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

Glock around the clock

Another contribution to the Glock centenary - Sir William with Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington Summer School in 1979. Glock is often criticised for ignoring the music of certain British composers. So it is interesting to note that there is not a single note of Max's music in the 2008 BBC Proms Season. But, don't worry, there's lots here, and a new CD 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

A stong commitment to the new

'It has been said that William Glock had a greater influence on musical culture in post-war Britain than anybody, and perhaps that is true. He would have been happier, I am sure, with a more modest epitaph: that he helped to make the understanding of music more acute. Inside and outside the BBC, he sought constantly for a repertory that was stimulating, and he made a strong commitment to the new, but one might say he did as much for Haydn and Schubert as for Stravinsky and Boulez. As for his BBC legacy, it needs re-articulating and defending by his successors in the same way as John Reith's does; it cannot be denied. More particularly, at the Proms every summer we take it for granted, and there, surely, there can be no going back' - from Stephen Plaistow's Guardian obituary of Sir William Glock (above) who was born on 3rd May, 1908 and died on 28th June, 2000. His centenary passes without any celebration on BBC Radio 3. But find lots more celebration here.

Photo credit Sunday Times/Thomson Regional Newspapers. 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

Different tempo but the music continues

'The pause is as important as the note' ~ Truman Fisher

We start a summer of travelling tomorrow with a flight to Morocco, so the tempo of posting will slow markedly. While I'm away do read other great music blogs here, but why not escape the tyranny of league tables and explore the long tail of music blogs over here? But don't forget the music continues on my Future Radio programme at 5.00pm UK time every Sunday with a repeat at 12.50am on Monday morning. Here is the forward schedule which starts on April 20 with two modern composers who between them do not have a single note of their music in the 2008 BBC Proms season.

April 20 Unique British voices - Peter Maxwell Davies Missa Parvula sung by Choir of Westminster Cathedral; Edmund Rubbra Symphony No 6 played by Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Norman del Mar. (Nice Max connection as I took the photo of the Japanese garden at Dartington Hall where he was a fixture at the Summer School for many years).

April 27 Bach and beyond - J.S. Bach Sonata No. 1 in G minor played by Mark Lubotsky; Eugène Ysaÿe Sonata No 2 in A Minor for violin played by Thomas Zehetmair; J.S. Bach Partita No 3 in E major played by Mark Lubotsky.

May 4 Meditations on war - Richard Strauss Metamorphosen in realisation for string septet played by supplemented Brandis Quartet; Benjamin Frankel Violin Concerto, 'In Memory of the Six Million' played by Ulf Hoelscher with Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Werner Andreas Albert.

May 11 Elaborated plainsong - Jacobus de Kerle Missa Pro Defunctis (extracts) sung by Huelgas-Ensemble directed by Paul Van Nevel; James MacMillan – Veni, Veni, Emmanuel played by Colin Currie and the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Takuo Yuase.

May 18 Musicians in exile - Bohuslav Martinů Concertino for Piano Trio and String Orchestra played by the Dresden Trio and New Berlin Chamber Orchestra conducted by Martin Fischer-Dieskau; Peter Paul Fuchs Five Miniatures, artists unknown, private recording supplied by Mrs Elissa Fuch; Karl Weigl String Quartet No 5 played by Artis Quartet of Vienna. ITunes podcast of Fuch's Five Miniatures now available for download.

May 25 Vaughan Williams anniversary - Ralph Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs sung by Thomas Allen (baritone), Corydon Singers and English Chamber Orchestra directed by Matthew Best and Symphony No. 4 with Sir Adrian Boult conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

Enjoy!

Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

BBC Proms 2008 tries some time travel

1972 - Stockhausen's Carré for four orchestral groups is performed twice in a late-night Promenade concert, rehearsal shown in photo above. Other Proms include the first UK performance of Elliott Carter's Concerto for Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez and George Crumb's Echoes of Time and River.


2008 - Proms season includes Stockhausen's Klang (13th and 15th hour), Kontakte, Stimmung and two performances of Gruppen in one concert. There is also Xenakis coupled with Vaughan Williams, and four works by Elliott Carter including two UK premieres, plus lots of Messiaen and Vaughan Williams and a programme of twentieth-century music mixed with renaissance polyphony. (Wish I had thought of that).

