There's no such thing as the music audience

There's no such thing as 'the music audience'. They like the organ, or they like chamber music, or they like symphony concerts, or they like opera, or the nineteenth century, or new music. But they don't like each other. There is a mass of different audiences. So any (radio) schedule you put together is going to displease more people than it pleases. - said former BBC Proms director and BBC Radio 3 controller John Drummond.

Will a 'long tail' of Bach orchestrated by Webern and au naturelle, and Boulez displease more people than it pleases? Listen here at 5.00pm British Summer Time this afternoon (August 19). And now read John Drummond describing how Simon Rattle, literally, revived a great contemporary composer.
Convert webcast time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the 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 happen to be in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Photograph (c) On An Overgrown Path. 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

You can't get more inclusive than that

Some very interesting reactions to my post on the Conlon Nancarrow (above) anniversary, including emails about Nancarrow interpretations, and a nice link from Sequenza21 where there was some useful discussion on György Ligeti's assessment of Nancarrow.

So a heads-up for pianist Joanna MacGregor. Her 2001 CD Play includes Nancarrow's Player Piano Study No. 11 in a multi-track recording by her (the score is for eight hands!), as well as Etudes, Book 1 No. 6 ("Automne à Varsovie") by Nancarrow champion György Ligeti, and music by William Byrd, Howard Skempton, John Dowland, John Cage, Charles Ives, J.S. Bach and others. You can't get more inclusive than that.

And yes, I'm all in favour of early music on the piano, as well as the harpsichord, and greatly enjoy Alexandre Tharaud's Rameau and Angela Hewitt's Bach. Then, of course, there is Byrd on the piano in what Glenn Gould described as 'the best damn record we've ever made'.

Image credit Minnesota Public Radio, which also has a nice audio download on Conlon Nancarrow. 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

Not a good spectator sport

Erica Jeal in today's Guardian thinks Glyndebourne's new staged St Matthew Passion lacks ... passion.

Now take the path to the church where it was first performed.
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BBC launches time travel technology

The photo above was taken at Masaaki Suzuki's wonderful Aldeburgh Festival recital in Framlingham Church yesterday morning. He played Jean Adam Guillaume Guilain, William Byrd, Henry Purcell and J.S. Bach on the Tamar organ seen here, which dates from 1674.

The BBC recorded the recital, and their microphone array, with four crossed transducers, can be seen to the right of the organ. I have written here about the much-hyped BBC iPlayer. This may not yet be launched, but it certainly promises some mind-boggling time shift possibilities. Masaaki Suzuki's recital took place on 21 June, here is the note from the Aldeburgh Festival programme booklet:

This performance is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on Lunchtime Concert on 11 June.

Now, for more time travel, follow a path which leads from Framlingham Church to Glenn Gould.
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A brand new sexy audience ...

Between January and June 2006, a series of ‘classical music club nights’ took place in London’s fashionable Shoreditch. This monthly ‘club’ night went by the unfortunate handle of TI4U, which when translated out of its yoof txt spk unravels as This Isn’t For You – a moniker that exemplifies classical music’s traditional warm welcome to we thicko neophytes. Presumably, like everything else in Shoreditch, the name was supposed to be ironic, but then who knows? Classical music being elitist? There’s always a first time for everything.

I went along to one of these evenings with my friend Paul, although I honestly now can’t remember why we went at all. The whole idea of a classical music nightclub seemed bizarre to us; we had no idea what to expect - would TI4U be down in some dark and dingy underground club space, with a huge speaker system, dry ice and coke-queuing in the lavs? Light show? Lasers? Comin’ on like an augmented G-minor seventh sense? Or was this whole ‘club night’ thing merely canny marketing spin – an attempt to attract those who wouldn’t be seen dead in a traditional concert hall but were now in their mid-to-late 30s and worried that perhaps they soon oughtn’t really to be seen in a normal club any more either? Was this a pointer towards the future, or another cynical sign of the times? Would the prospect of a bar that remains open during the live performances (oooh!) and an invitation to ‘dress down’ for the evening succeed in pulling in the relatively young punters? Of course not! But still. It was a brave idea anyway.

