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Showing posts from February, 2014

Different musical forms but the same essential truth

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He sees a divine inspiration which comes to humanity from time to time in different forms which are in harmony with the culture of a certain people at a certain time. Different forms but the same essential truth. Those words describe the Sufi master and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927). The theme of different cultural forms but the same essential truth suffuses a new CD that finds the mystical intoxication of Sufism in the music of Dowland and other Renaissance composers, as well as in contemporary Middle Eastern and European music. Divine Madness: Souls in Exile brings together mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson , lutenist Sofie Vanden Eynde , and on oud and vocals Moneim Adwan who is seen above - video sample here . Released on the independent Belgian label Cypres Records , the CD explores how music has the universal power to unsettle the soul; a thesis that also provides the subtext of Lutz Kirchhof's recently featured Lute music for Witches and Alchemists . Divine Madnes

More maestros, masterpieces and madness

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To celebrate Norman Lebrecht leading the charge against the "shamed" Gustavo Dudamel I am offering Overgrown Path readers the chance to win two exclusive prizes. One goes to the first reader to identify who that is in the photo up close and personal with Gustavo. Another is for the first correct answer to this question: which cultural commentator was invited to give the pre-concert talk in Los Angeles before the Dude's performance of Mahler's Third Symphony on January 24th 2012? Both lucky prize winners will receive a shredded copy of Lebrecht's Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry . Header photo was taken by BBC producer Paul Frankl and comes via Slipped Disc . I apologise for any possible transgression of copyright ; but as Pau Casals asked rhetorically , does being an artist - even the mere author of On An Overgrown Path - exempt them from their obligations as a person? So, in this ins

Late night thoughts on listening to news about Venezuela

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'An affront to human dignity is an affront to me; and to protest against injustice is a matter of conscience. Are human rights of less importance to an artist than to other men? Does being an artist exempt him from his obligations as a man? If anything, the artist has an even greater responsibility, because he has been granted special sensitivities and perceptions and because his voice may be heard when others may not. Who, indeed, should be more concerned than the artist about the defense of liberty and free inquiry? Such fundamentals are essential to his creativity' - Pau Casals had it right as did - dare I say it? - someone else . Book is Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema and the Transformative Power of Music by Tricia Tunstall. I haven't read it and don't intend to, but it makes an appropriate header graphic. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will b

Classical music is not a safe suburban pastime

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'Surrealist research along with alchemic research presents a remarkable unity of purpose. The philosopher's stone is nothing other than a thing, which should be given to man's imagination to take forcible revenge on everything, and after years of taming the spirit and crazy submission, here we go again, attempting finally to free this imagination by the long, huge, reasoned deregulation of the senses' - André Breton Second Manifesto 1930 In his notes for Music for Witches and Alchemists * lutenist Lutz Kirchhof describes how witchcraft used music and dance to stimulate the life-forces in an atmosphere that was congenial but at the same time mysterious and dreamlike; which echoes the founder of surrealism André Breton 's view of alchemy as a tool to deregulate the senses. In a 2012 post I wrote about Michael Maier's Occult Art of Fugue and a transcription for lute of one of Maier's Atlanta Fugiens features on Music for Witches and Alchemists . Lutz Kirc

Ruminating on success

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Recent adventures in classical amnesia took me back to the Third Symphony 'The Song of the Night' by Karol Szymanowski in the compelling recording by Antal Dorati and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. What is remarkable is not that Szymanowski set the poetry of the Sufi master Rumi, but that he set it in 1916 . In the intervening century Szymanowski has failed to reach the audience he deserves, but Rumi has become a best seller. So using the criteria currently applied to classical music , Rumi has succeeded and Szymanowski has not. But is that really true? Here is Stephen Schwarz writing in The Other Islam If Rumi is the best-selling poet in America today, in most English-language editions of his writings, Islam and metaphysics have been extracted like internal organs from his verse and it falls to the idiom of the gift card. A Jew or Christian who desires to attain the peace of the Sufi without entering into Islam will probably not gain much by attempting a Sufism lite,

