The individual is sovereign

'That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign' - from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, who was born in London on 20th May 1806 and died in Avignon, France, where my pictures were taken, on 8th May, 1873.

Mill wrote against repression in Ireland and as a Member of Parliament introduced the first vote on women's suffrage. He campaigned for free speech and proportional representation and against slavery. But we are most indebted to him as a defender of individual conscience and expression. He is buried alongside his wife in the cemetery of St. Veran on the outskirts of Avignon and his tomb, seen in my photos, is marked 'En hommage à John Stuart Mill Défenseur des Femmes'. The plaque has been added by Centre d'Hébergement et de Réinsertion Sociale "Stuart Mill", a refuge for women victims of violence in Paris.


Now playing Motet (Excerpta Tractati Logico-Philosophici) by Elisabeth Lutyens sung by Exaudi directed by James Weeks. Lutyens was a defender of individual conscience and expression but was not a supporter of organised feminism as this extract from Meirion and Susie Harries' excellent biography of her tells - 'Why, she asked, did people speak of 'women's music' and 'female composers' and yet stop short of implying that male homosexuals wrote 'queer music?''If women are to be butts,' she argued, 'let homosexuals be also ... and impotence or any other private sexual consideration, all of which, no doubt, affects one's work.' In 1973 she would write to The Times complaining that William Glock was labelled a supporter of Women's Lib because he had included four pieces by female composers in that season's Proms, and yet no one drew the obvious inference that he had programmed the work of no less than sixteen male homosexuals.'

More on Elisabeth Lutyens here, and listen to a podcast about her music here.
Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Recycling Shostakovich and Beethoven

In Avignon last week I was fortunate enough to catch two of the concerts in a cycle of the Shostakovich Quartets by the young French Debussy Quartet.

Any cycle of these magnificent works is an important event. But there are two particular reasons why the Avignon cycle is worth commenting on, quite apart from the excellent performances by these talented young players. First, the cycle was played on three consecutive evenings in three different venues. Like my local city of Norwich, Avignon is blessed with a surfeit of historic buildings which can be used for concerts. The organisers of the cycle, the enterprising L'Opéra-théâtre d'Avignon, took full advantage of his by combining wonderful music-making with privileged visits to architecturally important buildings in this wonderful and civilized city, which in the 14th century was the capital of the Christian world, and home to the Popes.

The first evening's performances were in the Galerie Vernet of the Musée Calvet among the art treasures. The next night's the cycle visited the Chapelle des Pénitents blancs with its 17th century facade, which is now a permanent Avignon Festival venue. The final venue was the 18th century Chapelle de l'Oratoire, an extraordinary performing space with vertical dimensions exceeding the horizontal, and really excellent acoustics apart from the occasional traffic noise. I was fortunate to attend concerts in both the Chapelle des Pénitents blancs and the Chapelle de l'Oratoire.

The second unusual feature of this peripatetic Shostakovich cycle was that the three evenings were each divided into 'mini concerts', with separate tickets (and often a different audience) for each. The first two evenings each consisted of two 'mini concerts', with the first starting at 7.00pm. The last evening was a marathon of three concerts, starting with Quartet No 6 at 7.00, and ending with the final quartet at 10.45! I was in the Chapelle de l'Oratoire for Quartets No 2 and 15 in that late evening finale. The final quartet, with its six linked Adagio movements, held the audience spellbound as the Epilogue simply faded away into the dark and distance recesses of the 18th century Chapelle. Just unforgettable.......

The Debussy Quartet's (photo below) innovative programmming started me thinking about the different options for scheduling quartet cycles. The two usual options are to play them chronologically, for convenience, or play them mixed by different periods to give variety - which is what the Debussy Quartet chose. The order for the quartets is usually the call of the performers. But not if you are lucky enough to be invited to play in the famous Slee Beethoven Cycle in Buffalo.

Frederick Caldecott Slee was a prominent corporate lawyer in that city, and together with his wife was a great supporter of chamber music. An endowment was established for an annual cycle of the Beethoven Quartets at Buffalo University. Within the terms of the endowment Mr Slee prescribed the order in which the quartets are to be played, together with the number of concerts (6) - and no variation is allowed. And that is exactly how they have been performed annually for the last 50 years, with many famous quartets including the Tokyo, Guarneri and Muir performing the cycle in the prescribed order. In fact the Guarneri were so taken with the programme of the Slee cycle that they use it in all their complete Beethoven Quartet performances.

And here is the Slee sequence used in Buffalo, which unusually does not end with a late Quartet:

Concert I:
Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127
Quartet in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1
Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3

Concert II:
Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74 ("The Harp")
Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2
Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131

Concert III:
Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3
"Grosse Fugue", Op. 133
Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1

Concert IV:
Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 ("Serioso")
Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6
Quartet in A minor, Op. 132

Concert V:
Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130

Concert VI:
Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4
Quartet in F Major, Op. 135
Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2

And now for something completely different. Visit the really cool website of Le Fruitier de Saint Agricol, the little delicatessen just round the corner from the Chapelle de l'Oratoire - they ship their olive oil and other goodies all over the world, and the photo below is their wonderful shop.

Image credits:
Debussy Quartet - Wentworth Associates
Avignon - Avignon Culture
Le Fruitier de Saint Agricol - Le Fruitier
If you enjoyed this post take an overgrown path to Rare Romantic Requiems in Avignon

Rare Romantic Requiems in Avignon

In a thoughtful comment on my post about Bernstein's Mass a reader suggests exploring some other 'flawed masterpeices' from the same genre. And here is my own contribution to the hunt for hidden gems.

Robert Schumann is one of my favourite composers. But I have to confess to never having heard a live performance, or owning a CD (although there are several in the catalogue), of either of his Requiems. So when we were in Avignon recently, and found that not just one, but both these works were being programmed in a single concert we leapt at the opportunity to hear them.

Schumann's Requiem Opus 148, scored for SATB, choir and orchestra, was composed in 1852, and follows the conventional liturgical format. The Requiem for Mignon Opus 98b of 1849 is a less conventional work celebrating Mignon from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. These works were programmed with Schumann's Nachtlied Opus 108 for choir and orchestra with its pre-echoes of Brahms' Requiem (Brahms dedicated his Requiem to Schumann).

The venue for the concert was the 15th Century Eglise St Pierre in Avignon. The interior is so exquisite that it would have been a pleasure to hear a chorus of frogs croaking in it. But there were no concerns about the performance quality by L'Orchestre Lyrique de Region Avignon-Provence, L'Ensemble Vocal D'Avignon, and the six soloists under the dynamic, and highly musical, direction of Vincent Barthe (this young conductor is a name to look out for based on this performance).

So what of the two Requiem's? Great works from a master, but not masterpieces would be my judgement. They reminded me of Richard Strauss' comment "I am not a first rate composer, but rather a first rate second rate composer." But the two Schumann Requiems really deserve to be programmed instead of the all too frequent repeats of the more popular 'war horses' such as the Verdi. So why aren't they heard more often? There may be a contributory commercial reason. The Requiem Opus 148 requires four soloists but is really a work for chorus and orchestra. More fundamentally, like his Violin Concerto, these works were denounced by Schumann's friends after his death as second rate works composed while the master's mind was disintegrating; and it was also suggested that he had little sympathy for sacred subjects. The Opus 148 was not performed until eight years after the composer's death. The Violin Concerto's time came in the 1930's, perhaps the first decade of the 21st Century will be the time for these other deserving works?

Requiems are a recurring destination on an overgrown path, and the wealth of information on the web never ceases to amaze me.. A very useful resource is the Requiem Survey. It has 2247 classical, vocal requiems in its database from 1550 composers, and includes fragments and unfinished works.

The database contains some good programme notes, and lists recordings. For instance the Messa per Rossini mentioned in my Wiki brings collabarative music full circle post is well documented - worth visiting.

This post is dedicated to Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the Taizé community. Born May 12th 1915, died August 16th 2005