Are things getting better under new Proms director Roger Wright? Well, there is also music from Doctor Who as shown in the ridiculous BBC photo opportunity above, dancing round a maypole in Kensington Gardens, and musicians "popping up" on street corners, as the Times reports. But overall it's goodbye Nicholas Kenyon and hello the most interesting Proms season for years.

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 BBC Proms - a sad history

Overgrown Path has been saying it for years - BBC Proms - a multicultural society?, BBC Proms 2006 lacks eternal feminine, Music gets in the way of running BBC Proms, and BBC Proms last night - I flee the country.

Now other people are saying it - Hodge attacks Proms: they're narrow and lack the common British values: The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, will today criticise the Prom concerts as one of many British cultural events that fail to engender new common values or attract more than a narrow unrepresentative audience.

At last people are finally waking up to the fact that the BBC Proms in their present form are outdated, irrelevant and unworthy of the BBC's marketing hype as 'the world's greatest music festival'. But government intervention will only make the situation worse, unless the cause of the problem is tackled.

History is the key to understanding the present problems. The first Promenade Concert took place in 1895, and it was twenty-seven years later that the BBC became involved and broadcast the first concert. In 1945, exactly fifty years after the first Prom, the BBC took over as sole managers. The 1970s and 1980s were an Indian summer for the Proms with William Glock, Robert Ponsonby and John Drummond in charge, Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna were on the podium and The Soft Machine, Imrat Kahn, and David Munrow on stage.

The problems started in John Drummond's reign and the writing was on the wall in 1990 when Last Night conductor Mark Elder was replaced at the last minute due to his dissenting views on the Gulf War. (It is interesting that Elder's reputation has grown has grown since then, while that of the Proms has declined). In 1996 Nicholas Kenyon succeeded Drummond as Proms director, starting a period when the broad music vision pioneered by Willliam Glock and others was subordinated to the marketing plans and ratings measurements of the post-John Birt BBC.

To sum up Kenyon's twelve years as Proms director, which earned him a knighthood and another top job in the music establishment, I need only repeat my prophetic words written in February 2007 - His tenure at the Proms has been marked by unimaginative planning which totally failed to reflect the diversity of today's contemporary music, and his programming repeatedly backed personal hobbyhorses at the expense of important voices.

The Proms will only start to reflect a broad musical and cultural vision when the stranglehold of BBC Radio 3 is broken. The joint position of Radio 3 controller and Proms director dates from the end of the Indian Summer in 1987 when John Drummond was appointed to both positions. Like Nicholas Kenyon, his successor Roger Wright now holds both positions. The joint responsibilities create a disastrous conflict of interests in which the 'day job' of network controller invariably takes precedence over the concerts. So everything else is subservient to the broadcast schedule, including the music and timings.

To start the rejuvenation of the Proms the positions of Proms director and Radio 3 controller must be separated and 'Chinese walls' built between the broadcasts and the concerts. Birtian internal cross-charging should be instigated, with the Proms cost centre charged for the million of pounds of free BBC Radio 3 promotion it benefits from. This free promotional air time makes it very difficult to promote competitive, and broader, festivals in London during the Proms season. Can anyone really support a position where the BBC control the concerts, the promotional medium, the resident orchestra, the radio and TV coverage, the new music commissioning budget and more?

That word more is an interesting one. With a few exceptions a government minister and a music blog have been the sole critics of the Proms' tunnel vision. Margaret Hodge's criticism is reported in the Guardian; surely that bastion of liberal journalism would be one of the concert series' most vocal critics? Well, the Guardian's chief music critic Tom Service is high profile and a smart guy. But he is also a BBC Radio 3 presenter, writes for BBC Music Magazine and contributed a chapter to the book seen in my header image. The Proms - A New History is a recent publication and the consultant editor is none other than Nicholas Kenyon.

And yes, I've been an enthusiastic Promenader from the 1970s to the present day and I'm even linked from the BBC Proms website.
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

From up here you should see the view

Chandos Records has a new blog and it looks rather familiar. Now they need some decent photos and album covers and to work out how hyperlinks work.

