On An Overgrown Path

If science and technology could eliminate our problems, we would need to question, why have religion? Especially as religion sometimes sows more hatred than the contrary. But material development alone cannot solve our problems, and so we need a religious tradition. But if a restaurant serves one kind of food at all times it would soon have no customers. Our task is to reduce conflicts between the traditions which already exist. His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke those words at the opening of the Gethsemani Encounter in 1996 . This historic gathering brought together fifty Buddhist and Christian monks and nuns at the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. It was the Dalai Lama who suggested the meeting should be held at Gethsemani, the spiritual home of the celebrated advocate of inter-religious dialogue Thomas Merton , who he had met shortly before the latter’s death in 1968. Writing in his book Keeping Faith – A Skeptic’s Journey Among Christian and Buddhist Monks Fenton...

But the idea of a normal person is a fantasy of the mind. Do you know any really normal people? I don’t. That quote from Buddhist monk and teacher Ajahn Sumedho is a useful reminder of the dangers of dualist judgements between normal and deviant. In the past I have been critical of the political deviance of the Benedictine community at L’Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine in Le Barroux, France, and the arrival of the new CD seen above gives me a chance to redress the balance a little. Le Barroux is far more than a monastery; it is an eclectic experiment that uses live audio streams and mobile apps to reach a global congregation, while at the same time revitalising the local area with a state-of-the-art olive mill - see my photo above - that services local smallholders, and a bakery that attracts customers from miles around. These monks certainly have the technology habit, and the candid shot below of one of their number administering last rites of the mechanical kind was taken from my b...

New podcast with an eclectic and topical playlist of French gypsy musician Titi Robin, rock diva Lady Gaga, the monks of a Benedictine monastery, Xavier de Fourvière and contemporary composer Jonathan Harvey now available . That's our daughter Kara with me in the Future Radio studio explaining the appeal of Lady Gaga. As Libby Purves wrote "To run radio you must be like an old-fashioned publisher, a 1930s Gollancz or Faber and Faber, working on faith and idealism and wanting to share what you yourself love ." This post is available via Twitter @overgrownpath . Photo by Sorojini is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2010. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

'That inner spirit has been embodied very vibrantly in Benedictine monastic life and liturgy. This helps to explain the paradox of a music which when sung really expresses the spirit of silence; which with almost wordless vocalization really attempts to express the very word of God; which with the action of singing really is meant to be a vehicle of contemplation' - Abbot Marcel Rooney, O.S.B. The glories of Gregorian Chant, or "the mysticism of the octave" as Abbot Rooney describes it, have drawn me back again and again to the Benedictine L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine at Le Barroux near Avignon in France. The monastic community at Le Barroux are orthodox Catholics who celebrate the Holy Offices eight times a day in plainsong which respects the scholarship of Solesmes . This glorious liturgy is one of the reasons why I have stayed at the Abbey as a guest of the monks quite a few times over the years despite my discomfort with other aspects of Catholicism . As a resul...

Benedictine Abbeys and music are inextricably linked. The great churches of the Romanesque period were created to send columns of plainsong soaring upwards and in the 20th century none other than Iannis Xenkais was project director for the monastery at La Tourette in France. The stunning images featured today show another great new Benedictine Foundation, the new Cistercian-Trappist monastery of Nový Dvůr in Bohemia. The inspirational building is the work of British architect John Pawson . The design of Nový Dvůr combines references from the original baroque farm on the site with entirely new architecture. Although contemporary in style John Pawson's design follows St Bernard's twelfth century architectural blueprint for the Order , with an emphasis on the quality of light and proportion, on simple, pared down elevations and detailing. Nový Dvůr is the only Trappist monastery in the Czech Republic and is a sister house of Sept-Fons Abbey near Marseille in France. This buil...

1968 was a year of upheaval. It was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll and saw the assasination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy , the accidental death of Trappist monk and social activist Thomas Merton , the Tet offensive in Vietnam, the rise of the anti-war movement , the student rebellion that paralysed France , and the growth of the civil rights and women's movements . Stockhausen composed Stimmung , Hair opened on Broadway, the Beatles released their White Album and a Lindsay Anderson film put an African version of the Latin Mass at the top of the UK charts. Finally, as a reminder that history rarely repeats itself, but its echoes never go away , in October 1968 Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their controversial protest in support of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) on the podium at the Mexico Olympics. While society was in upheaval elsewhere Dom Charles was completing the remarkable work of art seen above in the Abbey church of the Bene...

Early music is more volatile than rock music. Hot new groups keep appearing, new personalities keep emerging, and early music has a dynamism that is noticeably absent from other parts of the classical music scene. One of the hot groups right now is Ensemble Plus Ultra under their director Michael Noone . Born in Sidney, Michael Noone studied at the University of Sydney and King's College, Cambridge , and specialises in Spanish Renaissance music. He is known especially for his work in the archives of El Escorial and the Cathedral of Toledo , and his CD Morales en Toledo featured here back in 2005 . Ensemble Plus Ultra record for the enterprising Spanish Glossa label who are one of the few companies still placing importance on the design and presentation of their CDs. I am playing music from their new disc (beautiful artwork above) of sacred choral music by the 16th century Venetian Gioseffo Zarlino in my Future Radio programme at 5.00pm UK time on Sunday 20th January. Zarlin...