Paul and I arrived on the steps of Shoreditch Town Hall neither mashed to the gills on hallucinogens nor decked out in Paul’s usual clubbing garb of rubber bondage gear and nipple clamps; rather we had arrived dressed club-soberly, as if for, say, Aphex Twin’s funeral. And Shoreditch Town Hall turned out to be a rather elegant bona fide town hall and not a heaving, scabrous underground pit, so that was that one cleaned up too. So far: as ditchwater. We entered the town hall and went through to the main, erm, hall bit, which was a large, brightly-lit wooden-floored you know, hall-type thing, with a table up one end with wine and beer on, upon whose wares we began to intoxicate ourselves in order to be in an inspirational frame of mind for the music. Up at the other end of the hall was the DJ - a mousey young lady sitting on a chair by a pair of CD decks with mounted speakers on either side. This was, wonderfully, ‘DJ Eleanor’.

Drinks in hand, Paul and I went over to watch DJ Eleanor spin her blazing wheels of burnished pewter. She was wearing a nice Laura Ashley dress and selected classical CDs to play from out of a faux-leatherbound folder. There were no shout-outs or anything, just nervous-looking Eleanor putting on some Purcell, and then some Schubert, and then some Byrd, and then a risqué soupcon of Webern. None of these were ‘mashed-up’ either. It was so sweet. A few people stood around the edge of the hall, looking awkward in suits with their ties self-consciously removed, like a hall full of perspiring, Becks-clasping David Camerons. There was also the occasional rakish chap in devil-may-care leather jacket. Less Brando, more Lovejoy.

Then the live music started, and it was like a ‘flash mob’, I think, ish, in that the chamber musicians just set up anywhere on the floor of the hall and started to play, willy-nilly. The punters self-consciously gathered around. It was pleasant enough. When they had finished, we dispersed back to the bar and the walls and DJ Eleanor went back to work, smiling shyly. It went on like this for a few hours, until a lone cellist came out and played some Bach and everything changed.

I find that Bach, especially his six solo cello suites, always manages to evoke a general fatalistic resignation to everything. Not just to one’s boring old lot – thought that does come into it – but everything else you can think of too: the sun the stars, the clouds, the Earth, air, trees, toy dogs, traffic wardens and so on, plus, most importantly, one’s own place in the Greater Context (utter and fundamental meaninglessness). This was like a kind of mass hypnosis; a shared consciousness-raising (or lowering, depending on how one’s dealing with the meaninglessness) experience for all within earshot.

You could just tell, by glancing around, that everybody was on the same trip. Was it just the algebra? Bach’s music is famously mathematically rigorous – are such collective ‘trances’ simply a subconscious reaction to the logic that’s underpinning the notes we can hear? Or are there deeper forces at work? Was Bach simply a genius who was able to thread into his music, even 250+ years down the line, specific and innate elements of profound transcendence? I suspect the answer is a little bit of both and a bottle of beer. Or however many we had. Fourteen or so. Plus the ketamine.

Would I go again? Yes, were we not now banned. And especially if they focused more on the ‘challenging’ 20th century stuff (Cage, Xenakis, Schoenberg, more Webern et al) rather than the same old Baroque (Bach excepted) and Romantic chamber music standards. But this is just personal preference. I’d also kind of prefer it if they raised DJ Eleanor’s volume at least double, turned the lights down by half, and actually banned people wearing suits from attending. I mean, if you’re serious about attracting a non-traditional audience, at least encourage the traditional audience who you can’t really stop from attending to pretend to be otherwise. If not, you’re just prolonging the status quo, Shoreditch or no Shoreditch.

It says on their website that TI4U will ‘have a new home’ from June 2007. If these dudes are truly looking to bring classical music to the attention of a brand new, sexy audience (without dumbing down to Katherine Jenkins levels of hatefulness), they need to take this underground somehow – make it weirder and darken its hues. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Stringfellows. OK that’s the end now.

