Short ride in a fast machine

'Question is - what's more environmentally friendly - going to an independent store, by anything else than on foot, or ordering a CD online?' - asked the irrepressible violainvilnius in a comment on a recent post. I don't know the answer, but we've just arrived back from Belgium with a bunch of CDs bought from an independent dealer and managed to travel by walking, a bicycle, train, bus and just one short taxi ride on the whole trip. The main part of the journey was by Eurostar train which now leaves London from the splendidly restored St Pancras station, seen in my photo above, and stops at Lille before arriving in Brussels just one hour and fifty three minutes later. It may not be environmentally perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

Now playing - MGV (Musique à Grand Vitesse) by Michael Nyman. This 27 minute orchestral work was commissioned by the Festival du Lille for the inaugaration of the TGV North-European line which we travelled on to Brussels. The first performance was by the Michael Nyman Band and the Orchestre National de Lille under Jean-Claude Casadesus in Lille in 1993.

There is a surprising amount of classical music inspired by trains, with Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Little Train of Caipira and Steve Reich's Different Trains among the best known examples. But my favourite is a little more obscure. In 1983 the composer and director of music at Ely Cathedral Arthur Wills was asked to write a work in aid of the Ely Cathedral Restoration Appeal. The result was the choral work The Spiritual Railway which sets words taken from a memorial slab in the grounds of the Cathedral commemorating a railway worker killed on the track near Ely. The Spiritual Railway was given its first performance on Platform 10 of London's Liverpool Street Station, the terminus for the Ely train.

Now take the train to the Music and Railways website which not only includes The Spiritual Railway but also manages to find railway connections in Bruckner's Fourth Symphony and Dvorak's Serenade for Wind Instruments! Which only leaves me to ask how green was your concert?
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Got the T-shirt? - now hear the music

There was some healthy discussion on my recent article about pianist Angela Hewitt's Bach World Tour T-shirts. No discussion on my Future Radio programme this Sunday (Jan 27) at 5.00pm UK time, just 51 minutes 3 seconds of the perfect pianism of Angela Hewitt playing Messiaen and J.S. Bach, connected by less than 5 minutes of the usual low key links from me. The audio stream can be launched here, and is available in real time only.

There is some interesting music coming up on my Future Radio webcasts in the next few months. It includes Elliott Carter's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord, Michael Tippett's Second Symphony (why aren't his symphonies performed more often?), and a new recording of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, all complete - no extracts. Through the year I will also be playing all the Vaughan Williams symphonies. Future Radio agreed to this following very positive listener responses to my broadcast of the Fifth earlier this month, and they are rearranging their schedule to accomodate the 71 minute Sea Symphony in August to coincide with the centenary of the composer's birth.

On April 6 I will be presenting Karajan and Twentieth Century Music to mark the centenary of the conductor's birth. For all his faults Karajan made some superlative records, none more so than his 1972 recording of Arthur Honegger's Third Symphony Liturgique, and I'll be playing that with his 1973 recording of Alban Berg's Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite, both with the Berlin Philharmonic. Framing all these contemporary works will be music by Bach, Tallis, Corelli and from the Sephardic Diaspora.

It's all about thinking outside the box, as Olivier Messiaen did.
Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm UK time this Sunday, January 27th in real time here (convert to local time zones here). An Overgrown Path podcast will follow. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk