember one day, at the Gompa P'hiyang, when we were sitting on the floor of our cell talking to our friend the lama Gyaltsan, that Dr. Roaf, who had just finished looking up some reference in a Textbook of Pathology by Professor Boyd, happened to put his feet lightly on that massive black tome. Suddenly Gyaltsan noticed it and stopping in the middle of his discourse, said in shocked tones: "Excuse me, you may not know it; but you are treading on a book!" Dr. R

What we need is a classical chart for challenging music

Image
Marketing gurus tells us that classical music needs charts. So we have classical charts for artists, for compilations, for specialist titles - aka core repertoire - and for singles. Medical research into the human brain tells us that audiences become what they listen to. From which the inevitable conclusion must be drawn that what we need to engage new audiences is a classical chart for challenging music. Qualifying criterion is simple to define: any classical work that has never been played on Classic FM , BBC Radio 3's Breakfast and Essential Classics and similar programmes is eligible. Topical nominations from readers for challenging music to populate this new chart are welcome. My own suggestion is Tide , a double CD of music by James Weeks . Cageian connections abound on this new release: the performing ensemble Apartment House , which was founded by cellist and inter-disciplinary artist Anton Lukoszevieze , takes its name from Cage's composition Apartment House 1

How classical music reached half a million young people

Image
A huge peace rally held in Washington, November 15th, was reported by newspapers around the world, but it was not so generally reported that the afternoon was as much a musical occasion as anything else. A five or ten minute speech would be followed by five or ten minutes of music, alternating through the long afternoon. The programme was planned by young people who have had the opportunity during the past few years to see how music could be more than a frivolous distraction, and could serve to express the united determination of a large group of people to affect some changes in the world. Peter Yarrow, of the well-known trio Peter, Paul and Mary, was one of the principal persons planning the choice of singers... Tom Paxton, another young guitar picker and songwriter, sang two quiet but intense songs. Richie Havens, a young black musician appeared with several friends to give him instrumental support. One played a tall conga drum and Richie got the huge crowd to chant a response,

Classical music must quit the shallows for deeper waters

Image
What determines what we remember and what we forget? The key to memory is attentiveness. Storing explicit memories and, equally important, forming connections between them requires strong mental concentration, amplified by repetition or by intense intellectual or emotional engagement. The sharper the attention, the shaper the memory. "For a memory to persist," writes [ Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel] , "the incoming information must be thoroughly and deeply processed. This is accomplished by attending to the information and associating it meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory." If we're unable to attend to information in our working memory, the information lasts only as long as the neurons that hold it maintain their electric charge - a few seconds at best. Then it's gone, leaving little or no trace in the mind. Revisionists such as Universal Music's Max Hole advocate reducing attentiveness at c

Will Pablo Casals be trending this autumn?

Image
My recent travels took me to the haunting From Prades to Perpignan: Pau Casals and the world of the exile exhibition at the Palais des Congrès, Perpignan which featured the work of the photo-jounalist Jean Ribière . Despite the poster the exhibition did not cover familiar ground, but instead focused on the difficult but overlooked period from 1944 to 1956 during which the Perpignan region in French Catalonia sheltered thousands of Spanish Republican refugees at the same time as the international community was recognising Franco's despised fascist regime. Jean Ribière's images are a graphic reminder that the agony does not cease when war ends. The agony did not cease in France in 1945, just as it has not yet ceased in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do not do as you have always done... October 22, 2013 is the fortieth anniversary of Pablo Casals' death, and it is interesting to speculate on how, if at all, the anniversary will be marked. Despite some noteworthy compositions Cas

Research proves audiences become what they listen to

Image
During yesterday's Aldeburgh Festival performance of Jonathan Harvey's Fourth Quartet by the Arditti Quartet truly extraordinary things happened. Jonathan Harvey's music is rich in influences, among them Hinduism and its reformed cousin Buddhism. Yesterday his Fourth Quartet transformed Aldeburgh Church into what in those Eastern traditions is known as a tirth , a transcedental location where one can "cross over", and that transformation triggered in me one of those rare experiences of being transported by music to another and better world. That elusive experience of momentarily "crossing over" is, for me, the raison d'être of music, and unlocking the secret of how it is achieved also unlocks the secret of how classical music can reach new audiences. So today's post explores the path which took me briefly to that different and better world, and it is a path that has led me to the conclusion that we become what we listen to. When I first wro

Black conductor appointed at leading orchestra

Image
Wayne Marshall - seen above - has been appointed chief conductor of the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne for an initial two year period. Organist as well as conductor, Wayne Marshall's impressive CV includes Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the 1998 BBC Proms. He is one of just two black conductors to have appeared in 119 years at the Proms , the other is Bobby McFerrin who conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in 2003. The BBC spin machine generated a lot of coverage out of Marin Alsop breaking the gender barrier at the Last Night of the Proms, but the racial barrier still has to be broken . Wayne Marshall's appointment in Cologne is a very welcome step in the right direction. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Image credit Last FM . 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).