Seb Hunter writes in Issue 6 - Clubbing of his Bitterest Pill ezine, subscribe for free here.

For the back story read Rock me Amadeus
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Bach and the art of noise

To the Goldberg Variations this morning played by up and coming young harpsichordist Matthew Halls (above) as part of the ever stimulating Norfolk and Norwich Festival. That most magical of all musical journies managed to survive separate interruptions from a mobile phone and a serial cougher. Matthew Hall proved why he is a professional musician and I am not. He cooly played through the ringing of the mobile phone. If it had been me at the keyboard I would either have asked the offender to leave, or left myself.

I witnessed one of the more imaginative responses to intrusive coughing at a concert conducted by Bernard Haitink at the Festival Hall in the 1970s. A serial cougher decided to accompany the posthorn solo in the third movement of Mahler's monumental Third Symphony. Maestro Haitink continued to beat time with his baton while using his left hand to extract a white handkerchief from his pocket and hold it high over his head.

Talking of phones read about an unexpected Steve Reich premiere
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Peter Paul Fuchs - one path ends

Hello Pliable, No sooner than we speak of Weigl and a few of his students than I see this today:

In Wednesday’s (3/28/2007) Greensboro News & Record (NC), Dawn Decwikiel-Kane reports: “Peter Paul Fuchs, longtime conductor of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Greensboro Opera Company, died Monday night after a long illness. Fuchs, 90, died at Friends Home Guilford after a 17-year battle with Alzheimer's disease (follow this link for more on music and Alzheimer's - Pliable). The Vienna-born Fuchs brought his vast musical experience and pleasant temperament to the symphony and opera company from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s. Their leaders praised him Tuesday for his role in sculpting both organizations. ‘His expertise and talents led the orchestra to achieve the professional status and artistic excellence it enjoys today,’ said Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the symphony's current music director. Before arriving in Greensboro, Fuchs conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, directed the opera and orchestra at Louisiana State University and had led the Baton Rouge Symphony. Fuchs served as the Greensboro Symphony's music director from 1975-87, then retired and became its conductor laureate.”

He was a talented man that I was honored to meet once and speak to at length. I still have a score or two of his in my library, though I was unable to convince anyone to perform them at the time. That was no reflection upon his music. Best, John McLaughlin Williams

* Now playing - Bach's Goldberg Variations transcribed for strings by current Greensboro Symphony music director Dmitry Sitkovetsky (below), and played by NES Chamber Orchestra. The sleeve notes of this 1995 Nonesuch CD are by none other than John Adams, and say: 'The opportunity to experience a new view of a familiar work such as the Goldberg Variations should not be grounds for a skeptical raising of critical eyebrows, but rather a cause for celebration. Arranging the Goldberg Variations is risky business, however. One is working here not with a melodic fragment of single song, but rather with one of the summas of Western music, specifically a work which is a compendium of all the principal developments in European keyboard up to and including Bach's time. ... John Cage, in his lecture "Composition as Process," defines form as "the morphology of continuity." The morphology of the Goldberg Variations' continuity is one of a perfectly shaped and harmonious continuity. Symmetry and unpredictability coexist in an environment of impertuable serenity. ' Nice CD as well.

Now read about a year at the symphony.
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Catch this if you can

BBC Radio 3's new schedules have taken quite a pasting here. So let's give some praise when it is due. Any programme that mixes Takemitsu, Bach, Honegger, Ligeti, Schubert and Eisler gets my vote. Listen to two hours of pianist Iain Burnside delivering an increasingly rare commodity, intelligent radio, via Listen Again, until 4th March.

And more praise for my alma mater via this link.
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Serial downloaders click here

My research for yesterday's Mendelssohn article uncovered a website that is going to delight the many serial downloaders among my readers. Carolina Classical has been created by Charles Moss for the music students he teaches at two universities in South Carolina. There are lovingly constructed articles on a range of composers from Palestrina to Zemlinsky, and many of these are liberally illustrated with music downloads: try one by clicking the image above - and it's not the Eminem Show!