Talking of technology Jean-Michel Jarre is performing his 1977 album Oxygene live at the Albert Hall in March and he is using the original Mellotron, string-ensemble Eminents and VCS 3 synthesisers for the gig, not a computer or pre-recorded track in sight. He thinks the analogue sound is better, and he's not the first to say it. Jarre has a classical pedigree, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and also with the father of musique concrète, Pierre Schaeffer at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. More in the Independent.

Staying at the Albert Hall Vernon Handley may not yet have his Knighthood, but my sources tell me he has a 2008 BBC Prom after a long absence from the venue. This is the first season for the new Proms director (and BBC Radio 3 controller) Roger Wright after the Michael Ball years of Nicholas Kenyon. At least the new Proms director has got something Wright. Let's hope a mass cull of Radio 3 presenters in next on the agenda.

Nicholas Kenyon achieved notoriety as director when he presented a complete Proms season featuring 106 male composers and not one female. Which brings me to the question of is there such a thing as feminine music? James Weeks neatly sidestepped the question when I talked to him about his acclaimed CD of Elisabeth Lutyens' music (listen to a podcast of the discussion here).

If pressed my wife (and many men I suspect) would confess to preferring Mahler's Fifth Symphony to Stockhausen's Kontakte of Xenakis' Anaktoria, but at least she is open-minded enough to hear all three works live in London on consecutive evenings in a couple of weeks. Now a Guardian article considers whether men and women listen to music differently. The trouble is that the writer excludes classical from her definition of music. Which is a view also held by the government minister responsible for the arts in the UK.

In an Independent interview our new 38 year old Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Andy Burnham gave this reply when asked what is on his iPod? - 'A mixture of indie stuff, old and new: Billy Bragg, the Stone Roses, Hard-Fi, the Wedding Present, the Arctic Monkeys and the Pogues'. At least he didn't misspell Michael Tippett.

It was Lou Harrison versus Michael Tippitt (sic) on Sequenza21 who triggered a fascinating (and continuing debate) on my post about puffery and small-mindedness. But why choose one against the other when you can have both on Future Radio? My programme on Sunday February 24 includes Elliott Carter's Pastoral for Clarinet and Piano and Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord, while the following week (Sunday March 2) you can hear Michael Tippett's Second Symphony conducted by the composer. Full details, including a new transatlantic friendly repeat, on the right-hand sidebar.

I hope you will listen to my Future Radio programme. But also remember those that can't due to incurable sudden neurosensory hearing loss (SNHL). Read about the dreadful experience of music writer Nick Coleman in the Guardian.

More on politicians' musical tastes here and here.
My headline has mellotron connections, it comes from the lyrics of The Moody Blues 1969 album To Our Children's Children's Children which made extensive use of the instrument, and was on my turntable alongside Mahler, Nielsen and Stockhausen at university in its year of release. Photograph of Minnewater Bruges (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Happy long tail to all my readers

Right at the end of 2007 the Observer ran a story that shames the whole classical music community, including this and other blogs. It was about the BBC's rejection of director Tony Palmer's Vaughan Williams film, a news story that was featured prominently by the Observer and several music blogs, including this one. It now appears that the rejection letter quoted in the coverage was a publicity-seeking hoax, although the identity of the hoaxer remains unclear - read the full account here.

This story neatly sums up a year in which relevance became the order of the day, and swapping the long tail of culture for the short head of the mass market became the number one priority. 2007 saw Norman Lebrecht's attempts to go mass market hit the buffers, while William Barrinton-Coupe's efforts on behalf of his late wife met a similar fate. It was also the year when the Royal Opera House went mass market with its advertising, BBC TV went mass market with its classical music programming, Deutsche Grammophon went mass market with its CD covers, John Foulds went mass market with his World Requiem, the BBC Proms went mass market with its crooners, and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra went mass market with its concert attire and politics.