Classical music may not be not elitist but its prices are

Image
Eyebrows were raised at £50 for sitting on the shingle to hear an amplified Grimes on the Beach at this year's Aldeburgh Festival. Now eyebrows are being raised even further at £60 per person for the fixed price menu in the pop-up beach restaurant which is open only for the three Grimes performances next week. But don't sweat, because for the financially challenged "Aldeburgh Music has teamed up with award winning Lawson's Delicatessen in Aldeburgh High Street to provide delicious picnic hampers" for the Grimes performances. These hampers are a bargain at £26 per person and that price even includes a bottle of still mineral water. Sycophantic journalists and Aldeburgh's banker clientele are not fazed by these prices because they do not pay their own way. But if you are not on the gravy train, dinner for two at the pop-up restaurant, two hemorrhoid-inducing places on the pebbles to hear Grimes, plus a pair of irresistible Britten centenary cuff-links to

Musicians honoured in new museum of exile

Image
Exile is a recurring theme On An Overgrown Path , in particular the fate of the Spanish Republican refugees who crossed into France in 1939 and were held at internment camps at Rivesaltes and Argelès-sur-Mer , and I also recently retraced the journey of refugee Alma Mahler across Catalonia to freedom in World War II. Now a powerful new museum has opened in the Spanish Catalonian border town of La Jonquera commemorating exile in the twentieth-century, with a particular focus on the 1939 La Retirada of Republican refugees. I recently visited the Museu Memorial de l'Exili  in La Jonquera and took the accompanying photos. There have been many posts here about exiled musicians including Pau Casals and Robert Gerhard , both of who fled from Franco's Spain, and it is good to see that both musicians are remembered in the new museum. La Jonquera's Museum of Exile is a compelling example of how art can enhance collective memory . Art is so much better than words at expressing t

Britten, pacifism and mistaken identity

Image
Being mistaken for Alex Ross is OK. Being mistaken for Norman Lebrecht would be AWFUL. Also on Facebook and Twitter .

What would you do if your homeland was invaded?

Image
I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example. That is the reply Benjamin Britten gave to a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors in 1942 when asked "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" I was reminded of it when researching my recent article on Marco Pallis , who was an authority on both Tibetan Buddhism and early music, and, together with Britten, a champion of Purcell . In his best-selling book Peaks and Lamas , which was written in 1939, Pallis tells this story about the Sakyas , the ethnic group of which Gautama Buddha was a member which inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas. News was brought to them of an impending attack by a hostile tribe and it was debated anxiously whether resistance should be offered or not. Eventually they decided that, as followers of [Buddhist] Doctrine, they were debarred from offering armed resistance, but must welcome the invaders as friends, so they threw down their arms... The Tibetans, how

We just try to charge a fair price and we pay our tax!

Image
My photo shows the priceless Jordi Savall in the equally priceless classical specialist retailer Prelude Records in Norwich after his impromptu performance and signing session in 2008 . Below is a recent exchange of emails between Prelude Records and me. -------------------------------------- Prelude Records10/06/2013 To: 'Bob Shingleton' Dear Bob Just to let you know that we have just received stock of “ Balkan Spirit ” (Jordi Savall et al), which you ordered in advance. The price is £12.99. We look forward to seeing you in due course. Regards Andrew at Prelude Records --------------------------------------- Bob10/06/2013 To: Prelude Records Hey, that's cheaper than Amazon's pre-release offer price! See you soon, Bob -------------------------------------- Prelude Records10/06/2013 To: 'Bob Shingleton' Dear Bob We just try to charge a fair price; and we pay our tax ! Regards Andrew at Prelude Records I have no co