But serial downloading at Carolina Classical doesn't end with audio files. There is also a host of downloadable scores, including many Bach cantatas and Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, the latter in what are identified as public domain scores in Adobe Acrobat format.

So, serial downloaders are in clover - but, a health warning is needed. We all know that there are very few free lunches in the world of downloads, so I fired off a quick email asking for reassurance from Professor Moss as to the provenance of his downloads. Here is his reply, so I must qualify this feature with the audio download equivalent of caveat emptor.

Dear Sir - The Mendelssohn scores are 100% in the Public Domain, being late 19th Century editions (mostly European) that have long been out of print, and their 75-year copyright now long expired and not renewed since the publishers no longer exist either. The scores and sound files on my Web site are either recorded by me, my friends, or used in RealAudio format with permisson of the copyright owners. No one objects to the use of RealAudio content since it has a far lesser sound quality than MP3. To be blunt, RealAudio offers a small file size with "passable" quality that does not compete with CD-quality audio at all. It merely offers listeners a "sound image" to use when selecting material that they may wish to purchase on CDs.

I teach for two colleges: The University of South Carolina at Sumter and Saint Leo University at Shaw Air Force Base. My Web articles were really written for the use of my college students in my music classes. So now you will understand the motivation of my Web site. I do not make a profit of any kind from this site.

Sincerely, Charles K. Moss




While elsewhere in the US, the indefatigable Walt Santner has uncovered a veritable vault of downloads of complete operas recorded in Bulgaria that don't appear to need any health warnings. Full length Russian works to download are Borodin Prince Igor, Dargomizhsky Rusalka, Mussorgsky Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Andrey Petrov Peter I, Prokofiev Betrothal in a Monastery, Rachmaninoff Aleko, Rimsky-Korsakov Boyarinya Vera Sheloga, The Golden Cockerel and The Snow Maiden, Shostakovich Katerina Ismailova, and Stravinsky Mavra and Renard.

There are also downloads of complete operas by little known Bulagarian composers including Atanasov, Goleminov, Goleminov, Hadjiev, Iliev, Pipkov, Stoyanov, Vladigerov. While back in the mainstream the complete Bulgarian National Radio performances include Bizet Les pêcheurs de perles, Verdi Don Carlo, and Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer. The Bulgarian downloads come from a University of Pittsburgh site, and include cast lists and singer biographies.

For obvious reasons I haven't listened to many of these recordings. So reader reviews and experiences while on today's download path are very welcome.

Caveat emptor, and serial downloaders enjoy!

Now, for more Walt Santner discoveries click over to another treasure trove of historic MP3 downloads.
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Mendelssohn – more than a violin concerto

November 2007 brings the 160th anniversary of the death of Felix Mendelssohn, which means this year we are going to hear a lot of Fingal’s Caves, Italian Symphonies, and Violin Concertos. Which is a shame, as Mendelssohn wrote much other fine music which deserves to be heard more often. But the good news is that even if the concert and broadcast programmers stick to his greatest hits you can explore more of Mendelssohn’s fine music on two very affordable CD sets.

Mendelssohn grew up in Berlin, and was a student at the Singakadamie where he first studied the compositions of J.S. Bach, and it was in Berlin that he gave the celebrated anniversary performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. While director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Mendelssohn regularly performed Bach’s music, and he edited several of the organ works and was a key figure in the publication of the first complete Bach edition. The influence of Bach can clearly be seen in Mendelssohn’s own organ and choral compositions, and I want to recommend two CD sets which give a wonderful opportunity to explore these influences.

