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Showing posts from June, 2014

Why classical music needs to see the light

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Morocco is a rhapsody in blue and many other colours; as can be seen from the accompanying photos which were taken during my recent stay in Sidi Ifni - a town named after a Sufi saint *. Colour plays an important part in the all night healing ceremonies called lila of the Gnawa brotherhoods in Morocco. The Gnawa practise a mix of mystical Islam and animism, and in their healing ceremonies music, incense and colours placate the spirits**. Trance inducing music plays as white smoke billows from a brazier burning musk, and, at the start of the lila , black and white benzoin incense is passed around. During the ritual Sidi Mimum is invoked; he is the patron saint of the Gnawa and his colour is black. The spirits in red follow led by Sidi Hamu, he is the spirit of the slaughterhouse and demands blood. As the celebrants emerge from the trance at the conclusion of the lila , lighted candles are passed around as a blessing - baraka - before being extinguished as the celebrants return to the

We should be playing hard ball with public funding

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Following their second defeat in two first round matches, England seems certain to be out of the 2014 soccer World Cup. In the 2010 tournament England was eliminated after being thrashed - the BBC's word not mine - in the second round by Germany. The official valuation of the England team is £550 million, the third most expensive team in the tournament. England manager Roy Hodgson is paid £3.5 million a year by the FA (Football Association), the second highest paid manager at the World Cup. The FA receives £28.4 million annual funding from Sport England for grassroots development of football. Sports England is, in turn, funded by the UK government and the National Lottery , organisations which are both important sources of arts funding. Cue next story on cuts in public funding for grassroots arts projects in England... My wife took the photo in Agadir, Morocco, a country where football flourishes at grassroots level despite the lack of rock star salaries. Any ot

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal

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In that photo of Groupe Jeune France , the senior composer of the influential group, André Jolivet, is seated at the piano, and Olivier Messiaen is standing on the left, with Yves Baudrier and Jean Yves Daniel-Lesur to his right. The provocative observation by Igor Stravinsky which forms my headline leads to another turning in the Messiaen path . My recent post How Olivier Messiaen became part of the Vichy myth explained that one of the chapters in La musique à Paris sous l'Occupation - the book that has prompted a reappraisal of Messiaen's wartime activities - is contributed by musicologists Yves Balmer and Christopher Brent Murray . Now Caroline Rae , who is a senior lecturer in the School of Music at Cardiff University and an authority on André Jolivet, has contacted me with some pertinent information about her forthcoming book André Jolivet: Music, Art and Literature *. Yves Balmer and Christopher Brent Murray have also contributed a chapter to her new book, a contri

How Olivier Messiaen became part of the Vichy myth

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A comprehensive review of the first week of the Aldeburgh Festival by Richard Fairman in the FT revolves around the new production of Owen Wingrave , which is described, quite correctly, as "one of Britten’s most outspoken anti-war works". Among the other works grouped with Owen Wingrave is Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen , which was given a stunning performance by the Festival's artistic director Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich. In his review Richard Fairman identifies the Messiaen work as being "written in the thick of another war in 1943". Which, again, is perfectly correct; but bracketing Owen Wingrave with Visions de l'Amen can also be interpreted as implying that the Messiaen work shares some of the anti-war context of Britten's opera. Because this implication is a recurring theme in contextualising Messiaen's music, it deserves closer examination. In a January 2012 post I asked the question Is Olivier Messiaen p

Try listening to this without discrimination

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A leading music critic's dismissal of a perfectly valid piece of experimental music theatre as a return "to the juvenile excesses of the Sixties" prompts me to reflect on listening without discrimination. In Journey in Ladakh Andrew Harvey writes about the 'European need to be entertained, and stimulated' and how: The mind's terror of boredom is the more acute because the mind suspects that through boredom, through its extreme experience, another reality might be reached that would threaten its pretensions, and perhaps even dissolve them altogether. My recent listening has included Simple Lines of Enquiry , which the admirably enlightened Alex Ross describes  as "Ann Southam’s immense, mysterious piano piece". In it Ann Southam (1937-2010) creates an extreme but rich experience by developing a single twelve-interval row for fifty-nine minutes. Simple Lines of Enquiry is a perfect example of what classical music should be doing - challenging c

Music critic deplores dumpy sound at Aldeburgh Festival

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The following night’s choral event took us back to the juvenile excesses of the Sixties, as the a cappella group Exaudi sang Antoine Brumel’s sublime ‘Earthquake Mass’ with progressively deafening electronic accompaniment representing an aural simulation of a quake. The earplugs handed out at the door seemed to suggest that even the management had belatedly realised this was not a frightfully clever idea. That is Michael Church - of dumpy soprano fame - resisting paradigm shifts in the Independent . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Photo via Russell Haswell . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use", for the purpose of critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

I mean a REAL performance where routine is traded for risk...

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Yesterday's post about the Earthquake Mass at the Aldeburgh Festival is, quite understandably, creating a big social media buzz . Above is a photo of what was a REAL performance - a one-off where routine is traded for risk and the musicians become players in a drama. Exaudi's director James Weeks has already become a victim of the earthquake and one of his singers can be seen leaving the stage having reached the point where his part in Brumel's score has rotted away, while Russell Haswell is crouching to the right creating his apocalyptic electronic noise. Will the next seismic shift in classical music be a late night Earthquake Mass at the 2015 BBC Proms? Also on Facebook and Twitter . Photo via Aldeburgh Music . My ticket for the Earthquake Mass was bought at the box office. Any copyrighted material is included for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Art should be dangerous

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When did you last experience a true performance? Not one of those musically perfect but soulless concerts by a celebrity maestro and a touring orchestra - Edinburgh yesterday and Salzburg tomorrow - that is more restatement than performance. I mean a real performance, a one-off where routine is traded for risk, where the musicians become players in a drama, an event which, to paraphrae Carl Nielsen , gives us something else, gives us something new, instead of expressing deedless admiration for the conventional. Canadian composer, educator and sound ecologist R. Murray Schafer declared that art should be dangerous , and he would surely approve of last night's Earthquake Mass at the Aldeburgh Festival . Antoine Brumel's Missa Et ecce terrae motus is known as the Earthquake Mass because it is based on the Easter Plainchant from Matthew 28:2: 'And all at once there was a violent earthquake'. Its innovative twelve part writing makes the Earthquake Mass one of the

Scott Ross and the paradox of genius

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On that sleeve for his 1985 recording of the Goldberg Variations , Scott Ross is seen standing in the grounds of Château d'Assas in Languedoc. It was here that many of his great recordings were made. Then, as today, the château dwelt in the twilight zone between grandeur and dereliction, and thirty years ago the recording sessions were regularly interrupted by the sound of rats scurrying across the floor. Scott Ross was born in Pittsburgh in 1951, and moved to France with his mother following the death of his father in 1964. He studied at the conservatoires in Nice and Paris, and first came to Château d'Assas in 1969 to give music lessons to the grandson of its owner Mme. Simone Demangel . When an early music academy was established at the château, the harpsichordist gave masterclasses and became a frequent visitor. At first he stayed in a room in one of the towers, but from 1983 he rented a small house across the road from the château. The photos below were taken by me on a

Earplugs provided as Aldeburgh targets a new audience

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Important information regarding Faster Than Sound: Earthquake Mass We are looking forward to welcoming you to what should be a remarkable late-night event in the Britten Studio this Saturday 14 June, 10pm. This will feature contrasts between quiet, unamplified performance and, as befits the title of the event, intermittently loud electronic sound. EXAUDI will sing Brumel’s Mass unamplified. In between the movements sound artist Russell Haswell has produced electronic interjections which, by way of dramatic contrast, are very loud, harking back to the origin of the piece. During these amplified sections some audience members may wish to use earplugs, which will be provided. Our experience is that this will help comfort levels without diminishing the dramatic impact of the performance. That email arrived today from the Aldeburgh Festival, and sound artist Russell Haswell is seen above. Good to see classical music has not lost its aura at Aldeburgh. And good to see such an imagin