'Relevance' is in and the long tail is out. But it doesn't always work as Dominic Sandbrook recounts in his excellent book White Heat, a History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties? 'Many Protestant churchmen, alarmed at their inability to reverse the long decline in church-going, concluded that 'relevance was the order of the day'. According to Grace Davie, the churches, besotted like so many other institutions by the 'desire to be modern', consequently 'looked to the secular world for a lead and borrowed, in some cases rather uncritically, both its ideas and forms of expression'. It was in this period, for example, that liberal churchmen first began wielding guitars, introducing handclapping into the Anglican rite and generally conducting themselves like frustrated pop singers, a tactic that failed to attract many new parishioners and often alienated those still loyal to the Church of England'


In 2008 On An Overgrown Path will stay focussed on the long tail, and now playing is Satori (1999) for solo harpsichord by John Palmer. A long way from the Anglican rite, Satori describes the spiritual awakening during Zen meditation. This penetrating work, with its long silences is influenced both by the composer's friendship with John Cage and by his deep involvement with Japanese culture. Adventurous and thought-provoking new music from the enterprising Sargasso label, which revels in promoting the long tail. Check out good length MP3 samples here.

The CD has excellent sleeve notes by Peter Burt, including this one for the title work - A koan, for instance, is that type of apparently nonsensical question by means of which students in the Rinzai school of Zen are trained to transcend the limitations of verbal reasoning, the most famous example perhaps being Hakuin's 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' (My own mischievous answer has always been that it is the audience reaction at the average new music concert).

Peter Burt neatly disposes of the long tail versus mass market conflict with these words - All this picturesque 'Japaneseness' might make it sound as though the listener to this CD is in for a comfortable session of 'New-age' easy listening. But be warned: someone who submits himself to the ascetic severities of Zen monastery life could hardly be expected to opt for facile and superficial artistic solutions, and the musical language of John Palmer's work is uncompromisingly Western and modernist. It demands of its listener, no less than of its creator, an attitude of disciplined seriousness. Deeply rewarding listening.

Which eloquently sums up the long tail listening experience.


* Celebrate the new year with some more long tail - my David Munrow on the record programme is being repeated on Future Radio by popular demand at 7.00pm on New Year's Day, click here for the audio stream.

Sand mandala header photo from my 2007 post about the Free Tibet campaign. And no apologies to all those who think politics, music and sport don't mix. With the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 it is a subject I'll doubtless be returning to. Sand mandalas are a motif in Martin Scorsese's film Kundun which also deals with the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and I featured Philip Glass' score for the film on internet radio in November. My middle photo is from Going Buddhist which featured the music of Lou Harrison, the footer image is from Zen and the art of new music about Jonathan Harvey's music, and there is another contemporary music Koan here from James Tenney. Lots of long tail links for the new year.
All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Today's BBC - the envy of the world?

Envy? Try some other 'Es' ... Expensive, egregious and ennobled.

The source of that 'envy of the world' quote is here.
Photo (c) 2007 On An Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Wagner Dream comes true

'In terms of new music, 2007 was less special, save for Magnus Lindberg's fine violin concerto, Heiner Goebbels's indefinably moving Songs from Wars I Have Seen, and Jonathan Harvey's adroit chamber opera Wagner Dream. There were no premieres worth mentioning at the Proms, save Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto, quite the worst new piece to come my way all year' - writes Andrew Clements in today's Guardian.

Read more about Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream in Malcolm Miller's review, which is where the production shot from the 2007 Holland Festival in Amsterdam came from. (Photo credit Clärchen and Matthias Baus). More on Jonathan Harvey 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

Making music accessible desirable and different

'Orchestral concerts must become like football games, accessible, desirable and different' suggests the principal of the Royal Academy of Music, Curtis Price. His advice comes in a Guardian Comment feature by Simon Jenkins who has caught the Gustavo Dudamel and Hugh Masekela bug. Jenkins goes on to explain that in the coming 'revolution in appeal' classical music must include 'added value in congregation'.

Simon Jenkins is better known as a writer on church architecture than classical music. So we can forgive him for not knowing that there has been 'added value in congregation' (which when translated from Gordon Brown speak means, I think, audience participation) in classical music for a long time. From the chorales in Bach's Passions, through the Radetzky March at the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day concerts, to the congregation hymns in Britten's St. Nicholas.

