On An Overgrown Path

It has been my privilege to work in the classical music industry and for the BBC , and, as this blog testifies, my life in retirement continues to be enhanced by classical and art music. So the recently announced cuts to the BBC's performing ensembles cause me grief, and I sympathise with those fine musicians whose lives will be directly affected. As was the case with the recent Arts Council England cuts , the planning and implementation of the savings has been badly handled.  But the strategies of the classical industry that have led to these cuts also disturb me, and I find the widespread knee jerk reaction  such as  '“New Strategy for Classical Music” from the @BBC... sounds like more of the same old levelling down of culture by those already busy wrecking this country"' unhelpful and troubling. I find this reaction unhelpful because it totally ignores two crucial factors that have triggered the BBC's dubious new classical strategy. The first c...

Writing in the 2001 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Edmund Rubbra's biographer the American musicologist Ralph Scott Grover described how: Rubbra's output reveals a unity on two levels: the musical, which is readily demonstrable, and the less easily perceived religous/philosophical, which overrides the musical and encompasses almost everything he wrote. It is universal rather than sectarian, an instinctive blend of the most spiritual and mystical elements of Buddhism and Catholicism. It led to a music that overflows with optimism and a sense of well-being, though the, at times, dramatic and conflictual aspects attest to the hard-won nature of that ultimate peace and reassurance. SOMM's newly restored and re-mastered release of archive recordings of Rubbra's Second and Fourth Symphonies , conducted by Sir Adrian Boult and the composer respectively, shine a new light on these two important and neglected works. I may trade in a foreign currency , but for my ...

A recent post explained how grovelling to 5% of your audience drives away 8% . Now if you think my criticism of the dumbed down BBC Radio 3 is extreme, try this one for size. On February 12th a Radio 3 broadcast of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius was introduced by presenter Kate Molleson as being conducted by "Sir Edward Davis". OK, we all make mistakes. But bear with me, because it gets worse. At the end of Andrew Davis' moving performance the final 'amen' died away to be followed seamlessly and without a linking announcement by another performance of the complete Prelude. OK, we all make mistakes, and perhaps the Radio 3 presenter was just having a bad Gerontius day and accidently let the music play on. But bear with me, because yet again it gets worse. This could not have been a continuity error. Because the Gerontius complete with fore and aft Preludes fitted exactly into the allocated time slot: if it had been Ms Molleson's mistake the programme...

It is pleasing that the very talented black cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason 's debut album has been released by Decca and is receiving the full attention of Universal Classics' spin machine . Sheku Kanneh-Mason's career has also received major support from the BBC: he was winner of the 2016 BBC Young Musician competition and has made a well-deserved well-deserved BBC Proms appearance . So it is appropriate to revisit the BBC's role in the career of another very talented black musician. Those header and footer images of Rudolph Dunbar are stills taken from a 1962 film on the RTBF/Belgium website. Guyanese-born Rudolph Dunbar wrote the definitive text book on the clarinet and had a flourishing conducting career in the 1940s. He conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and in 1945 became the first black conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. But a 2007 Overgrown Path post profiling him explained how in the post-war period Dunbar's high profile career went into mysterious...

Guyanese-born Rudolph Dunbar wrote the definitive text book on the clarinet and had a burgeoning conducting career in the 1940s during which he conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and in 1945 became the first black conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. But a 2007 Overgrown Path post profiling him explained how in the post-war period Dunbar's high profile career went into mysterious decline and how in 1988 he died in obscurity in London. Subsequent posts based on contributions from those who knew him suggested that intrigue inside the BBC ended his career . Now a remarkable video of Rudolph Dunbar talking in 1962 about his professional denouement has become available from RTBF/Belgium. The brief video from which the two still images are taken is in French, so a translation* is provided below. The video** can be viewed via this link . Please watch it even if you do not speak French; because it is an important and moving testament to the institutionalised discrimination that mo...

The BBC has announced that the inaugural BBC Proms Dubai four-day festival will take place from March 21-24, 2017 at the Dubai Opera. The artists appearing include Benjamin Grosvenor, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Dubai is the largest city in the United Arab Emirates and the human rights infringements in the UAE include the persecution of homosexuals , the maltreatment of migrant workers - see photo above - and discrimination against women . Islamic Sharia is the main source for the penal code in the UAE. This means, to quote Diana Hamade , an Emirati lawyer based in Dubai: "Crimes such as the desertion of Islam, fornication, murder, theft, adultery and homosexuality - all crimes classified as " Al Hudud " in Islamic law - are punishable by predetermined penalties (flogging and arm amputation among them)." The BBC Proms Dubai will include an authentic Last Night. It was the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop at the 2013 Last Nigh...

