Thoughts on the deaths of three young strangers

We forget that the necessary ingredient needed to make the past work for the future is our energy in the present, metabolizing one into the other - Audre Lorde

The 20 year old British commanding officer and 21 year old bomb aimer whose war graves are seen in the montage above were crew members of an RAF Lancaster shot down over occupied France while returning from a bombing raid on Milan in 1943. Five crew members parachuted from the stricken plane, but the young pilot and bomb aimer died in the crash. They are buried in the graveyard of the 13th century church in Vandenesse-en-Auxois.

A few miles away above the village of Créancey is the commemorative plaque marking the spot where an American pilot died when his USAAF fighter crashed into the hillside during the liberation of France in September 1944. Fighting in western Europe had stopped in the first global conflict of the twentieth century at eleven o'clock on November 11th, 1918 following the signing of the World War 1 Armistice at Rethondes, France. This town lies to the north of the Burgundy region where the photos forming the montage above were taken by me this September.

Britain's last surviving World War 1 veteran Harry Patch, who died in July 2009 aged 111, hated war and dismissed Nov. 11th commemorations as "show business". BBC TV's jingoistic and cliched coverage of last Sunday's Centotaph ceremonial only confirmed Harry Patch's view and made me think long and hard as to whether I should contribute to the media circus and barely disguised political agendas surrounding Nov. 11th . But Audre Lorde's words reminded me of the importance of making the past work for the future, rather than for the duplicitous purposes of our political leaders.

To explore how the terrible lessons from the past can work for the future I found myself turning, as happens so often these days, from the jaded imagery of television to the more subtly nuanced language of music. Benjamin Britten's War Requiem is one of the greatest statements about the futility of war. But it was to another composer, albeit one influenced by Britten, that I turned.

Jonathan Harvey's Passion and Resurrection was commissioned for performance as as a diocesan community celebration by local singers in Winchester cathedral in 1981. Texts from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and from the Pashka (Easter) celebration of the Russian Orthodox Church frame extracts from two Medieval Benedictine church dramas, with the audience participating in the singing of two plainsong hymns.

The influence of both Bach's Passions and Britten's Church Parables are evident in Passion and Resurrection. But, despite being written for largely amateur forces, the sung drama is much more about the future than the past. The 85 minute work progresses from simple chant settings to the radiant finale which evokes Messiaen and uses Jonathan Harvey's signature technique of symmetrical inversion with mirrored harmonies radiating from a central bass axis.

Jonathan Harvey is better known today for his Buddhist sympathies, but he says of the composition of Passion and Resurrection - 'That was a wonderful period and the mystical Christ remains with me very much to this day'. The excellent commercial recording of the work seen below was made by the BBC with Sinfonia 21 and the BBC Singers conducted by Martin Neary and is available on the enterprising Sargasso label.


On a day when we must focus on making the past work for the future my links point to the Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims of allied bombing, and an icon in the restored Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, the Madonna of Stalingrad.

* The white poppy symbolises the belief that there are better ways to resolve conflicts than killing strangers. Read more here.

Header montage is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2009. The original photos together with a translation of the middle plaque can be seen here. My copy of Jonathan Harvey's Passion and Resurrection was purchased online. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Noddy, Big-Ears and the new CD

The books are very much of their time, particularly the titles published in the 1950s. They present Britain's class system — that is to say, "rough" versus "decent". Many of Blyton's children's books similarly reflected negative stereotypes regarding gender, race, and class. The most startling incidence of this type of material to a modern audience might be the use of a phrase like "black as a nigger with soot" appearing in Five Go off to Camp.At the time, "Negro" was the standard formal term and "nigger" a relatively common colloquialism.

Compelling reading from the Wikipedia biography of Enid Blyton. Released this week is a CD of music by Carey Blyton, who was the nephew of the famous author and lived from 1932 to 2002. To be fair Carey Blyton was probably very fed up with being labelled as Enid's nephew, and among his musical credits were a schools cantata, incidental music for three BBC TV series of Doctor Who and many miniature pieces. I haven't heard the CD, but that is the cover above and it is one of several Carey Blyton CD's available on the Upbeat Recordings label. Another relative of a famous figure here, and discover the link between Noddy and Alban Berg here.

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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

I am not a sycophant edition

The musical exploits of the Savall family quite justifiably receive high praise On An Overgrown Path. Two years ago I enthused over daughter Arianna Savall's CD Bella Terra, and that particular album has been a long term favourite on my iPod. So it is disappointing to give a thumbs-down to Arianna's newly released Peiwoh, despite its stellar line-up of musicians which includes Pedro Estevan and brother Ferran, whose gritty album Mireu el nostre mar was one of the highlights of last year's new releases.