But why does every performance today have to include audience participation? Why do the BBC Proms audience have to be part of the action by contributing meaningless dribbles of applause between movements? Why do our future performers need to be selected on TV reality shows? Why do we need to condense Benjamin Britten's holy triangle of composer, performer and listener down to a single point where the listener is king? Why do we need, to quote Simon Jenkins, to make concerts 'a shared experience of laughing and dancing'?

Why don't we study that football analogy more closely? In football the laughing and dancing often ruins the performance. The major teams are controlled by power brokers with connections to the oil industry. Our much-hyped national team failed even to qualify at an international level. Ever younger stars are heaped with cash and adulation, and fail to deliver. And the media's darling, who was proclaimed as the saviour of the sport, has fled to Los Angeles with a lucrative contract in his pocket.

The revolution isn't about making concerts like football matches. The revolution is about finding shared musical languages and shared media that together reinforce, not undermine, Britten's holy triangle. The revolution is already happening, with many of the new composers and performing groups featured on this, and many other blogs, creating desirable and different music. The revolution is already happening by making their music more accessible through MP3 downloads, internet radio, a few old-fashioned CDs, and innovative live performances.

I don't pretend to have any influence over the future of classical music. But I was in the Future Radio studios the other day checking levels on Alvin Curran's Inner Cities for our forthcoming 'all-night vigil' webcast. A young DJ came off-air after presenting her hip hop show, and caught a few measures of Inner Cities. 'Wow, she exclaimed 'what is that? It is really cool.' That is the future of classical music, not conga lines.

Now playing - Techno Parade by Guillaume Connesson shown in my header image. Music from a leading French contemporary composer that is accessible, desirable and different, and not a football game in sight. Take your choice from the tracks, Disco-toccata, Jurassic Trip, and more. It even uses shared media; the eye-catching double disc pack (priced as a single) contains an audio CD and video DVD. That is the future of classical music.
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

Words on twentieth-century music

Norman Lebrecht's book may may have bitten the dust. But there is always Alex Ross' new magnus opus and much more beyond if you are looking for words on twentieth-century music. My header image shows a personal favourite music, Michael Nyman's Experimental Music - Cage and Beyond (CUP ISBN 0521653835). It was written in 1974, and although the 1999 edition didn't update it there is a new, and valuable, discography.

Elsewhere Mark Grant recommends Albert Glinsky's Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, (University of Illinois Press ISBN 0252025822) while on these pages composer and violinist Elaine Fine argued the case for Peter Conrad's Modern Times, Modern Places (Knopf ISBN 037540113X). I have recommended Paul Giffiths' A Concise History of Western Music (CUP ISBN 0521842948) to several readers, and fellow blogger Garth Trinkl bought it, and confirmed that the chapters on twentieth century music are thought-provoking.

Nicholas Kenyon's excellent 1981 book The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC ISBN 0563176172 OP) is the best guide to the golden age of new music in 1970s London under William Glock and Pierre Boulez. The appendix listing first performances is a who's who of twentieth-century music. How ironic that it was Kenyon himself, as director of the BBC Proms, who later masterminded the transition from the riches of Boulez to the wretchedness of Ball.

William Glock was controller of music at the BBC from 1959 to 1972, and his autobiography Notes In Advance (OUP ISBN 0198161921 OP) paints wonderful portraits of musicians from Igor Stravinsky to Elliott Carter. I have quoted him here on Bruno Maderna. Glock championed the music of Elisabeth Lutyens among others, and she features in the invaluable 1994 The Pandora Guide to Women Composers by Sophie Fuller (Pandora ISBN 004409362), together with Elizabeth Maconchy, Judith Weir, Thea Musgrave and other path regulars.

The very positive response to my recent post on the British music champion Maurice Miles, and to my webcast of Gerald Finzi's Cello Concerto, confirmed that interest in twentieth century composers extends well beyond the fashionable few who now feature at the BBC Proms and over on Sequenza21. If you want to explore beyond the fashionable few, here are two titles that you won't see mentioned elsewhere. Both are out of print, but well worth searching out.