She sang for those about to be executed

Image
My header photo shows the studio of the French Catalan artist Aristide Maillol outside Banyuls sur Mer in France. Maillol (1861-1944) and Rodin were the two most influential figures in twentieth-century French sculpture, and the studio at Banyuls is now a small museum which compliments the much larger collection of his work in Paris. The artist had a penchant for large-thighed ladies, and his last model and muse Dina Vierny was almost sixty years his junior. Malliol is buried in the grounds of the museum beneath his best known sculpture La Méditerranée , see footer photo. The Mussée Maillol is tucked into a valley in the foothills of the Albères, the range that forms the border between France and Spain. A track that links the two countries by crossing the 360m high Col de Banyuls passes close to the museum. This path has been used since Roman times, and more recently was an escape route known as le chemin de la liberté . First it was followed by Spanish Republican refugees flee

Five tips on how to survive a music festival

Image
Elsewhere an anonymous journalist reports the truly terrible news that he/she was in a coach party of media folk who were delayed for almost sixty minutes before being allowed into the opening concert of the Fes Sacred Music Festival in Morocco. To help prevent similar incidents in the future I offer the following advice to the traumatised journalist: In future: 1. Don't travel from your luxury hotel to the concert venue with fellow hacks in an air-conditioned bus complete with minder. Instead walk to the concert with lesser mortals - Fes is the best place in the world to walk for heaven's sake. 2. Even better pay your own way to Morocco and buy your own festival ticket. That way you won't be hassled for being a journalist. 3. Understand that the Western media's love affair with scuttlebut journalism may have contributed to the Fes festival organiser's nervousness about press coverage. 4. Even though you are a self-confessed member of an "extremely gru

One of classical music's great overlooked achievements

Image
Although Rudolf Barshai has made countless recordings - the most important of his current projects is a complete cycle of the fifteen Shostakovich symphonies with the Cologne Radio Orchestra - he always kept aloof from the media circus. Eminently serious, he shuns any form of glitz and glamour, and is not one of the jet-setting conductors that constantly dash round the world performing under-rehearsed programmes. Barshai's name stands for the masterful realisation of the composer's will; a principled advocate of their ideas, he dedicates his legendary ability to rapidly mould an orchestra's sound to his conceptions to one sole purpose: achieving clarity and focus. That extract comes from a 1999 profile of Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010) by Bernd Feuchtner. The profile appears in the booklet for the cycle of Shostakovich symphonies Barshai recorded with the Cologne Radio Orchestra (now WDR Sinfonieorchester) between 1992 and 2000 which was released by Brilliant Classics in 2002 .

The primordial sounds of a 5000 year old gospel choir

Image
In his sleeve note for Bill Laswell’s legendary 1991 recording of the Master Musicians of Jajouka William Burroughs exhorts the listener to “Listen to this music, the primordial sounds of a 4000 year old rock 'n roll band... listen with your whole body, let the music penetrate and move you, and you will connect with the oldest music on earth”. Burrough’s references to “a 4000 year old rock ‘n roll band” and “the oldest music on earth” are derived from the suggestion by the eminent Finnish sociologist Edvard Westermarck that the Jajouka musicians' wild music has its roots in ancient Greek Dionysian rituals. There is no doubt that Burrough’s prose is one of the finest examples of the lost art of sleeve notes; but there is one problem – the Jajouka sound is not the oldest music on earth. The Copts, who are the indigenous Christians of Egypt, believe that they are the direct descendants of the pharaohs. As the first pharaoh King Narmer ruled around the 31st century BCE, t

Exclusive - the truth behind that Boulez photo

Image
On An Overgrown Path can exclusively reveal that the reason why Pierre Boulez looks discomfited in this new Universal Music PR photo - he is flanked by the bosses of Deutsche Grammophon and Universal's French classical division - is that he has just been told his new contract with Universal Music obliges him to be interviewed by Sinfini Music . 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).

Now let's hear it for a composer anniversary

Image
Aaken has left a new comment on your post Another day - another classical music anniversar y - 'That said, my father, composer Ton-That Tiêt is turning 80 this year and I do wish to see some events, concerts taking place - or even people paying attention to his work, not because he is my father, but because I genuinely think his is great music'. If other music bloggers can do U-turns so can I. So let's hear it for the anniversary of Ton-That Tiêt, a composer who meets perfectly David Nice's admirable criteria of a lesser-known figures who still doesn't get the treatment he deserves. Here, as a contribution to rectifying that, is an edited reblog of my August 2011 profile of Aaken's father, who is seen above. Ton-That Tiêt was born in Hué in 1933, and moved to Paris in 1958 to study at the Conservatoire where his teachers included Jean Rivier , André Jolivet and Andrée Vaurabourg ; the latter is better known as Mrs Arthur Honegger and among her other pu