My love of Gregorian Chant started years back when I first stayed in L'Abbaye Sainte Madeleine at Le Barroux in France and heard the Benedictine monks singing the Holy Offices according to the scholarship of Solesmes . Once you've heard plainsong at 3.30 in the morning during Matins you never forget it! The two photos here were taken by me a few weeks ago when I visited the monastery again. On this Sunday's Overgrown Path programme on Future Radio I will be playing a twentieth century Requiem which is closely based on the Gregorian original. Composers from Victoria to Ligeti have set the Requiem Mass, but the non-restored Gregorian funeral chants of the Roman Rite are rarely heard. To rectify this I am starting my programme with the Introit, Kyrie, Dies Irae, Sanctus and Agnus Dei from the Gregorian Mass for the Departed sung by the monks of l'Abbaye de Fontgombault in central France. The recording I am playing is on the invaluable Art & Musique label. Unfor...

You too must contemplate your own death, meditate upon it, learn to understand and accept it. For only when you understand that life and death are not two opposites but only different sides of one reality, will you have no fear of death. For life is a candle which burns in the wind, its light can be gone in a moment. Death comes to all that lives. We must therefore never forget how precious this human life is, with its wonderful possibility of wisdom, which we should take avantage of before death ~ Tibetan Lama + In memory of Frère Ferréol (1959-2007) of the Benedictine Community of L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux who has died in a tragic accident. The photo above shows the Requiem Mass held for him in the Abbey. Below is my translation from the newsletter of Les Amis du Monasterie , which also supplied the photos. Throughout this tragedy the liturgy has been a huge consolation to us. The Requiem Mass is the crowning glory of choral music, and the Gregorian setting, with its ...

Listen. Benedict deliberately chose this word as the beginning of his Rule . It also is the first word that strikes us when the Rule is read on January 1; and it stands as a kind of theme for every year. Benedict starts without preliminaries and addresses the person directly. The last word of this sentence forms an inclusion together with the first word: 'Listen - fulfil!' The entire verse describes this listening with its fullest sense. Aquinata Böckmann OSB quoted in The Monastic Way , Canterbury Press ISBN 1853117579. Now follow the monastic way to Columns of plainsong soaring upwards. Aquinata Böckmann is a member of the Benedictine Missionary Sisters of Tutzing , Germany. Image of Saint Benedict (detail of Crucifixion) by Fra Angelico , 1441-42, from Convento di San Marco, Florence. 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 owne...

The Benedictine monk and choirmaster Guido d'Arezzo (990-1050), seen on the right, noticed that in the Latin hymn Ut Queant Laxis , which was sung in chant for the Feast of St John the Baptist, the tones rise progressively...... Ut Queant Laxis Re sonare fibris Mi ra gestorum Fa muli tuorum So lve polluti La bii reatum Sante Iohannes The notes in italics, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La etc formed the basis of teaching music to children. Do replaced Ut in common usage, probably because the T in Ut could not be sung. Very clever monks those Benedictines .... If you enjoyed this post take the Overgrown Path to Master Tallis' Testament 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

So the French referendum has rejected the EU constitution, and the pieces of the jigsaw that make up Europe are once again thrown up into the air. Political bloggers such as Clive Davis are better qualified than me to analyse the implications of the "No" vote, but I cannot let the result pass without some personal comment. In a few days time I depart for my annual extended stay in France. It is a country I love, but also find deeply puzzling. The "No" vote seems to be more of a vote of no confidence in the Chirac government than a rejection of the new EU constitution. France is a fascinating mixture of traditionalism and extremism, and this is nowhere better illustrated than in the French attitude to religion. Although the national constitution makes France a secular state, Catholicism is still a strong force in society. I had written the post below a few days ago ready to upload while I was on the road south to the Vaucluse next weekend, but I am posting it today ...

Iken Church in the distance from Iken Cliff, all photos taken today under a typical East Anglian sky. The overgrown path led me to Iken Church this Easter Saturday morning. The church is on a promontory sticking out into the River Ald downstream from Snape . It is a place of inspiring beauty and peace, a wonderful setting for a monastery. St Botolph built his minster at Iken in the 7th century, and became the first person in Britain to follow the Rule of St Benedict . The monastery was destroyed by raiding Danes in the winter of 969/70, and parts of the current church date from the rebuilding which started in the 11th century. The story of destruction by Viking invaders is a reminder of how this part of East Anglia is on the margins of civilisation. During World War 2 the village of Iken was evacuated and the church closed to make way for a practice battleground. And despite the beauty of the area the Sizewell nuclear power station to the north is a constant, and visible, reminder ...

Authentic performance is conventionally defined as played on original instruments and in an original style (without vibrato etc), but performances in 'authentic' surroundings can add an equally valid frisson . Norwich Priory became a Benedictine Monastic Priory five years after its foundation in 1096, and the Norman groundplan is the most authentic of any English cathedral. Among many glories the cloisters, which unusually for a dissolved house remain intact, are outstanding. They were burnt down in 1272, and subsequently rebuilt with an unusual covered upper story for the monks to use for work and contemplation in winter. (It is a common mistake to think cloisters were simply used by monks walking in silent, contemplative circles. Together with the Chapter House and church they were a central point for the monks, used for working, reading and writing. When I arrived to stay in the Benedictine L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux I didn't know the etiquette of monast...

Silence is the monk's greatest treasure: it favours everybody's prayer, work and rest; that is why we are happy to share it with you. Silence is absolute from Compline to Lauds of the following day; during the day, avoid loud conversation in the cells and the corridors. It is not possible to listen to the radio or cassette without earphones. Lastly, out of respect for the recollection of others, we would ask our guests to keep silence during breakfast and tea. Extract from leaflet Welcome to The Abbey +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Music is the space between the notes - Claude Debussy ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The best writer is the one who communicates his thoughts in the least number of words - anon ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The word " noise " is derived from the Latin word "nausea," meaning seasickness. Noise is among the most pervasive pollutants today. Noise from road traffic, jet planes, je...