That publicity photo for the 2014 BBC Proms season attracted a lot of criticism as yet another example of the dumbing down of the once great concert series. The conductor in it is Sakari Oramo, so it is surprising to find an interview with him in yesterday's Telegraph headlined 'Sakari Oramo: ‘The Proms should not be dumbed down''. And it is even more surprising and puzzling to find the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra explicitly criticising his BBC colleagues in the Proms planning team by saying "I would not go any further down this tendency of, what shall I call it… ‘dumbing down’, which one can see creeping round the edges... I would steer away from that totally, completely”. Let me say now that I have the greatest admiration for Sakari Oramo as a conductor , and, of course, his criticism is perfectly valid. But he knew the direction the Proms were taking before he accepted the lucrative and prestigious post of chief conductor of the BBC Symph...

Of the Akhmatova Requiem of 1979, I certainly thought when I wrote it, 'this is the best of me' (as Elgar said about The Dream of Gerontius ). I do not think that now, but I still think it's a key piece... The Akhmatova Requiem is extremely monumental in character. It lasts an hour, with soprano singing almost uninterruptedly throughout, with the exception of the bass solo intonings of Orthodox prayers for the dead... Gennadi Rozhdestvensky conducted it superbly at the première... He chose to perform it for his last concert as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, first at Edinburgh on 20 August 1981 and then seven days later at his farewell concert at the Proms in London. In the event the tomblike structure of the piece was just too much for the audience and there was a mass walk-out. I was sitting there beside Father Sergei Hackel [who collaborated on the text] feeling extremely uncomfortable as many of the audience walked past me. Curiously, although it was u...

Still trying to talk prestigious composers - "they needed to be important so the works would get attention" - into writing for the harp [Edna] Phillips next targeted Benjamin Britten. He agreed to meet her in New York, where she spent a pleasant afternoon playing for him and discussing the technical requirements of the harp, but when she asked him to write a work for her, he declined. At the time, he was preparing to return to England to stand with his countrymen against the German bombardment. He was too distracted to think of accepting a commission, he told her. She lost the chance, but she always wondered whether she had prompted Britten to think about the harp. "He composed the Ceremony of Carols on the ship taking him back to England and used the harp in such an original and wonderful way in it," she said. "It really doesn't matter that he didn't accept our commission. That is a great work for the harp." That new perspective on the genesis...

'A sort of art revolution seems to have been going on [in the Gulf States] in the last ten years. In 2005 the Abu Dhabi government opened the Emirates Palace concert hall in a 7-star hotel, then four years ago the Qatar Philharmonic gave its first concert in Doha (under the baton of Lorin Maazel, no less). Last week Bahrain opened its new 1001-seater National Amphitheatre ; Dubai is also building an opera house and last year the spectacular Royal Opera House, Muscat opened its doors in the Omani capital. [See photo above]. This is where the BBC Symphony Orchestra caravan rolled up last week, thanks to an invitation from the Royal Opera House... With the growth of music education, orchestras and opera houses in this region together with fabulous hospitality, the Gulf Arab states could well become a popular and attractive part of our touring itinerary' - BBC Radio 3 blog post November 2012 by Phil Hall of BBC Symphony Orchestra 'The decision to bar homosexuals from ente...

Good to see LGBT activism increasing in classical music. Among recent notable examples was the dedication of Somewhere Over the Rainbow performed by Joyce DiDonato and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Last Night of the BBC Proms to gay victims worldwide. But less than a month after this laudable protest the BBC Symphony Orchestra without Ms DiDonato played their first ever concert in the Gulf State of Qatar , where homosexuality is illegal . LGBT awareness may be in short supply at the BBCSO but irony is not; so their programme in Qatar included music by Benjamin Britten. Why are some gay causes more fashionable than others ? Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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).

Today we have a new pretender to the title of 'Face of the Proms' . But fifty years ago the Proms had a very different 'face' and the story of his rise and fall still has considerable relevance. Between 1947 and 1966 Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted no less than 508 Promenade Concerts * and from 1950 to 1957 was chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was Sargent who first alerted the BBC to the TV ratings potential of the Proms with his theatrical Last Nights as seen above, and his heavyweight TV exposure made Sargent - nicknamed 'Flash Harry' - the first classical music household name in the UK. In an age where success is measured in social media impact it is significant that Nicholas Kenyon - who was director of the BBC Proms from to 1996 to 2007 - describes Sargent during his Proms tenure as "the most socially famous conductor in the country". But despite his popularity Sargent fell from grace with the BBC. His autocratic manner was di...

Walt Whitman's line 'Behold the sea itself' opens Ralph Vaughan William's Sea Symphony * in a huge wave of sound that breaks over the audience. Hearing RVW's stroke of genius again at Friday's opening Prom performed by Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra excited many resonances. Alex Ross' tweet that "the opening gesture of Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony carries me away every time" resonated with these words written by that great editor and publisher Robert Giroux ** for the introduction to Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain : In books that become classics ("A classic is a book that remains in print" - Mark Van Doren ) the opening words often seem to be inevitable, as if they possibly could not have been otherwise - "Call me Ishmael," "Happy families are all alike," "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The opening of the Sea Symphony may be bold and inevita...

Tucked away on the BBC Radio 3 blog among the usual thoughts of Chairman Roger is a valuable reminiscence by the BBC Symphony Orchestra's sub-principal viola Phil Hall . In his blog post Phil Hall recalls how in March 1993 the BBCSO recorded Michael Tippet's Second and Fourth Symphonies for broadcast with the 88 year old composer conducting. What the post does not go on to explain is that the symphonies were also issued as the free cover mount CD seen above with BBC Music Magazine in 1995, but, to my knowledge - see correction in comments - have never been released as commercial discs. As I write my BBC CD from 1995 of the Second Symphony plays. It is a spacious reading in which Colin Davis' insistence is traded for the composer's authority; the BBCSO playing is inspired, and the sound captured in All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak is of demonstration quality. Which brings me to the question of why this, and thousands of other valuable recordings, remain hidden in the...

A good bookshop will display the titles they think you will read, but they will also try to draw your attention to those they think you should read. That quote comes from a short piece in the Independent by Richard Hall. I was reminded of it by a comment added to my Sir Colin Davis tribute post by David Nice lamenting the absence from the catalogue of Sir Colin’s Tippett recordings . As for books, so for classical music, and, with a few notable exceptions, record companies, broadcasters and orchestras present the music they think audiences will listen to, without also drawing attention to music they think audiences should listen to. One notable exception to 'comfort programming' is the BBC Symphony Orchestra concert tomorrow (April 19) conducted by Martyn Brabbins – a conductor whose adventurous repertoire puts his higher profile colleagues to shame. Tomorrow’s Barbican concert prompted David Nice’s comment as it features a rare performance of Tippet’s Second Symphon...

Fulsome tributes are appearing around the world to Sir Colin Davis who has died aged 85. In his later years Sir Colin was revered for his towering interpretations of established masterpieces, but his commitment to new music also needs to be remembered. He was given little credit for his work as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1967 to 1971 laying the foundations that his successor Pierre Boulez built on so successfully. Indeed, as the following list shows, he was championing new music well into Boulez’s tenure with the orchestra: among the first performances – either world (wfp), European (efp), or UK (ukfp) – that Sir Colin conducted with the BBCSO were Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 2 (efp1966), Walton Capriccio burlesca (ukfp 1969), Thea Musgrave Clarinet Concerto (wfp 1969), Hugh Wood Cello Concerto (wfp 1969), Shostakovich Symphony No 2 (efp 1969), Gordon Crosse Violin Concerto No 2 (wfp 1970), Kurt Weill The Lindbergh Flight (ukfp 1970), Malcolm Arnold Fan...

There is persuasive evidence that classical music’s big new ideas about how to attract new audiences are having little impact . But, despite this, the music industry remains locked in an unproductive circle which means that as one big new idea falls by the wayside – remember tweeting in concerts ? – another takes its place. The whole big new ideas movement – as exemplified by Max Hole’s recent ‘vision’ presentation – is based on the dogma that over the centuries classical music has become encumbered with a multitude of superfluous protocols that are a barrier to reaching new audiences. This dogma is misguided: just as protocols, in the form of rules and conventions, make communication between network computers possible, so classical music protocols, again in the form of rules and conventions, make communication between music, performers and listeners possible. Yes, some of the conventions need revising; but the the big new ideas gurus preach that protocols are synonymous with el...