Peter J. Pirie's The English Musical Renaissance - Twentieth Century British Composers & Their Works (Gollancz ISBN0575026790 OP) does what it says on the can, but doesn't bang on it. It was written in 1979, and takes the story up to Peter Maxwell Davies. Good coverage of composers who should be better known, including Frank Bridge (who was a major influence on Britten), Percy Grainger, John Ireland and Peter Warlock.

My other recommendation is The Music Makers - The English Renaissance from Elgar to Britten by Michael Trend (Weidenfeld ISBN 029778403 OP). This covers the same period as Peter Pirie's book, but read it for portraits of characters such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Rutland Boughton (I feel a path coming on - see below), Ethel Smyth and Lord Berners. Their day will come, meanwhile other book recommendations are very welcome.

Now playing - the original Hyperion vinyl LPs of Rutland Boughton's opera The Immortal Hour. This magical work is a 'choral drama' in the style of Wagner. Everything about it is extraordinary. It became a major commercial success in London's West End between 1922 and 1932. The libretto is by William Sharp (1855-1905) who transcended his gender and wrote under the name Fiona Mcleod. The first performance of The Immortal Hour was at Boughton's newly founded Glastonbury Festival in 1914, and the Festival went on to become a preeminent rock event. Most extraordnary is that, despite this high profile, The Immortal Hour has been swallowed in the mists of time. But thankfully the Hyperion version lives on in a budget priced CD re-issue. If you don't know it, you are missing something very special.

Now read about a classical label whose owner DJ'd at Glastonbury.
The letters OP after an ISBN denote Out of Print. But copies are usually available from second-hand dealers. 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

Give me digital - but not BBC Radio 3

Technology is changing the way we listen to radio, but classical network BBC Radio 3 is struggling in the brave new digital world. 15% of all radio listening in the UK is now via a digital platform according to research for the quarter ending September 2007 released yesterday by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Limited). The data also shows that digital listening showed a big increase over the previous quarter, and that 1.6% of all radio listening is now via the internet.

The number of adults who claim to have listened to the radio via a mobile phone also showed a marked increase, up to 9.2% in the last quarter. Unsurprisingly radio listening via mobile phone was most common in the younger age groups, with 23% of 15 to 24 year olds listening this way. 2.8 million adults used their mp3 player to listen to radio podcasts in the last quarter, up from 1.97 million in Q3 2006. Listening to digital only services (radio stations which are only available on a digital platform) also increased, up from 4.8 million listeners in Q3, 2006 to 6.2 million in Q3, 2007.

Analysis of radio audiences showed that both BBC Radio 3 and the commercial station Classic FM gained audience in the quarter ended September 2007, up to 1.938m and 5.844m respectively. But these figures are not as good news as they may seem at first glance. This quarter is historically strong for classical listening, with Radio 3 reaching an audience of 2.214m in the same quarter in 2003. The quarter ending September covers the BBC Proms season when the network benefits from huge amounts of free promotion, with virtually every programme in the schedules devoted to plugging the Proms. Charging the monetary value of that on-air advertising back to the Radio 3 cost centre using John Birt's 'internal market' formula would be a very interesting exercise.

Despite the massive 'Proms effect' Radio 3 only increased listener share from 1.10% to 1.20% from Q2 to Q3, whereas Classic FM, without the cross-benefit of the 'world's biggest music festival', increased listening share from 4.00% to 4.30%. The classical audience are not particularly heavy listeners either. Average hours per listener of 6.30 for Radio 3 and 7.30 for Classic FM compared with 10.20 for the the BBC's rock network Radio 1, and 12.30 hours for the talk based Radio 4.

Surprisingly the average hours per listener for Radio 3 did not increase in the last quarter despite the 'Proms effect', and actually showed a significant drop from 6.90 hours in the same quarter the previous year. Sadly this data simply confirms what has already been said here; the Radio 3 schedule changes are missing both the popular and serious music audiences, and the network is increasingly vulnerable to the long tail of internet radio and applications like the Radeo internet player.