Mendelssohn performed Bach's organ music on his recital tours, and he was familiar with instruments from Bach’s time including the two Silbermann organs in Rötha near Leipzig. The shadow of Bach is most evident in Mendelssohn’s early organ works, but the debt is clear in the whole oeuvre including the Three Preludes and Fugues Op. 37 and Six Sonatas for Organ Op 65 which are the pinnacles of Mendelssohn’s compositions for the instrument. In 1822 Mendelssohn played an organ built by Aloys Mooser in the small town of Bulle in Switzerland, and this was used by Stefan Johannes Bleicher to record Mendelssohn’s complete organ music which is now available on a super-budget priced 3CD set from Arte Nova. The classical design and build of the Aloys Mooser organ guarantee authenticity, and the sound and performances are excellent on this outstanding set.

Bach’s model is also clear in Mendelssohn’s choral works, particularly the eight chorale cantatas. These can be enjoyed in an outstanding 10CD box of Mendelssohn’s complete choral works from the enterprising Dutch super-budget label Brilliant Classics. I cannot recommend this set highly enough. These are not previously issued recordings released under licence, they are sparkling new digital recordings which offer excellent sound with Reinhard Geller doubling as producer and engineer. The Chamber Choir of Europe under Nicol Matt give exemplary performances, and the packaging is excellent and includes complete texts. I bought my set for just €24.99 (£14/$27) in Galeria Kaufhof in Leipzig last year, a store that almost overlooks St Thomas’ and is a short distance from the famous Mendelssohn Haus.

These two enterprising super-budget labels have got their fingers on the musical pulse, and understand that there is much more to Mendelssohn than the Violin Concerto. Their sets of the complete organ and choral music offer outstanding opportunities to explore Mendelssohn’s lesser known music at highly affordable prices. What more can we ask in this anniversary year?

Now see more of the city that was home to both Bach and Mendelssohn, in I am a camera - Leipzig
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I am a camera - Leipzig

Creative home of Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Wagner, the setting for a scene of Goethe's Faust, birthplace of GDR dictator Walter Ulbricht and home to the dreaded Stasi secret police, victim of Allied bombing and Communist urban planning, a thriving university city with a dynamic arts scene ..... that is Leipzig. I was a camera there last weekend, here are my snapshots ...

4th March - 5.00pm
Grosser Saal, Gewandhaus
Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
Praeludium in F BuxWV 144
Cantata 'O wie sellig sind, die zu dem Abendmahl des Lammes berufen sind' BuxWV 90
Chorale Prelude 'Nun lob mein Seel und Wohl' BuxWV 213
Cantata 'Wie schmeckt es so lieblich und wohl' BuxWV 108
Chorale Prelude 'Nun lob mein Seel und Wohl' BuxWV 215
Chorale Prelude 'Nun lob mein Seel und Wohl' BuxWV 214
Cantata 'Lauda Sion Salvatorem' BuxWV 68
Chorale Prelude 'Vater unser im Mimmelriech' BuxWV 219
Cantata 'Pange lingua gloriosi' BuxWV 91
Merseburger Hofmusik with Michael Schönheit organ and direction
Friederike Holzhausen & Julie Koch sopranos
Annette Reinhold alto, Gotthold Schwarz bass

Johann Sebastian Bach held Dietrich Buxtehude in high esteem, and according to legend walked more than 200 miles to meet him in Lubeck, yet today Buxtehude still does not receive the recognition he deserves - I wonder why? This excellent concert underlined the importance of Buxtehude as a direct predecessor of Bach. The concert was held in the main concert hall of the Gewandhaus and alternated organ chorales with cantatas. It was a physical as well as musical feat for organist and director Michael Schönheit as he directed the cantatas from a chamber organ on the main platform, and then trotted up several flights of stairs back-stage to appear at the console of the mighty Schuke organ for the chorales, then trotted back down for the next cantata.

