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So much quality music had been unfairly forgotten and so much tat put on a pedestal. Top of my tat-list is Dmitri Shostakovich. I personally can't wait for his flatulent 'sarcastic' bubble to burst. A close second and third on the tat-list are two more po-faced Soviet gits, Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina (left). When will that old witchy bore Gubaidulina shut up? When, EH? And when will the quieter craftsmen composers, Edison Denisov, Valentin Silvestrov and Dmitri Smirnov, get their dues?
Igor Toronyi-Lalic reminds us what music blogging should be about on the Telegraph website. And he links to my Elizabeth Maconchy article. Priceless, but I'm not so sure about Silvestrov.
Now read how Soviet blacklist fatigue sets in.
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The excellent ionarts reports 'Teenage composer Jay Greenberg's honeymoon with the press is over' and links to my recent article. While Anthony Holden's Observer review today suggests jet set maestro Valery Gergiev's honeymoon with the London press was over before it even started.
Bag-eyed, straggle-haired and in his usual hurry, he finally made his much-heralded, once-postponed entrance. On giant screens to each side of the stage, a 'new era' was proclaimed by the London Symphony Orchestra as the dynamic Russian maestro Valery Gergiev (picture above) finally embarked on his new role as its chief conductor.
Had he surrendered even one of his half-dozen other jobs to give this lustrous appointment the attention that is its due, he might well have been hailed as a thrilling catch for one of the world's finest orchestras - lending it a commercial glamour it has not known since the days of Andre Previn, with a heft worthy of the successor to Colin Davis. As it is, the honeymoon somehow felt over before the marriage had even begun.
Now the LSO's president, Davis (photo below) will still be spending as many weeks per year with the orchestra, to the point of leading it on 
overseas tours, as Gergiev is scheduled to conduct concerts. Will his reputation for haste and lateness, not to mention workaholic indisposition, see bass player Michael Francis constantly stepping in to lead rehearsals, even concerts, as in Russia last year and at the BBC's recent Gubaidulina weekend? Will Gergiev really steward the LSO's continuing evolution, as is surely his job description, or merely drop in from time to time to give us the odd Slavic thrill?
If his debut had been a football match, it would have been deemed a concert of two halves. The first was loud, garish and nothing if not boldly original; the second was contrastingly trad, user-friendly and several notches classier. Gergiev will have to pull off the latter act in a wider range of repertoire to convince the doubters that he is more than merely the dreamchild of the LSO's marketing department.
Read the full Observer review here. And learn more about jet setting in the Vienna Philharmonic in perpetual motion
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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
'The more one listens to Sofia Gubaidulina's music, the less one likes it. Such disenchantment comes, it should be added, from hearing it in quantity. Performed in isolation, her works often give the impression of stark originality. However, placed end to end in this year's BBC composer weekend, they revealed startling limitations of emotional range' writes Tim Ashley in today's Guardian.
Fine, but is it the fault of the composer? Or is it the fault of the BBC for opting out of imaginative programming, and instead choosing the easy, and fashionable, option of the musical equivalent of area bombing? The Russian's are currently in the BBC's bombsights, and a Tchaikovsky Experience is launched on Sunday. Yes, you guessed it right, it includes every note written by Peter Ilyich.
For more on musical area bombing read about Shostakovich and Strictly Come Dancing
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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
BBC Radio 3 is currently running a commercial radio style promotional trailer for their Sofia Gubaidulina festival next weekend, and this trailer uses Soviet blacklisting as a positive feature of Gubaidulina's music. Now I am a huge fan of Sofia Gubaidulina, and have already praised the festival here. But using Soviet blacklisting as an endorsement is a dangerous path to go down. Among the other contemporary musicians who could claim this particular endorsement are Village People (above), Donna Summer and Julio Iglesias. And does the fact that the Soviet state concert agency Goskoncert actively promoted Shostakovich's music from 1955 reduce his claim to be a great composer?
Now read about The frustration of the classical music industry
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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
The BBC Symphony Orchestra's 2007 January Composer Weekend focuses on the music of Sofia Gubaidulina (left). A Journey of the Soul celebrates the remarkable composer in a weekend of orchestral, choral and chamber music, films and talks, including the chance to hear the composer in conversation. The dates are January 14 to 17, and the ten events include performances of Gubaidulina's complete string quartets, and Valery Gergiev conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in three of the composer's orchestral works. Full programmes via this link. More details from the BBC website, including downloads of Gubaidulina's music.
Now read about another remarkable composer - Ruth Schonthal.
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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
So much quality music had been unfairly forgotten and so much tat put on a pedestal. Top of my tat-list is Dmitri Shostakovich. I personally can't wait for his flatulent 'sarcastic' bubble to burst. A close second and third on the tat-list are two more po-faced Soviet gits, Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina (left). When will that old witchy bore Gubaidulina shut up? When, EH? And when will the quieter craftsmen composers, Edison Denisov, Valentin Silvestrov and Dmitri Smirnov, get their dues?