RAJAR website is here, and the data tables are here.
Image credit Tom Scarff. 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

Echoes of Soft Machine

Profile in today's Guardian of Robert Wyatt. He was drummer with Soft Machine until he was fired in 1971. Soft Machine (above) played at the Proms in 1970 when risk taking was still in fashion, and I wrote about them disturbing my sleep here.
Photo of the Softs in 1967 from Hulloder. 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

Ingratiating schmaltzy and patronising

Tomorrow night West End star Michael Ball sings an evening of show tunes at the BBC Proms. Outgoing Proms director Nicholas Kenyon justified his appearance with these words: 'I think he is one of the great, intelligent singing artists alive today. He deserves a place at the Proms just as much as performers in the great classical tradition. Our job is to cover the whole waterfront.'

Which resonates with a story from 1995, when Nicholas Kenyon was controller of BBC Radio 3. Here is the story from the late Humphrey Carpenter's excellent official history of the network. And the words in the headline are not mine, they come from that very same official history.

Radio 3's new 9-10 am programme would be called Morning Collection, and would be presented by Paul Gambaccini [photo above], the transatlantic-born disc jockey whose 'music for lovers' programme on Classic FM had been a target of some mockery in the statuion's early days ... He would now join Radio 3.

Kenyon emphasised that Gambaccini had worked for BBC Radio 'long before Classic FM was in rompers', and was chosen because 'his connection with film and pop music makes him unintimidating to people who want to try classical music but are unsure about it'. A BBC publicity handout headed From Puccini to Gambaccini stated that Gambaccini's programme would consist of 'classical greats ... from Brahms to Britten, from Strauss to Stravinsky ... Paul brings his relaxed but knowledgeable style to programmes full of complete works by all the major composes ... Morning Collection takes you on a stimulating journey through 500 years of the classics.'

The music critic [and composer] Bayan Northcott noted that Gambaccini's presentation style on Classic FM was characterised by 'refraining from any information commentary or judgement of the slightest musical interest whatever'. After Morning Collection had begun on Radio 3, listeners' reactions to it were aired on Radio 4's Feedback. 'The outrage was instant,' reported the Daily Telegraph.

Comments on [Gambaccini's] velvet voice and sugary commentary ... ranged from 'unctuous', 'totally inane', 'ingratiating', 'schmaltzy', to 'egregious and patronising'. One listener complained that he sounds as if he's selling raspberry ripple'. Another said listening to him was like wallowing in warm blancmange' ...

Kenyon appeared on Feedback and described Gambaccini as 'a knowlegeable and informed presenter of classical music'. He admitted that the programme was 'a big change of culture and it's meant to be, because we're trying to open up a potential new audience to classical music'.

Paul Gambaccini's place on Radio 3 did not last long. In May 1996, after sustained attacks from listeners and critics, he announced that he would not continue to present Morning Collection when his contract expired later in the year. Kenyon said that the programme's format had been welcomed by listeners but its presentation had been criticised strongly.

Bayan Northcott is a respected contemporary composer as well as music critic. Hear his Salve Regina on my Overgrown Path radio programme on September 16 at 5.00pm British Summer Time on Future Radio.
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

They would be booed off the stage mercilessly

Drew80 has left a new comment on your post "A year of stories that had to be told":

Pliable, I could not agree with you more about the "volatile mix of musical vision, politics and commercialism" with which the Venezuelans are marketed, and I could not agree with you more about the presence of Venezuelan flags at an orchestral concert.

Goodness gracious! If Russian or German or American youth orchestras appeared in London wrapped in their countries' flags, they would be booed off the stage mercilessly, and deservedly so.

Posted by Drew80 to On An Overgrown Path at 4:20 PM
Photo credit Deceptively Simple. 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

A year of stories that had to be told

On An Overgrown Path is three years old today, and this is post number 1171. The site has received close to a million hits, and the word count is now not far short of a staggering half a million. That is twice as many words as Alex Ross' new book, and half as many as today's BBC Radio 3 presenters use to introduce a single concert.

The last twelve months gave me the opportunity to explore several new paths. Two of the most rewarding articles to write were those on the black Guyanese conductor Rudolph Dunbar and the Afro-French composer Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Appropriately, yesterday was the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, and I am writing this before we dash off to the radio studio to present a studio discussion on the slave trade.

My radio co-presenter is my wife Sorojini. As usual several different paths intersect here. Sorojini was born in Georgetown, Guyana, as was