In the notes for Peiwoh Arianna Savall acknowledges the influence of the Canadian harpist and singer Loreena McKennitt, whose music I am not familiar with, although I understand she sells shed-loads of records. But having listened to some samples on Ms. McKennitt's website I have a fair idea where this album went wrong. There are some beautiful sounds on Peiwoh, but it lacks the edge and musical development that I need. But if you like your Bach to come complete with Flower Remedies this is one for you.

And while on the subject of taking the rough with the smooth I cannot overlook the letter recently received by a select few Snape concertgoers. I am, of course, a huge fan of Aldeburgh Music whose outstanding work features here so often. But I did chuckle at the opening sentence of this mailing shot for the performance of Britten's The Canticles on the composer's birthday.


Hopefully just a glitch with the auto spell check. Or has someone at Snape been reading the newly published volume of the young Britten's diaries titled Journeying Boy? Find the answer by taking a peep inside the infamous composer's bedroom .

Peiwoh was bought from HMV.com, who are a very cheap source for Alia Vox CDs if you pre-order before release date. 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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Life is a cabaret, old chum

What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Come to the cabaret.

'Deutsche Bank will present a free webcast of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle performing Brahms's Third and Fourth symphonies on Monday, November 9 at 8.00 p.m. EST on its website, http://www.db.com/ The webcast celebrates the start of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle's U.S. tour that begins at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday November 11, and the recent release of the Brahms symphonies on CD' - Deutsche Bank website.

'Our partnership with the Berliner Philharmoniker has been and continues to be unique, by combining classic music sponsorship with innovative cultural education work. Deutsche Bank is thus fulfilling its commitment as a responsible corporate citizen, by creating social capital – all around the globe' - Josef Ackermann Chairman of Deutsche Bank AG on Berliner Philharmoniker website

'State prosecutors examine Deutsche Bank spy scandal - State prosecutors in Frankfurt have confirmed they are examining evidence handed to them by the German data protection office ... The Wall Street Journal has reported that the review focuses on four separate spying incidents that occurred between 2001 and 2007. One case involved the surveillance of Gerald Herrmann, a former union leader and supervisory board member, who was suspected of leaking sensitive company information to the media. Deutsche Bank admitted to spying on Hermann earlier this month and has since apologized. Other alleged targets are reported to include Deutsche Bank's chief operating officer Hermann-Josef Lamberti, and Michael Bohndorf, an activist shareholder who has been highly critical of the bank' - Deutsche Welle July 2009, and here is a Wall Street Journal update from Sept 2009.

A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound
A buck or a pound
A buck or a pound
Is all that makes the world go around,
That clinking clanking sound
Can make the world go 'round.

On November 9th, 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, an event triggered by a debt-ridden East German economy struggling to finance pensions and other costs - does that sound familiar? The three exclusive photos of the Berlin Wall in this post were taken by me in 1973, read more about them here. Music history rewritten by the division of Berlin here. Another exclusive photo of the Wall here, while elsewhere an America vice president comes visiting. The final approach to Berlin is here, the city is reborn here, and finally, another nomination for the Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour.

Lyrics are, of course, from the film Cabaret which was based on Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories which were set in the city in 1931. Three photos of Berlin are (c) On An Overgrown Path 2009. 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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

World premiere for post-music symphony

My photo was taken yesterday evening in the darkness of the new Britten Studio at Snape during the premiere of Longshore Drift created by experimental electronic musician Chris Watson. In the foreground and around the perimeter of the studio are the blue-illuminated monitor speakers used for by the third order 64 channel Ambisonics surround sound system which conveyed height as well as lateral information. In the centre of the photo at the system's controls is Tony Myatt Director of the Music Research Centre at York University who built the Ambisonics system specially for the event. My rehearsal photo below shows the layout of the studio more clearly.

Chris Watson's 35 minute soundscape was part of the output of a week long Faster Than Sound residency at Snape which explored the natural soundscape around Britten's Aldeburgh. Birdsong was the staring point for Longshore Drift's, but this was layered with a range of 'found' sounds including the low frequency beat of wind turbines and the the rhythm of the waves breaking on Aldeburgh beach captured by underwater hydrophones. This cornucopia of environmental sounds was reproduced on a sound system the like of which will not be heard again for a long time.

Longshore Drift follows John Cage's path by making music can be made from ambient sounds, and builds on works such as Jonathan Harvey's IRCAM created Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco with its electronic manipulation of the great bell of Winchester Cathedral. In its exploration of spatial relationships Longshore Drift allows us to focus on the neglected relationship between sounds and place, both in the macro context of the fragile Suffolk coast and in the micro context of the soundfield created by the Ambisonic system in the Britten Studio. It also poses many questions, not the least being what is music? Is the continuo of a tuned string instrument any more 'music' than the pulse of a wind turbine?

Aldeburgh Music's visionary residency allowed Chris Watson and his colleagues to create a post-music symphony of great relevance, impact and beauty. Longshore Drift speaks in a language of change both in the musical and the environmental sense, and that is something we desperately need right now.


Photos are (c) On An Overgrown Path 2009. Our £10 tickets for Faster Than Sound - LISTEN were bought at the Aldeburgh box office. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

A radical traditionalist

Good evening, and welcome to this Britten Sinfonia pre-concert event, at which I am delighted to be joined by tonight’s conductor and pianist, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and soloist Tamara Stefanovich.

Tonight’s concert, which has the theme Dialogues, is a celebration of the music of the contemporary American composer Elliott Carter who will be 101 in a few weeks time. We will be discussing his music a little later; but first, and rather perversely, I want to talk about a composer whose music does not appear in tonight’s concert.

Benjamin Britten gives his name to tonight’s orchestra and Pierre-Laurent Aimard is the artistic director of the festival Britten founded at Aldeburgh here in East Anglia. In the speech that he gave when accepting the Aspen Award in the Humanities in 1964 Britten set out his vision of a holy triangle of composer, performer and listener.

Today, particularly in modern music, that holy triangle sometimes becomes a profane duo of composer and performer, with the listener left as a bemused spectator on the touch-line. My objective with tonight's event is to make sure that you the listener are firmly located at the apex of Britten’s holy triangle, and to do that I will be asking Pierre-Laurent and Tamara to include you in the Dialogues by tuning your ears to Elliott Carter’s unique and rewarding sound world.

It is very easy to set the bar too high at events like this. We are very fortunate to be hearing the music of Elliott Carter in Norwich, but we must also remember that for many in tonight’s audience this will be the first time they have heard Carter’s music in a concert hall. Indeed for some it may be their first ever hearing of his music.

We also cannot ignore the fact that Elliott Carter has a reputation for being a ‘difficult listen’. Not unsurprisingly the composer himself disagreed with that assessment and said:

‘One thing I can’t understand is why people have such trouble with modern music. It seems to me to be perfectly intelligible. When I hear one of my pieces again, or listen to the record, I don’t see why people could find this perplexing in any way. Yet audiences can’t make head or tail of it’.

In his development as a composer Elliott Carter became increasingly uncompromising. Early in his career Carter followed the path taken by Aaron Copland and others and wrote music that was deliberately accessible. But Carter’s attempts at writing music that would achieve popularity failed dismally, forcing him to declare –

'I finally said the hell with that whole point of view and decided to write what I really always hoped to write, and what I thought was most important for me. I’ve taken that point of view ever since.

What Elliott Carter always wanted to write was music that was cerebral as opposed to emotional. Just as it is more difficult to read someone’s thoughts than their emotions, so it is more difficult to understand music that is cerebral rather than emotional. Elliott Carter’s music is also atonal, which means the familiar reassurance of a tonic key is absent.

But please do not be too frightened by all this. In many ways Elliott Carter was a radical traditionalist. He rejected the unpredictability pursued by John Cage and his peers, and Carter’s masterpieces conform to the traditional concept of a work of art. This means that, unlike Boulez and Stockhausen, Elliott Carter has written, for instance, a Violin Concerto with a conventional three movement structure.

I have described Elliott Carter as a radical traditionalist. He has always considered himself to be an American composer. He was born in New York in December 1908 of wealthy parents and studied at Harvard where, rather surprisingly, one of his teachers was our own Gustav Holst. Carter’s music benefitted from being championed in Europe in the 1950s by the American Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organisation that was later found to be CIA funded.

But for a radical traditionalist Elliott Carter has had a remarkable impact on contemporary music. His most notable innovations, which we will hear in tonight’s concert, revolve around changes of metre, and now I am now going to ask Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich to help us understand how Carter manipulates musical time ...

This was my introduction to last night's Britten Sinfonia event before their concert of Haydn, Eliott Carter and Mozart in Norwich. The programme of recessional music proved that if you have faith the crowd will follow you, and 43 minutes of Carter's music attracted an audience of 400; although for a university city with a high-profile music department there were disappointingly few young faces among them. Lots of young faces in the band though, but my wife did observe that Elliott Carter's music is clearly more masculine than Osvaldo Golijov's as the female/male ratio among the musicians swung from 80/20 at the recent Britten Sinfonia Eight Seasons concert to 64/36 for Elliott Carter.

There was a fascinating example of old meets new in Carter's Inner Song for solo oboe; Nicholas Daniel used a high-tech digital music stand from MusicReader, but needed a human page turner to push the buttons. Speaking of technology, I have previously written in praise of the Theatre Royal Norwich's CARMEN® digital sound enhancement system. But there was an unfortunate intermittent low frequency intrusion at last night's concert; was it a malfunction in the technology?

But just a minor reservation, and the music and performance were gorgeous with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich behaving like angels in the pre-concert event. The London performance of the Haydn, Elliott Carter and Mozart programme tonight (Nov 7) is being recorded for later broadcast by BBC Radio 3. There is a further performance in Cambridge on Nov 9. This is the future of classical music.

Elliott Carter is 101 on Dec 11th 2009. My sources included:

* Elliott Carter - A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents published jointly by the Paul Sacher Foundation and Boydell Press. My header image, which shows Elliott Carter with Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein at the recording of Carter's Concerto for Orchestra in New York's Philharmonic Hall in 1970 comes from this inspirational book, as does the lower image.

* A Concise History of Western Music by Paul Griffiths, who was librettist for Carter's 1999 opera What Next?

* Stephen Heinemann's excellent sleeve notes for the CD Early Chamber Music of Elliott Carter on Cedille Records.

Copies Elliot Carter - A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents and A Concise History of Western Music were supplied for review at my request. Two concert tickets were made available by the Briten Sinfonia for chairing the pre-concert event. My CD of Early Chamber Music of Elliot Carter was bought online. 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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The art of activism

This arresting print by the young South African artist Nandipha Mntambo uses cowhide moulded to fit the human body to -

'challenge and subvert preconceptions regarding representation of the female body ... to disrupt perceptions of attraction and repulsion'.

Part of a diptych titled Mlwa ne Nkunzi, it is one of the exhibits in Life Less Ordinary at the Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham. This exhibition uses photography, performances, videos and installations by young artists to look at how race-based dynamics continue to shape society in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Earlier this year I discussed William Goldman's wise words that -

'the difference between art and entertainment is that entertainment either tells you lies or tells you comforting truisms that we all know already, and art tells you uncomfortable things that you perhaps don't want to hear, truths that you may not be comfortable to hear.'

We live in a time when the boundaries of art and entertainment are being shamelessly blurred. So it was quite a revelation to view an exhibition curated quite expertly by Anna Douglas with the express objective of making the viewer uncomfortable. While visiting Life Less Ordinary I was struck by the use of the term 'visual activism' to describe the art on display, and I wondered who the parallel activists are in classical music. Musical activists of the past are easy to identify, and Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich are just some of the names that spring to mind. But who are today's musical activists in the moral, rather than stylistic, sense?


One candidate for the role of musical activist is the little known composer of the Spiteful Prelude With A Grenade Splinter. Croatian born Josip Magdić wrote this memorably named prelude for piano during the Yugoslav conflict in 1992 to highlight the brutality of war, and the photo above shows him standing in front of a Sarajevo apartment block damaged by Serbian artillery fire. Other examples of Josip Magdić's musical activism are his organ cycle Dominus Conterens Bella /The Lord Who Crushest Wars (1994) and War Picture Postcards of Sarajevo (1993) for piano which portrays the fate of the war-stricken the city.

There are mentions of a Sony CD (SK 66619) of Josip Magdić's music, but I can no trace of it in the catalogue. But fortunately we do to have both the Spiteful Prelude With A Grenade Splinter and War Picture Postcards of Sarajevo in transcriptions for organ played by the composer on an Ad Vitam CD which is also available as a download from iTunes.

In fact the Ad Vitam CD is a work of musical activism in its own right, as well as an extraordinary expression of music and place. It was recorded in the cathedral of Sarajevo in the bitter winter of 1994 during the siege of the city, and the producer Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi brought his recording equipment into the city through the famous tunnel dug by Bosnian volunteers to allow food and humanitarian aid into the city.


The CD is simply and movingly called Sarajevo, and also contains choral works sung by the Trebevic Choir of Sarajevo which was made up of Croatian voices supplemented with those from the warring states of Serbia and Bosnia. The photo above shows the Trebevic Choir returning to Split airport on their way home to Sarajevo in December 1994.


That is the sleeve for Sarajevo above. The story of Ad Vitam records is here, contemporary music in Albania is here, and the embers of chaos are here.

* Writing this post brought back many personal memories. What was then Yugoslavia was my summer pasture of choice when I was a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Dalmatian coast was cheap, hot, hospitable, totally undeveloped, and Tito's benign dictatorship presented an alternative to patronising the hated regime of the Colonel's in neighbouring Greece. I have many powerful memories of Yugoslavia before it was devastated in the name of national identity. These include time spent in Split, where the photo of the Trebevic Choir of Sarajevo was taken, and on the surrounding islands. I remember reading Sartre on the terrace of a disco on the island of Hvar and watching a sunset of indescribable beauty while Led Zeppelin played outrageously loud on the sound system. Pretentious and self-indulgent? - yes, most definitely. But probably no worse than spending my vacations watching what passes for coverage of the arts on TV today. Now please can you hand me my bus pass?

Header image via Art South Africa, other images from Josip Magdić's website and Sarajevo CD booklet. The costs of attending Life Less Ordinary were paid by me. I bought Sarajevo in the shop of the Cistercian Mother House of Citeaux in France. 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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

No banal chatter day

BBC Radio Scotland is having its annual 'no music day' on November 21st, which is the day before Benjamin Britten's birthday. 'No music day' is an interesting concept, but I have a better idea. BBC Scotland's sister network BBC Radio 3 should have a 'no presenter day' when they play music without the classical jocks in between. I guarantee Radio 3's audience will increase by at least one on November 21st if they take up my suggestion.

Header image is sampled from Binghampton Review. 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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Recessional music

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 14 in E flat, K.449
Elliott Carter First Diversion
Elliott Carter Riconoscenza
Elliott Carter Enchanted Preludes
Elliott Carter Inner Song
Elliott Carter Second Diversion
Elliott Carter Dialogues
Haydn Symphony No. 83 in G minor (La Poule)

This programme is being given by the Britten Sinfonia with Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano/conductor and Tamara Stefanovich piano in Norwich Nov.6, London Nov. 7 & Cambridge Nov 9. In Norwich I will be giving a pre-concert talk with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich. Kate Kennedy is giving the Cambridge talk.

Creating a spectacular habitat of sounds...

Curated by audio and visual artist Russell Haswell, who has presented installations for both art gallery and concert hall internationally, this promises to be a pioneering residency that brings spectacular sounds from the natural world to the Hoffmann Building. Chris Watson and Bernie Krause are both electronic music pioneers and leading sound recordists in their fields; whether consciously or not, we have heard their work in recordings for David Attenborough, or for the world's largest collection of recordings of (now destroyed) rain-forest. But there is more to them.

They are bio-acoustic and natural history specialists and, as an electronic musician, Krause is also known for bringing the Moog synthesizer to Europe, and was also a 'synthesist' on Apocalypse Now. Chris Watson was a member of 'Cabaret Voltaire' from 1972-81, and also of 'The Hafler Trio' from 1981-84. With the assistance of Tony Myatt and interference from Russell Haswell, they will present an acoustic habitat in the Hoffmann Building, a fully immersive ambisonic/surround sound event that will astound and amaze!

Curated by Russell Haswell with Bernie Krause, Chris Watson and surround recording and diffusion support from Tony Myatt.

Faster Than Sound: 'LISTEN' is taking place in the Hoffmann Building, Snape, Nov. 7.

Do you chase the crowd?

'I finally said the hell with that whole point of view and decided to write what I really always hoped to write, and what I thought was most important for me. I've taken that point of view ever since ' - Elliott Carter

Or do you have faith the crowd will follow you and ...


The Aldeburgh Music flyer above says it all, and the dying art of listening is a topic I will return to in future posts. Travel faster than sound here.

Header image is based on Elliott Carter - A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents published jointly by the Paul Sacher Foundation and Boydell Press. This book is a thing of beauty in every respect.I am receiving two tickets for the Britten Sinfonia concert in return for presenting the pre-concert talk. Tickets for Faster Than Sound - 'LISTEN' will be bought at the box office. A copy of Elliott Carter - A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents was supplied by Boydell at my request. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk