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Showing posts from January, 2016

Music is a powerful lens

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If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That quote comes from Haruki Murakami 's novel Norwegian Wood . Musicians on Abdul Malik Dyck 's new album Remembered Music include his father Sheikh Hassan Dyck , Western classical violinist turned Sufi exponent Ali Keeler and Afghan rabab master Daud Khan . My deviant reading while in Morocco recently included Columbia University lecturer Hisham Aidi's ' Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the new Muslim Youth Culture ' which discusses how music from hip-hop to Sufi is expressing a shared Muslim consciousness in the face of 'war on terror' policies. Writing in the prologue Hisham Aidi describes how "Music is a powerful lens through which to view the identities and movements emerging in Muslim communities". Remembered Music was a requested review sample. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis

I write to discover

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I write to discover, because contemplation is the art of discovering things that science and technology cannot reveal. Contemplation restores to man the spiritual breadth of which technology divests him, to objects their significance, and to work its functional presence. Contemplation is the key to individual survival today - Octavio Paz Photo was taken by me at Thiksay Monastery , Ladakh. Any other copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

There is a world elsewhere

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Bruno Walter believed that the spiritual world is of greater import than anything that our temporal world can offer. Although Jewish by birth he embraced Christianity, and was one of several notable musicians influenced by the esoteric and controversial teachings of Rudolf Steiner . The great conductor's belief in the innate spirituality of humankind found expression in his music through a process which he explains at the close of his 1946 memoir 'Theme and Variations' . There flows from music, irrespective of its ever-changing emotional expression, an unchanging message of comfort: its dissonances strive towards consonance - they must be resolved; every musical piece ends in a consonance. Thus music as an element has an optimistic quality, and I believe that therein lies the source of my innate optimism. Still more important, however, and of decisive influence upon my life is the exalted message conveyed to us from the works of the masters, a message most sacredly ex

Towards a pure land

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This work is for string quartet with elaborate real-time electronics. The sounds of the players are diffused in space with thematic rhythms so that the flying spatialisation is integral to the structure, part of the transformation process. Using IRCAM's SPAT programme (with the help of Gilbert Nouno ) it is possible to locate the sounds at any distance, at any point. This point can then be moved, like a living presence; the sound acquires an attribute closer to life, but unseen. When this movement is regular, like the repetitions of dance steps, for instance, the 'presence' begins to take on a character, a personality (though still invisible). Such music becomes a metaphor of subtle modes of being, from 'astral travel', to dreaming, to Gaston Bachelard's 'vertical imagination', to Nietsche's flying fantasies in Zarathustra, to Buddhist visualisation practices in higher meditation (etc.!). The quartet is the dreamer, the spatialisation the dream... A

CDs that should be in every medicine cabinet

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Being rather ill has been a strange experience. Beethoven Quartets and Schubert Masses are meant to figure prominently in the listening of those who have wobbled slightly on the perch . But not in mine; instead I have been relishing the healing power of a composer whose music does not usually feature in my playlists or On An Overgrown Path . Antonín Dvořák's reputation as a symphonist is both enhanced and distorted by the popular success of his ninth essay in the medium, the New World Symphony. The other late symphonies, Nos 7 and 8, appear occasionally in the concert hall and No 5 turns up once in a blue moon. Which completely ignores five other symphonies, works that are genuinely, to use an overworked and much abused term, life-affirming. Clear first choice for a survey of the complete Dvořák symphonies is István Kertész with the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca. Another reviewer has remarked how their "orchestral sound pulses with life", and that sums up this d

These symphonies are not masterpieces - but who cares?

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Pierre Boulez is reported to have declared "I hate Tchaikovsky and I will not conduct him. But if the audience wants him, it can have him", and to have described Shostakovich's symphonies as "third-pressing Mahler". Boulez's attitude towards another great Russian symphonist was apparently only slightly less trenchant. In 1955 Boulez was touring South America as music director of Jean-Louis Barrault 's Théâtre Marigny. During the tour Boulez was invited to conduct the Venezuelan Symphony, this was the first time he had ever conducted a full orchestra. The chosen programme was typically Boulez: Debussy's Jeux and Ibéria , Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. But the parts for the Bartók failed to arrive, so Boulez substituted Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. In Joan Peyser's unreliable 1976 biography of Boulez - which supplies the infamous Tchaikovsky quote above but

Beethoven pure and simple

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We have Toscanini's Beethoven, Furtwängler's Beethoven, Karajan's Beethoven, Kleiber's Beethoven, and, if you must , Norrington's Beethoven. But where is Beethoven's Beethoven? My nomination for Beethoven pure and simple would be the LP of the Seventh Symphony conducted by Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt seen above. This great German conductor, who was born in 1900, was a product of the kapellmeister system. After studying at Berlin University he held a series of posts at German opera houses before holding the post of chief conductor of the Deutsche Oper , Berlin from 1943 to 1944. Despite holding such a prominent position under the Third Reich, Schmidt-Isserstedt was not a member of the Nazi party. This perceived political 'neutrality' counted in Schmidt-Isserstedt's favour with the occupying forces at the end of the war, so he was invited to form the Symphony Orchestra of North German Radio (NDRSO) in 1945, a position he held until two years before his

Boulez was sometimes called god in Paris

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During a 2010 radio interview Jonathan Harvey discussed Pierre Boulez with me. Now that both those towering giants of contemporary music are no longer with us*, Jonathan's thumbnail sketch bears repeating: ...Boulez is sometimes called god in Paris, but anyway, he gave this thing to the world, because of his powerful personality, his absolute determination to come back to Paris from Germany, where he had decided to live until that point, and if he came back to Paris, President Pompidou would give him a large budget for creating a new institute. So it was a sort of gift to composers. I thought it was a gift from God because my first essays in electronic music were so difficult – I started in Princeton with [Milton] Babbitt, and I won’t go into all the complications but in short one would compute on a huge tape for about eight hours overnight and end up with one pathetic simple minute of sound, which probably was completely wrong and one would have to start all over again. One w

It is important to know that someone has been there

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In any creative society, it is vitally important for someone to be willing to go to extremes and set new parameters. We may not have the courage to go over the edge ourselves, but it is important to know that someone has been there. Quote is by Peter Lavezzoli from his book The Dawn of Indian Music in the West . Pierre Boulez died on Jan 5, 2016 . Read Jonathan Harvey's revealing thoughts on Boulez here . 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 .

Among us there are no castes

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On stage I have always been surrounded by French and Gypsy musicians as well as musicians from the Eastern nations - because this mix is my universe, my world and it is the only thing which brings me the stability I need in order to live and to survive, like the balance that is found in the bosom of a large and closely-knit family. Among us there are no castes and when the time comes for singing and breaking bread, the time for dancing, the people becomes king'. As my seventh year of blogging approaches I find myself less and less interested in rumours about the next career move of a jet set conductor or the latest hyperbole lavished by the twittering classes on last night's BBC Prom . Which is just fine; celebrity classical music is well served elsewhere leaving me to find sustenance where people rather than personalities are what really matters. Which brings me to the musician who supplied my opening quote. Titi Robin, seen in my first two photos with 'the gypsy quee

Music that overflows with optimism

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Rubbra's output reveals a unity on two levels: the musical, which is readily demonstrable, and the less easily perceived religous/philosophical, which overrides the musical and encompasses almost everything he wrote. It is universal rather than sectarian, an instinctive blend of the most spiritual and mystical elements of Buddhism and Catholicism. It led to a music that overflows with optimism and a sense of well-being, though the, at times, dramatic and conflictual aspects attest to the hard-won nature of that ultimate peace and reassurance. Edmund Rubbra's biographer Ralph Scott Grover writes in the 2001 New Grove . If Rubbra is known at all today, it is for his eleven symphonies and the violin concerto, all of which overflow with that 'optimism and sense of well-being'. But there is also some very fine and little known chamber music, including four superb quartets , that deserves to come out of the shadow of more fashionable twentieth-century compositions. The Dutt

A symphony a day keeps the doctor away

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That photo was taken a few weeks ago when I was hiking on the French national footpath network near Malaucène. In the distance is Mont Ventoux with cloud around its summit, and during the walk I alternated basking in the silence of nature with listening to Albéric Magnard's Fourth Symphony on my iPod. It is only fair to say that, for me, over the last months much of the enjoyment of blogging disappeared as self-promotion and clickbait became more important than content , and I would prefer to lay On An Overgrown Path to rest among happier memories. So over the next few days I will bury the blog by reprising some personal favourite posts from the past; starting with one about Albéric Magnard, which was first published in 2013. Prescribed self-help books are an effective treatment for depression is the conclusion reached after a field trial in Scotland. BBC News reports how patients offered self-help books together with practical advice on their use, had lower levels of de

New music beyond the reality distortion field

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A friend whose views on both music and technology I respect tells me that in recent months he has cut his time online by 70%. That is an admirable achievement and in 2016 I hope to emulate him. In recent weeks I have absented myself from the social media defined online reality distortion field as much as possible, and instead have spent more productive time listening to music and reading . Among the recordings that I found very rewarding are Sony's 39 CD Bruno Walter Edition , the Spanish label Pneuma's Ibn Arabi compilation Morade de la Luz , the International Contemporary Ensemble performing the music of the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir , Francesco Provenzale's Missa Defunctorum for 4 voices from the 17th century, and Michael Hersch 's epic piano cycle The Vanishing Pavillions from the 21st century. I was particularly taken with Anna Thorvaldsdottir 's In the Light of Air. Here is a contemporary composer who uses textures and forms in the same

What will life be like for classical music after the internet?

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Is it a coincidence that Sinfini Music and On An Overgrown Path are falling silent within days of each other? Cotermination may just be an ironic coincidence, because the two websites have little in common other than shared roots in classical music. But it can be argued that they are both in part, if not wholly, victims, of a technology driven change in the way we consume information. In 2014 conductor sans frontières and longstanding online writer Kenneth Woods wrote how ' Facebook ate my blog '. His post lamented how many of the best and most influential blogs are falling silent, including Gavin Plumley's erudite and informative Entartete Musik which had ceased updating a few months previously. The thrust of Ken's perceptive piece was that, to quote him: "Blogging these days is NOTHING without Facebook and Twitter. Nothing". That is a view I share,, and it is one of the reasons why I am now bowing to the inevitable. Readers will know I have little