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Showing posts from November, 2015

All that is important is that music speaks to the listener

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Most recently of all, I've been contemplating the return of that great theme at the end of the Elgar's First Symphony, asking myself whence come those extraordinary chords that intermittently add stresses. Tangentially, there is a video of Tod Handley conducting the work on YouTube, and I wish I could make it mandatory viewing for all neophyte conductors, above all, keeping in mind that this was an appearance as guest conductor to boot (with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra !). This is great conducting, I would say. What my mind kept returning to was what in Elgar's mind inspired him to write those chords, and I came to think that the answer to a question quite often posed is that all we really need to know is what is in the music, though it would be a huge bonus if we could hear from the composer what thought process it issued from, if any. I can't answer the question whether absolute music 'says' something coming from the mind of the composer, but all that i

How to future-proof your music library

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This streaming service is guaranteed never to go into receivership . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Principles - do you remember them?

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There have been successful protests against the proposed visit this week to Cambridge University by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi . This welcome revival of the antiquated notion of principles reminds me of a story about the sitar master Ustad Vilayat Khan *: Khan's irreverence is legendary. One famous incident occured when the Indian prime minister was scheduled to appear at a Vilayat Khan duet performance with shehnai master Bismillah Khan in Delhi. Vilayat Khan always prioritized his audience, and announced he would start on time as planned. The organizers informed Khan that the prime minister would arrive a half-hour late, sit for ten minutes to hear the music,and then leave; and Khan would stop the performance twice, to acknowledge the prime minister's arrival and departure. Khan flatly refused,and had no intention of disrespecting his audience or the music by allowing such interruptions. Indeed, why was the prime minister coming for ten minutes if he knew that

Classical musician's brave journey from Mozart to Morisco

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In the 1950s a number of prominent jazz musicians converted to Islam, including - to use their adopted names - Ahmad Jamal , and Sahib Shihab , Yusef Lateef . One of the most notable converts was the drummer Art Blakey , while the very personal heterodox cosmology of the most celebrated jazz musician of that period John Coltrane was influenced by the beliefs of his first wife Naima, who was a Muslim convert . Many of the musicians who converted were African Americans endeavouring to escape from the shadow of Western colonialism ; they saw Islam as an attractive alternative to Christianity within the Abrahamic tradition, and jazz at that time was heavily influenced by music from cultures beyond the Judeo-Christian world. These circumstances were unique to the 1950s, and fewer jazz musicians have taken the path to Islam since. But those who have include the bass player Danny Thompson who converted in 1990; he has played with many great musicians, including Nick Drake on the legendary

We are born in mystery, live in mystery, and die in mystery

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Why Bruno Walter's Mozart should exert such a magnetic hold is a mystery. His performance style is politically incorrect, his recordings predate the digital age by decades, and his reputation has never 'benefited' from the wonders of modern marketing. But do we actually need to understand the mystery behind the magnetic power captured on that 1930s archive footage of him conducting the Berlin Philharmonic? Should we not simply accept, as the polymath Huston Smith has told us , that: "We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery". Early next week there will be an extended post here about the mysterious power of music to uplift and unite. After that On An Overgrown Path will fall silent for a while as I travel again in those regions where the digital has not yet totally supplanted the magical. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be remo

What happens when every journalist makes the same error?

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How Music Got Free: What happens when an entire generation commits the same crime? is a forensic and insightful analysis of the rise of MP3 technology and the parallel decline of the record industry. I was particularly struck by author Stephen Witt 's observation that the only field that handled the digital transition worse than music was journalism . No review samples involved in this post. Slivered disc is sampled from the cover of the UK edition of How Music Got Free . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter .

Conductors have to try to help the composer

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But a masterpiece comes when you must be convinced that’s a masterpiece, and I make sure that’s a masterpiece. If you play a very boring performance of the Glazunov Number Six or Number Seven , people will be saying it’s not a masterpiece. You must convince them that’s a masterpiece, and there’s a lot of masterpieces which people don’t know. It’s my idea that we should not to be with only this great stuff of repertoire, which basically everyone conducts. You know them exactly and you love them, this Brahms Symphony Number Four; you love all Brahms’ music. Of course you want to explore very much, but you’re doing it anyway. But that’s a masterpiece. I had to discover the meaning of other composers which are around that did not write a masterpiece. It’s second rate music or third rate music, but don’t tell that to anyone. Try to convince people that’s not. Every conductor says that Glazunov’s music is second rate music or third rate music, but I don’t think so. This kind of ballet music

People don't know what they want until you show them

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In 1998 Steve Jobs told Business Week that: We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of research into our installed base. We also watch industry trends pretty carefully. But in the end, for something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why a lot of people at Apple get paid a lot of money, because they're supposed to be on top of these things. Steve Jobs was talking about personal computers, but he could well have been talking about classical music. Classical music is complicated, and it stubbornly resists being rationalised by focus groups and the other fashionable tools of the marketing industry. But the big difference between Apple and classical music is that in Cupertino there are a lot of people who are on top of things, but in classical music central there are a lot of people who are paid to be on top of things , but aren't. The music o

New audiences are bass literate

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There's no such thing as the purist mentality. It's a false concept, a facade. A purist of what? Just because you were in a college at a certain time, something affected you , and it became your ideal music. Suddenly it becomes precious to you, and you retain it ad keep it in one place. But you could move beyond that and keep going if you wanted to. Purists are people who are stuck in the beginnings of true appreciation... The purist is someone who is stuck with their first impressions of what they thought was "the way it goes," or "the way it is." But it's not like that. Music is free, it's open, it's an ocean that continues. Free thinking people know that. But musicians are often stuck. They're not far from sports people in their redundancy, the way that they appreciate things. Painters, writers and filmmakers are probably much more advanced than musicians when it comes to the evolution of their art form. That is Bill Laswell , bassist, pr