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Showing posts from June, 2015

Music as a bridge between form and the formless

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It was only when I stood on the Aswan High Dam and looked south across Lake Nasser that I really understood the tragedy of the Nubian people . Beneath more than 2000 square miles of water lie the Nubian homelands that were flooded when the dam was built in the 1960s, and between the dam and Aswan are the soulless villages that the Nubians were resettled in. Hamza El Din (1929-2006) - seen above - made it his mission to preserve the Nubian culture that was being extinguished by the waters of Lake Nasser. He was born in the Nubian village of Toshka which was flooded when the High Dam was built. After training as an electrical engineer he went on to study Arabic music in Cairo and Western music at the Academy of Santa Celia in Rome before moving to the West Coast of the States. He played at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, recorded two albums for Vanguard, jammed with the Grateful Dead and taught at the the legendary Mills College in Oakland, California. A collaboration with the Kronos

Conflict cannot exist without agreement

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When nations fight they must first agree on something to fight about. Conflict cannot exist without agreement, an agreement more fundamental than the conflict. To fight there must be cooperation. Those words come from Jonathan Harvey in his 1999 book In Quest of Spirit ; such penetrating insight supports the view I expressed at the time of his death that Jonathan had a Bodhisattva mind. Header graphic is Tunisian oud virtuoso Anouar Brahem 's ECM CD Le Voyage de Sahar . Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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).

Where have all the meaningful experiences gone?

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Don't open the door to the study and begin reading Take down a musical instrument Let the beauty we love be what we do Those wise words are by the Sufi master Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi , and the photo shows an original Zuckermann harpsichord kit from 1968 . I have recounted here before how during the second half of the twentieth century the harpsichord came back from the dead to reclaim its rightful position on the concert platform. Wolfgang Zuckermann's $150 harpsichord kits, which were launched in 1959, played a major roler in this rehabilitation, which extended beyond early music into the works of John Cage , Elliott Carter and Maurice Ohana . In the 1960s John Cage and Merce Cunningham were neighbours of Zuckermann in Greenwich Village, and the premiere of Cage's HPSCHD in 1969 used Zuckermann harpsichords . Wolfgang Zuckermann sold his harpsichord business in 1969 and left America in protest against the Vietnam war. He eventually settled in France and ran an idio

Twelve-tone donkey serenade

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That photo was taken by me when hiking in the Samaria Gorge in Crete a few weeks ago. On my iPod playlist in Crete was the Violin Concerto by Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas , in the BIS recording by Georgios Demertzis accompanied by the Malmö Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nikos Christodoulou - sample here . Hans Keller, who knew a thing or two about these things, rated Skalkottas as one of the few great twentieth-century composers of ‘symphonic thought’, and considered him to be the only ‘symphonic genius’ after Schoenberg whose ‘genius’ remains to be discovered. Hans Keller died thirty years ago; but despite the advent of the digital age of plenty , Nikos Skalkottas' genius remains undiscovered . Also on Facebook and Twitter . No comps involved in this post. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Thoughts on a modern Greek tragedy

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Then those who own a great deal, when they heard this creaking, were frightened. Because they know how to read every sign in detail, and often, from miles away, they can make out what profits them. So right away they put on the sandals of treachery. And half of them on one side and half on the other, they pulled the rest to and fro, saying: "Your deeds are good and fine, and here you see the closed gateway to the courtyard of lambs. Raise your hand and we are with you, and we'll take care of the fire and the iron. Don't worry about homes, don't feel sorry for families, don't ever let the voice of son or father or younger brother stop you. Should any one of you worry or feel sorry or stop, let him know this: his will be the sin, and on his head will fall the fire and iron we brought." That quote comes the monumental poetic cycle The Axion Esti by 1979 Nobel Literature Prize laureate Odysseus Elytis . The extract is taken from the translation by Edmund Keeley

On the western fringe of Islam

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With both Pope Francis and Alex Ross quoting the ninth century Sufi mystic Ali al-Khawas in the same week, we can safely assume that Sufism has finally hit the big time. My photo shows the darîh (shrine) of the Sufi marabout (saint) Sidi Moussa at Aglou on the Atlantic coast in southern Morocco. This is the western fringe of Islam, and Sufism absorbs local cultures as it travels. The animistic practices absorbed by the mystical brotherhood from Jajouka in the north of Morocco and the gnawa from the sub-Saharan south are examples of this adaption. Aglou is Berber country, and the Berbers mix observance of saintly and animistic cults with more orthodox Islam in a syncretic tradition known as Maraboutic Islam. This finds expression in the region's music, most notably among the Gnawa who blend their sub-Saharan origins with Berber and Sufi influences. I took the header photo during my recent travels in Morocco, and the new album Taziri from Mehdi Nassouli and Titi Robin w

Give us something else, give us something new

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Carl Nielsen declared : "Give us something else, give us something new... and let us feel that we are still alive, instead of constantly going around in deedless admiration for the conventional". But his pleadings continue to be ignored, and in 2015 the conventions of composer anniversaries dictate that we hear little newer than a mix of Nielsen and Sibelius. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge admirer of Nielsen's music and it deserves to be heard more . But the opportunity to explore important music on its margins is being missed. At the top of the list of missed opportunities are Robert Simpson's eleven symphonies. Robert Simpson (1921-1997) was an authority on Nielsen's music, and his opus includes the 'Variations on a theme by Nielsen'. Much is made of the influence of Nielsen and Bruckner on Simpson's symphonies; which is unfair, as he speaks with a voice that is his own. Less is made of the influence of Haydn, which is also unfair. Simp

Beats of India

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My views on Cambridge seem to undulate continually from good to bad, although I'm still not particularly knocked out by the people I meet. However, I think most people going up to university suffer from misconceptions about the types they will meet there. Thinking they are going to find a place brimming over with interesting and enlightened people, it doesn't take them long to discover that the average student is in fact extraordinarily dull. So one just has to be patient and hope that one will eventually discover some of the above average. There does at the moment seem to be a hope of better things to come. I went to an extremely interesting meeting of the Asian Music Circle the other night. It consisted of a lecture given by an Indian dancer about the themes and rhythms involved in Indian dancing as well as the philosophy behind it. There were also practical demonstrations given by him and his rather beautiful wife. It was all fascinating but so complicated that the mind

Sound that is unlimited, uncreated and immeasurable

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I aspire to a future in which the deepest level of personality known to human beings, the radiant, still point beyond words, is encouraged by music to become manifest. That is Jonathan Harvey writing in his exploration of music and spirituality In Quest of Spirit . The new Albany CD of his chamber music from the New York New Music Ensemble includes Cirrus Light . This is one of three works that Jonathan composed in the last year of his life when suffering from motor neurone disease , and his programme note explains how it was inspired by the "the long hours sitting in my wheelchair gazing at the summer sky". Cirrus Light lasts for just six minutes and is scored for solo clarinet. The programme note also describes how: "The cirrus clouds, which are so high, well formed and slow changing, were often illuminated by a beautiful light. The clarinet searches the sky for them". Jonathan drew inspiration and consolation from Buddhism, and Ajahn Sumedho , a teacher in t

Classical music should not be the art of compromise

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My thanks go to Joyce DiDonato for contributing to the debate about musicians performing in countries where human rights are under threat. Having spent some time reflecting on her contribution, I am convinced of Ms DiDonato's commitment to humanitarian action. But I am not convinced by the defence of her decision to openly criticise the Russian regime and refuse to perform in Russia, while remaining resolutely silent on Oman and China and performing high profile concerts there. Her beautiful news that classical music in the right hands can change the world is no surprise to me, and. many posts here have expressed that very sentiment . However, the view that I expressed in my recent posts was that commercially driven compromises are undermining that precious ability of classical music to change the world. My concern is that by remaining silent and thereby tacitly supporting despotic regimes, classical music is earning the same reputation as the much-ridiculed Formula One, name

There are two sides to every coin

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What Mikis Theodorakis described as the political dimension of the artist has been a leitmotif on An Overgrown Path over the years. In recent months several posts have focused on the decision of humanitarian activist Joyce DiDonato to perform in Oman and China , while remaining silent about the with well-documented histories of human rights violations in those countries. In recognition that there are two sides to every coin I invited Ms DiDonato to respond to my concerns. Her response is reproduced in full below, and my thoughts prompted by it are published as a separate post . Dear Mr. Shingleton, I had intentions of crafting a lucid, erudite response to your numerous articles about my recent performances in Oman and Asia, which you have vociferously denounced, but as your postings kept pouring in, there seems to be only one possibility of response, and that is a defensive one, which I am admittedly loathe to do. Yet, I naively promised you a response which I shall honour

In praise of music it is worth hearing now and then

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Today's binary culture forces everything - including art - into the dualistic framework of 0 or 1 , good or bad. A classical work is either a masterpieces or an also ran, and as a result audiences are denied permission to like unfamiliar music . In the bibliography of Be Here Now Ram Dass uses the less exclusive taxonomy of books to hang out with, books to visit now and then, and books its useful to have met. Every composer anniversary cloud has a silver lining, and the Scriabin centenary brings Decca's laudable budget priced Scriabin: The Complete Works . Among the 18 CDs there is music it is useful to have met such as Alexander Nemtin 's contentious realisation of the monumental Preparation for the Final Mystery - described by the composer's biographer Faubion Bowers as a “cataclysmic opus to end the world and its present race of men". Then there is music to visit now and then such as the three symphonies, which include the overexposed Poem of Ecstasy . And