The Gewandhaus Hall of 1884 was reduced to ruins in a bombing raid in 1944, but the shell of the hall was kept in the hope that it could be rebuilt. But in 1968, in a spate of GDR vandalism masquerading as urban renewal, the ruins were demolished together with the University Chapel (see below) and other historic buildings to make way for the mixture of concrete cubes and towers beloved by communist urban planners. As well as the new concert hall the 34-storey Universitatschochhaus skyscraper is the legacy of this urban renewal. This new home for Leipzig University was a pet project of the then GDR dictator Walter Ulbricht, a native of Leipzig. The Universitatschochhaus is typical of the empty gestures totally lacking in any economic or aesthetic substance that started the peaceful revolution in Leipzig in 1989 described below. It is particularly appropriate that the collapse of the Communist GDR began in this city with its many connections to the despised regime, not the least of which was the headquarters of the dreaded Stasi secret police (logo above) located on the Dittrichring.

The new Gewandhaus, which opened in 1981, has a wonderful interior and acoustics, but the exterior with its 70s brutalism does not let us forget it is a product of the GDR. And I apologise for the gallows humour, but the fine Schuke organ with its array of silver pipes facing the audience reminds me of the 'Stalin organ' rocket launchers used by the Russians in the Battle of Berlin.

5th March - 9.30pm
Sunday service at St Thomas' Church (photo above) with St Thomas' Boys Choir
Johann Sebastian Bach
Motet 'Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn' BWV Anh. lll/159 with Choral BWV 421
Gunther Ramin
Chorale prelude 'Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit'
(Ramin directed music at the Thomaskirche for sixteen years from 1940, always swimming against the tide of contemporary tastes, fighting the Nazis to uphold the Christian basis of the Thomaskirche’s musical tradition and fighting the post-war socialist governing party [SED], which finally had to concede that the choir would only continue to be a source of foreign revenue if it were allowed to pursue the Bach tradition.)
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach
Adagio from Sonata in A Wq 70/4
Johann Sebastian Bach
Fugue BWV 552/2

To hear Bach's music in a liturgical context in his own church, and sung by the choir of which he was Cantor from the very organ loft where he made music for twenty-seven years is one of life's great moments. As if this was not enough the service I attended marked the twentieth anniversary of the appointment of the current organist of St Thomas', Ullrich Böhme. The service closed with him playing the great five-voice triple fugue BV 552/2 from the Clavier-Ubung lll on the new 'Bach organ' built by Gerald Woehl for the Bach 250th anniversary year of 2000 - Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight!

J.S. Bach became Cantor of St Thomas' and Musikdirector of Leipzig in 1723, and worked in the city until his death in 1750. (His predecesor as Cantor was the little known Johann Kuhnau who I wrote about recently.) During his period in Leipzig Bach composed many of the masterpieces of Western music including the St Matthew and St John Passions, the B minor Mass, the Christmas Oratorio, the Art of Fugue and the Clavier-Ubung lll.

The history of the four churches in Leipzig in which Bach worked is closely associated with the turbulent politics of the 20th century. His teaching appointment was at St Thomas', and this historic church has thankfully survived, with the famous statue in my heading photo standing outside. The 15th century triptych altar (photo above) by an anonymous artist was moved to the church when the University Church of St Paul, with which Bach was also associated, was destroyed in 1968 by the GDR redevelopment described above, also lost was the organ there on which Bach often performed. The specification and casing of the new 'Bach organ' in St Thomas' were built to resemble the instrument in the University Church.

St Thomas' contains Bach's mortal remains. They were moved there from their previous resting place in another of his churches, St John's, which was totally destroyed in World War ll. My photo below shows the simple black stone that marks the final resting place of the composer that Max Reger described as the beginning and end point of all music.