When you hear hoofbeats think beyond Gregorian chant

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Last year Universal Music ceo Max Hole famously declared that the abolition of formal dress is a sine qua non for classical music's survival . This year the biggest classical sales by far to date have been achieved by an album from Univeral Music's Decca label made by musicians who have literally vowed to wear formal dress for the rest of their lives. News that the latest album from the Benedictines of Mary has, like the nuns previous two albums, topped the classical charts will come as no surprise to those who remember the slew of Gregorian best sellers that started in 1994 with the monks of Santo Domingo de Silos . Yet, despite this, classical music's movers and shakers continue to view the sales success of monastic Sisters and Brothers with condescension. Which is very short-sighted. Educator, artist and Sufi adept Shems Friedlander is the author of a popular book titled When You Hear Hoofbeats Think of a Zebra: Talks on Sufism . The moral of the book's tit

Late night thought listening to Silvestrov's Fifth Symphony

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Would the world really be a worse place if we had one less performance of Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony and one more of Valentin Silvestrov's Fifth ? Also on Facebook and Twitter . Image shows contemporary wood carving of desert monks who lived as stlites. 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).

Music that makes no noise of intrusion

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My world and my music are never one and the same . Which means my music of the moment varies from day to day. Last night dependent arising dictated that it was the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov 's Stille Lieder - unmissable sample here . These songs deserve better than my own clumsy prose; so here is the opening from Paul Griffiths ' masterly sleeve note for ECM's recording of Stille Lieder : We may feel we have always known these songs, and in a sense we have. The first hearing will not seem the first, though we will remember it for that slow shock of familiarity, how it awakens memories - those we knew we had, and those we did not. This is part of these songs' silence, that they make no noise of intrusion. 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).

Classical music is not dead - it is suburbanized

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My recent post speculating on links between the Rite of Spring and Sufism quoted Turkish pianist Süher Pekinel on Stravinsky's "global understanding". One of classical music's most enduring works may or may not have its roots in Turkish-Islamic trance rituals, but it is incontestable that classical music has a long history of embracing Eastern traditions. This stretches from Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail , through Rimsky-Korsakov's homage to Arabia Scheherazade and Mahler's setting of ancient Chinese poems in Das Lied von der Erde , to Britten's Curlew River  based on a Japanese Noh play . But while classical music has a long history of fraternizing with the East, it also has a long history of moulding those influences so they, to quote Jordi Savall , "fit into the mental schemes of Western audiences". In the past this remoulding to Western tastes was a form of cultural imperialism , but today it has become just another part

Does the Rite of Spring have its roots in Sufism?

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That painting on the cover of Harry Oldmeadow's Journeys East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions is by Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947). Russian aristocrat, Theosophist, and artist Roerich is well-known as the designer of the controversial 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring , but his wider role in the gestation of the Rite is less clear. In his monumental life of Stravinsky biographer Stephen Walsh describes how "early collaborators like Benois and Roerich found to their surprise that their part in the creative process had been conveniently forgotten or trivialized" in the composer's self-serving Chroniques de ma vie . While elsewhere pianist Süher Pekinel tells how "before beginning to compose Le Sacre du Printemps , Stravinsky was apparently interested in the rituals of pagan tribes and contacted Roerich to ask for detailed information about them". Süher Pekinel , who was born in Istanbul, recorded t

Independent record label 1 - Corporate record label 0

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It is unfortunate that in early music authenticity has led to sterility rather than creativity, and it is doubly unfortunate that this stylistic sterility has spread beyond early music to the mainstream repertoire . Just as the world and the music of audiences are never one and the same , so the stylistic world of the musician should never be one and the same. Evidence of the power of stylistic diversity is provided by viola da gamba virtuosos Fahmi Alqhai . Born in Seville in 1976 with a Syrian father and Palestinian mother, Fahmi Alqhai spent his first 11 years in Syria before studying in Europe with teachers including Paolo Pandolfo . He has gone on to play with leading ensembles including Jordi Savall's Hesperion XXI while also performing flamenco and jazz . In between all that, and presumably in deference to the vagaries of the classical music industry, the young violist also qualified as a Bachelor of Dentistry at the University of Seville. Fahmi Alqhai's mission, as

Topical thoughts on listening to Britten's Noye's Fludde

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The Golden Vanity ends with the ensemble singing 'I'm sinking in the Lowland Sea!', a description that today applies to parts of south-west England . Britten was, of course, influenced by Eastern cultures and that coupling of The Golden Vanity with Noye's Fludde - which sets The Chester Miracle Play - takes us on an overgrown path to the mysticism of author and traveller Paul Brunton (1898-1981). Brunton was one of the first to introduce the Eastern esoteric practices of yoga and meditation to the West, while his exposition of mentalism anticipated recent developments in quantum entanglement by half a century; yet, despite this, he is a forgotten figure. While listening to the Golden Vanity and Noye's Fludde this morning as yet another positively Biblical downpour battered at the windows, I was reminded of these wise words written by Paul Brunton in 1937: We humans have become so self-important and do self-conceited in our own eyes that it does not occur

Listener is performer and performer is listener

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That photo of Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, which was taken on a tour of Japan in 1981, tells a different story to my 2008 post No flowers please for Herbert von Karjan . With the current fixation on attracting new audiences it is puzzling that the relationship between artist and audience is paid so little attention. In 1964 Benjamin Britten wrote about the "' holy triangle of composer, performer, listener ", while nonlocality , which was anticipated by Einstein , formulated in Bell's Theorem , and confirmed by the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment , tells us that artist and audience are interdependent because the observer affects the observed. This interdependence was expressed very succinctly by the great Sufi master Rumi in these words: "The listener is the performer, and the performer is the listener". Yet the cult of celebrity and modern large concert halls have increased the distance between the listener and the performer, even though new audi

Chocolate is the root of all evil

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Chocolate comes, chocolate goes, chocolate disappears. And that's natural. When you understand this, your relationship with chocolate can change. When you DEEPLY understand this, you will truly have no fear of anything at all. That allegory by Lama Yeshe conveys the essence of Buddhism, but it also contains another important teaching. Classical music is riddled with silly conventions . Less damaging conventions include composer anniversaries , binary mindsets , concert etiquette , proscenium arches , embedded journalists and classical charts . Among the more damaging conventions are celebrity , industry experts , discrimination , ambition and greed . But, just like chocolate, these damaging conventions come and go and finally disappear. And that's natural. When classical music understands this, its relationship with audiences - new and old - can change. When classical music DEEPLY understands this it will truly have no fear of anything at all. Also on Facebook and

Are virtual concert halls the future of classical music?

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While researching my recent piece on Human League co-founder and surround sound proponent Martyn Ware I noticed a list of his top ten albums for headphone listening on the Bowers & Wilkins website. There are only two classical albums in the list, and neither Leonard Bernstein's Romantic Favourites For Strings nor Philip Glass' Koyaanisqatsi strike me as being notably headphone-friendly. In a recent Facebook post Ilan Volkov enthused about a rare performance of Éliane Radigue's Tibetan Book of the Dead inspired electronic masterpiece Trilogie de la Mort at Le Cube in Paris . This performance prompted Ilan to describe it as an "amazing work, so inspiring and moving" and my personal best classical albums for headphone listening* would definitely include Éliane Radigue's own truly mind-blowing studio recording of Trilogie de la Mort ; this is released on the Experimental Intermedia label and was featured here in a 2010 post . The unique and immersi

BBC Radio 3 - lies, damned lies, and statistics

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'But while programmes and presenters change, listeners remain' - BBC Radio 3 controller Roger Wright writing in Telegraph Feb 6 2014 'In the last quarter of 2013 BBC Radio 3's total listener hours plunged year-on-year by 16.4%, driven by a decrease both in number of listeners - down 3.3% - and average hours per listener which were down an astonishing 13.9%'. - analysis of RAJAR independent audience data published on Feb 6 2014 My header photo was taken at the Scopitone Digital Arts Festival in Nantes, France and first appeared in How John Cage was totally wired . 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). Also on Facebook and Twitter .

Rameau takes a trip with Scott Ross

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That photo shows the charismatic Scott Ross taking a trip across the rooftop of Chateau Assass in Languedoc where he recorded Jean-Philippe Rameau's complete harpsichord music in 1975 . Last week I expressed one wish for this year's Rameau anniversary : that Warner Classics reissues Scott Ross' masterly interpretation of Rameau using with the original dress convention defying artwork . Now Warner has contacted me with the excellent news that the complete 1975 recordings are being reissued this autumn. They were non-committal about the artwork, but it will be good to have Scott Ross' Rameau in new CD transfers to treasure alongside his monumental Scarlatti set , irrespective of the picture on the packaging. It is fashionable in some culturally commentated quarters to deride Warner Classic's due to its ownership by Ukrainian-born American Leonard Blavatnik . This ownership by Blavatnik's private conglomerate Access Industries is no more and no less conte

Classical music takes the shape of the container that holds it

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Sounds fly around the listener and are able, he says, to awaken dormant primal impulses. "Ancestrally, we had to be engaged with the sound world in a much more spatial way for survival, from birds sweeping down behind you to the weather approaching from a distance. If you take a high-timbre piece of sound and move it over the listener's head from behind, it gives them a frisson, like some vestigial flight-or-fight response thing." In a recent post about making classical music more engaging for new audiences I pointed out that "the spatial opportunities offered by new audio technologies remains neglected". The quote above, which confirms the power of the spatial, comes from a Guardian article about Martyn Ware's pioneering surround sound projects. Ware is best known as a founder member of The Human League , but is also a leading exponent of immersive sound projects including a short-lived surround sound auditorium in Sheffield. More recently he has collabo

My world and my music are never one and the same

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Independent radio audience (RAJAR) data released this morning underlines the disastrous situation at BBC Radio 3. In the last quarter of 2013 the classical station's total listener hours plunged year-on-year by 16.4%, driven by a decrease both in number of listeners - down 3.3% - and average hours per listener which were down an astonishing 13.9%. It has to be said quite bluntly that there is no evidence at all that the continuing poor performance of BBC Radio 3 is due to anything other than the BBC's signature brand of mismanagement . While Radio 3 slips into the doldrums, radio in general is in rude health, with today's official BBC press release headlined ' RAJAR Q4 2013: more people than ever listening to radio after record-breaking quarter '. During the quarter BBC Radio 4 - a comparable station to Radio 3 - attracted a record audience; while Classic FM - which BBC Radio 3 has tried so desperately to ape - increased its audience by more than 250,000. Separ

Gustavo Dudamel to perform at Sochi Winter Olympics

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That headline is, of course, fiction, and can you imagine the outcry if it was true? But the facts are equally alarming: Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolivar Orchestra - classical music's social conscience - appeared on January 27th as part of the 2014 Abu Dhabi Festival in the United Arab Emirates, a region with a human rights record that makes contemporary Russia look like a liberal paradise. Article 80 of the Abu Dhabi Penal Code designates sodomy as punishable with imprisonment of up to 14 years, and in 2005 UAE justice minister Mohammed bin Nukhaira Al Dhahiri reportedly stated “There will be no room for homosexual and queer acts in the UAE... our society does not accept queer behaviour, either in word or in action”. The United States is this year’s “country of honor” at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Festival and joining Gustavo Dudamel in the United Arab Emirates's capital this year are Renée Fleming and the Dresden Philharmonic , Miloš Karadaglić ,  Vladimir Ashkenazy with Ga

Rameau minus one elitist convention

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Fellow blogger Jessica Duchen offers admirable advocacy of the Rameau anniversary . However my antipathy towards composer anniversaries means I have little enthusiasm for the 250th anniversary of Rameau's death, despite a profound admiration for his music. But, in view of the general acceptance that formal dress is one of classical music's elitist conventions , I do have one wish for the Rameau anniversary: that Warner reissues Scott Ross ' masterly 1975 recording of the complete harpsichord music using the original artwork seen above . 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).

Let's refresh jaded ears with Classic Amnesia

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Widespread interest in Forgotify - a service that streams never-played Spotify tracks - is a wakeup call for classical music. So I'm proposing a crowd-funded streaming service called Classic Amnesia. Just as Spotify is an accurate barometer of popular music fashions, so the Proms are an accurate barometer of classical fashions. Classic Amnesia would interrogate the BBC Proms database and only play music by composers who have had less than five performances in the history of the venerable concert series. As an example Franz Berwald, a composer whose neglected symphonies memorably bridge the classical/romantic divide, would be on the Classic Amnesia playlist. Berwald has received just one Prom performance compared with 273 of Shostakovich's music . I make no claims that Berwald's music is the equal of Shostakovich's. But is Shostakovich really 273 times better than Berwald? Or is this obsession with a few composers just dumbing down by another name? Other composer

Be before all else a breathing animal

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'Be before all else a breathing animal', Franz Brugen used to say in his provocative way in the masterclasses he gave in the late 1970s, which I was lucky enough to take part in. This programme is therefore an investigation of the original power of music generated by the 'primal breath', which can lead to trance, to meditation, or to jubilation ; and since this is, above all, a very personal album, based on my need to breathe, on the universal quest for the moment , and on a highly emotional relationship to the pieces that make it up, I have gathered round me a group of instrumentalists who are my closest friends and partners. That is virtuoso flautist Pierre Hamon in the photo above, and the quote comes from his notes for the 2009 album Hypnos . This refreshingly counterituitive mix of the early and contemporary on the indie Zig-Zag Territoires label is slipping into the penumbra of 21st century forbidden music , so hurry. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any