Classical music is not good at handling paradigm shifts

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Back in 2006 I ran a post about the Vienna Symphonic Library , a computer program that uses technology to replicate the sound of an orchestra. My post's headline quoted the creator of the program Herb Tucmandl, a former cellist with the Vienna Philharmonic, as saying "I don't think orchestras are threatened". Which is ironic, as a major row has blown up over the use of the Vienna Symphonic Library to accompany singers in a Ring cycle at Hartford Wagner Festival in Connecticut. Let me say at this point that I have a great deal of sympathy for the musicians whose livelihood is threatened by this new technology; although it must be pointed out that the Hartford Festival management has made it clear that a Ring cycle with a conventional orchestra was never a viable option. But what is happening at Hartford Wagner Festival is very disturbing; not only in its potential impact on the future of live music, but also in the confrontational reaction of some orchestral mu

Great conductor who was also a great matchmaker

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It was with considerable sadness that I learnt of the death of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos at the age of 80. It is always very sad when a great musician passes on. However there was also sadness at a personal level. In 1977, while working for EMI, I was involved in the marketing of maestro Fruhbeck de Burgos recording of Mauel de Falla's opera Atlántida in the posthumous completion by Ernesto Halfter. But there was an earlier and far more important link. In 1973 I took a young and beautiful lady on our first date to hear Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting Brahms and Stravinsky at the Royal Festival Hall. Three years later we were married, and thirty-eight years on that love duet is still going strong . Muchas gracias maestro. 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).

It's the only good bit in the whole thing

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Is it my imagination or is the composer anniversary bandwagon finally running out of steam? Today is the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss' birth. But where is the wall to wall Strauss on BBC Radio 3 , and where are the Richard and Pauline cufflinks and Rosenkavalier iPhone covers ? But the purpose of this post is not to wallow in schadenfreude . It is to draw attention to one of the more imaginative examples of anniversary programming - the recently released CD of Elgar's Second Symphony by the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim. There were, of course, close links between Elgar and Richard Strauss , and if this acclaimed recording* gives Elgar's masterpiece the audience it deserves outside Britain, I will happily put my dislike of composer anniversaries on hold. Making the connection with Elgar is a positive way to exploit the Strauss anniversary. Let's hope similar imaginative thinking will result in a reassessment of the writings of Herman H

There will now be a four month intermission

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Kierkegaard declared that too much possibility leads to madness. Today in classical music, possibility is assumed to be synonymous with anti-elitist accessibility , and the result is madness . An alternative approach is to view possibility as the inverse of accessibility. As in the Patria cycle of Canadian composer R Murray Schafer . The twelve parts of Patria dwarf Wagner's Ring and Stockhausen's Licht . They are all written for performance away from conventional music venues. Princess of the Stars , which opens the cycle, is performed by a rural lake and requires the audience to arrive in the middle of the night. The Greatest Show on Earth , part 3, is a carnival for 150 performers and explores accessibility by breaking down the barriers between audience and performers. Part 4, T he Black Theatre of Hermes Trismegistos explores medieval alchemy; it has been performed in an abandoned circus building in Liège, Belgium, and in Toronto's Union Station starting at midnig

So in emptiness there is no form

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Emptiness is at the heart of the great perennial traditions . Sufi rituals are a journey from form to the formless . In Buddhism the Heart Sutra describes how: 'So in emptiness there is no form/ no sensation, conception/ discrimination, awareness. Alexander Benzin explains the Buddhist concept of voidness as a total absence of the strange, impossible, ways of existence that we fantasize and project onto our experiences. While Lama Yeshe described the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tantra as dissolving our ordinary perceptions of ourselves and creating an empty space for the essential clarity of our deepest being. Unlike its Western counterpart, Eastern art music relies on improvisation - using voidness to bridge form and the formless. The Savall family has a long tradition of uniting East and West , and Impro , Ferran Savall 's second solo album, documents the evolution of his unique style of improvisation over the last decade. For the thirteen untitled improvisations Ferra