We can rejoice that St Thomas' survives while sadly the University Church of St Paul and the church of St John's are no more. Also surviving is the fourth church closely linked to Bach, the Nicolai Church. This is famous as the venue for the first performance of the St John Passion. But today Nicolai Church is best known for the the candle-lit vigils and demonstrations that started there in 1989 before gathering momentum to become the Wende, the peaceful revolution that toppled the Communist dictatorship, and opened the door to the elections that led to German re-unification in 1990. The truly inspirational story of these events is best told by the Rev. C. Führer of the Nicolai Church:

'From 8 May 1989, the driveways to the church were blocked by the police. Later the driveways and motorway exits were subject to large-scale checks or even closed during the prayers-for-peace period. The state authorities exerted greater pressure on us to cancel the peace prayers or at least to transfer them to the city limits. Monday after monday there were arrests or "temporary detentions" in connection with the peace prayers. Even so, the number of visitors flocking to the church continued to grow to a point where the 2.000 seats were no longer sufficient. Then came the all-deciding 9 October 1989. And what a day it was!

There was a hideous show of force by soldiers, industrial militia, police and plain-clothes officers. But the opening scene had taken place two days before on 7 October, the 40th anniversary of the GDR, which entered into GDR history as Remembrance Day. On this day, for 10 long hours, uniformed police battered defenceless people who made no attempt to fight back and took them away in trucks. Hundreds of them were locked up in stables in Markkleeberg. In due course, an article was published in the press saying that it was high time to put an end to what they called "counter-revolution, if necessary by armed forces". That was the situation like on 9 October 1989.

Moreover, some 1.000 SED party (logo above) members had been ordered to go to the St. Nicholas Church. 600 of them had already filled up the church nave by 2 p.m. They had a job to perform like the numerous Stasi personnel who were on hand regularly at the peace prayers. What has not been considered was the fact, that these people were exposed to the word, the gospel and its impact!

Thus, the prayers for peace took place in unbelievable calm and concentration (see press photo from dhm.de below). Shortly before the end, before the bishop gave his blessing, appeals by Professor Masur, chief conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and others who supported our call for non-violence, were read out. The solidarity between church and art, music and the gospel was of importance in the threatening situation of those days. The prayers for peace ended with the bishop's blessing and the urgent call for non-violence. More than 2.000 people leaving the church were welcomed by ten thousands waiting outside with candles in their hands - an unforgettable moment. Two hands are necessary to carry a candle and to protect it from extinguishing so that you can not carry stones or clubs at the same time. The miracle occurred.

Troops, (military) brigade groups and the police were drawn in, became engaged in conversations, then withdrew. It was an evening in the spirit of our Lord Jesus for there were no winners and no defeated, nobody triumphed over the other, nobody lost his face. There was just a tremendous feeling of relief. This non-violent movement only lasted a few weeks. But it caused the party and ideological dictatorship to collapse. Horst Sindermann, who was a member of the Central Committee of the GDR, said before his death: "We had planned everything. We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers".'

Political awareness remains high in Leipzig, and my photo below is of a candle-lit vigil for political prisoners that was taking place while we were there this week.

5th March - 4.00pm
Mendelssohn Haus, Goldscmidstrasse
Georg Philipp Telemann - Sonatine in G for violin and bass continuo (1718)
Arcangelo Corelli - Sonata Vll for violin and bass continuo Op 5 (1700)
Jean-Philipp Rameau - Suite in A from Premier livre de clavecin (1705/06)
Johann Hermann Schein - Sixth suite in A from 'Banchetto musicale' (1617)
Georg Philipp Telemann - Sonata Nr 5 in E from 'Sonate metodiche' (1617)
Johann Sebastian Bach - Invention from Sinfonia for Harpsichord (1723)
Georg Friedrich Handel - Sonata in A Op 1 Nr 3 for violin and bass continuo
Kristina Gerlach, baroque violin and Christian Hornef, harpsichord

Finally to remind us of the many other musicians associated with this most musical of cities a recital at the Mendelssohn House, the Biedermeier dwelling of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in the last years of his life. Mendelssohn was Kapellmeister at the Gewandhaus, and in 1829 directed a pioneering performance of the St. Matthew Passion at the Berlin Singakademie, and is commemorated as a champion of Bach in a stained-glass window in St Thomas'. Hearing this programme of exquisite chamber music in the very rooms in which Mendelssohn lived was an appropriate end to an unforgetable weekend.

CDs bought in Leipzig:
J.S.Bach - Leipzig Chorales played on the 'Bach organ' in St Thomas' by Almut Rossler, Motette DCD 13151 - pure digital magic!
Bach und die Romantik - music for organ, chorus and harp from composers ranging from Desprez and Palestrina, through Bach to Britten and Erhard Mauersberger (brother of Dresden Requiem composer Rudolf Mauersberger, a fine composer in his own right) sung by the Dresden based vocal ensemble Die VokalRomantiker whose members include former choristers from the Dresden Kreuzchor and St Thomas' in Leipzig. This is the group's fifth 'concept' CD and it is very well worth getting hold of, programmers for PSB stations will find it particularly rewarding, Querstand VKJK 0509.
Mendelssohn Choral Works - 10 CDs for €25 another Brilliant bargain with the Chamber Choir of Europe directed by Nicol Matt, Brilliant Classics 99997.
Salvatore Sacco - Missa 1607, Templum Musicae directed by Vincenzo Di Donato, a wonderful early 17th century Mass from this little known pupil of Palestrina on the Carus label which brought us Mauerberger's Dresden Requiem, Carus 83.191.
Buxtehude - not purchased in Leipzig but worth noting is Francis Jacob's excellent Pièces pour Orgue which offers a selection of Buxtehude's chorales for organ and voice, released on the enterprising Zig-Zag Territoires label which also brought us Jacob's Clavier-übung III.

More small print ... the practical details - we flew London Stansted to Altenburg (Leipzig) with Ryanair. Altenburg is best known for the 1739 Trost organ in the Palace Church which was audited by Bach. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, Garden Court in Leipzig using a very good deal via Lastminute.com. We also visited Zwickau, Schumann's birthplace, but that is another article .... All photos taken by Pliable on Casio EX - Z120 digital camera, (C) On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Related resources On An Overgrown Path include * I am a camera - Dresden * I am a camera - Berlin * A Passion for Bach * Gentlemen, old Bach is here * Mortal defeat for the mob in Paris * Dresden requiem for eleven young victims * Karl Richter in Munich *

Music and Alzheimer's

I have previously mentioned the violinist (and former leader of the Medici Quartet) Paul Robertson's work with music and Alzheimer's Disease. It was a pleasure to hear him on BBC Radio 3's In Tune programme last night talking about his latest project, Swansongs. This is a 'performance' in words and music of the process, pathology, struggles, and compensations of Alzheimer's (which is one of the prime causes of dementia). The project is a joint one between Paul Robertson and John Zeisel who is an international expert on the non-pharmacological treatment of people with Alzheimer's (which is thought to be related to 'protein tangles' in crystal structures in the brain).


Swansongs mixes music and storytelling to give insights into Alzheimer's. Among the musical examples used are Bach's Allemande from the Partita in D minor, the Cavatina from Beethoven's Opus 130 Quartet, Faure's String Quartet (which was apparantely composed in the early stages of dementia and exhibits 'shapelessness'), Smetana's 2nd Quartet which was created in an advanced period of mental degeneration due to the composer's syphyllis, and Grundge by Judas Priest (no comment).


Prof. Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson is an informed, articulate and passionate advocate of the use of music to help Alzheimer's sufferers and carers. He can communicate far more fluently than me the benefits of his wonderful work. I urge everyone to visit the Swansongs web site, and to read in particular the Treatment Tips. The advice given here is applicable far beyond Alzheimer's sufferers. Paul Robertson is an inspiring communicators on this vitally important subject. Another book from him on the subject (he did write Music & Silence some years ago, but it is long out of print) would be invaluable - if only he had the time.

If the subject of Alzheimer's and dementia seems unduly gloomy remember that in the UK three-quarters of a million people suffer from the disease, while four and a half million family members and carers are affected. In the US five million live with the disease, and thirty million are affected in some way. No wonder Paul Robertson describes it as a pandemic.


Music is now an established tool for managing dementia related conditions