Glass houses and stones

Elsewhere Kyle Gann is upset by comments being posted to his blog. Could this be the same Kyle Gann who recently posted this comment to another music blog?

'I’m so tired of the Brits shoving their immature wunderkind composers down our throats, and whining about being left out of music history in general, that I wouldn’t give a flying f**k about any criticism coming from that country. As for the Germans, after reading the book I wrote Alex a message complimenting the accuracy of his pessimistic assessment of that country’s current activity.'

Sometimes so wrong, sometimes so right.
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On a skewed path

Lots of debate on the other side of the Atlantic as to whether An Overgrown Path is skewed. I think the answer is fairly obvious.
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The world's largest prison for journalists

Nice picture of the new head office for Chinese Central Television (CCTV) elsewhere. Read more about television and the media in China, not from me but from the BBC:

'With more than one billion viewers, television is a popular source for news and the sector is competitive, especially in urban areas. China is also becoming a major market for pay-TV; it is forecast to have 128 million subscribers by 2010. State-run Chinese Central TV, provincial and municipal stations offer a total of around 2,100 channels.

The availability of non-domestic TV is limited. Agreements are in place which allow selected channels - including stations run by AOL Time Warner, News Corp and the Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV - to transmit via cable in Guangdong province. In exchange, Chinese Central TV's English-language network is made available to satellite TV viewers in the US and UK.

Beijing says it will only allow relays of foreign broadcasts which do not threaten "national security" or "political stability". Of late, it has been reining in the activities and investments of foreign media groups. The media regulator - the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television - has warned local stations that foreign-made TV programmes must be approved before broadcast.

The internet scene in China is thriving, though controlled. Beijing routinely blocks access to sites run by the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, rights groups and some foreign news organisations. It has moved to curb postings by a small but growing number of bloggers.

An international group of academics concluded in 2005 that China has "the most extensive and effective legal and technological systems for internet censorship and surveillance in the world".

The media rights group Reporters Without Borders describes the country as the world's "largest prison for journalists".'

And yes, it even affects music blogs.
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Young Mahler - encouragement worthwhile?

A charming and previously unpublished reminiscence of an 11-year-old Gustav Mahler (photo above) comes to An Overgrown Path from Elissa Minet Fuchs former ballerina with the Ballet Russe and the Metropolitan Opera. Mrs. Fuchs (see photo below) is the widow of conductor and composer Peter Paul Fuchs who was the subject of two tributes here when he died last year. A reader drew Mrs. Fuchs' attention to my articles and she has very kindly supplied me with material, including previously unpublished photographs, on her husband for a full appreciation to be published here on the first anniversary of his death next week. Among the material was this memory of a young Gustav Mahler.

Peter's grandfather on his mother's side, Alois Rusicka, was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia not far from the Austrian border. He was a law student - pursuing his degree and an amateur musician, a cellist. On one of his visits home, he was approached by a tavern keeper. He was asked to meet the tavern owner's young son, 11 years, and to judge the boy's musical talent to see if encouragement in this field would be worthwhile. Herr Rusicka was absolutely sure that this was a significant talent - the boy's name was Gustav Mahler.

Peter's mother told me that her father never revealed this incident to Mahler even though much later in Vienna the then well known lawyer and the then intendant of the Vienna Opera crossed social paths - at soirées, the Opera, coffee houses.

Also of interest - Peter's theory teacher at the Vienna Academy of Music (graduated with honors in 1935) was Karl Weigl, an assistant to Mahler during his Vienna Opera tenure - and also a composer.

Below is the text of this story together with a photo of Elissa Minet and Peter Paul Fuchs. I would like to thank Mrs. Fuchs in Greensboro, NC and Adrian McDonnell in Paris for making this valuable material available. There also is the possibility (and I stress possibility) of private recordings of Peter Paul Fuchs music being made available for An Overgrown Path radio programme. And just think, someone once said "Classical blogs are spreading but their nutritional value is lower than a bag of crisps. Unlike financial blogs, which yield powerful and profitable secrets, classical web-chat is opinion-rich and info-poor."


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

Overgrown Path goes Dutch with the BBC

It's a good job I love the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Because I just noticed I've been promoting their tour of Holland.

Read the BBCSO blog about their Dutch tour 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

Gone fishing

Well not exactly, but I'm away from the keyboard and off to the fine county that was the birthplace of composer George Lloyd, home to Malcolm Arnold who wrote a set of his English Dances there in the 1960s and the location of the castle that inspired Arnold Bax's Tintagel. Back soon, there may be a delay in uploading comments but keep them coming. In the meantime please support other music blogs here and here and don't forget Elliott Carter and Michael Tippett on Future Radio.

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

Breaching the great firewall of China

My post identifying music blogs blocked by the Chinese government has caused justified indignation over on Renewable Music, Soho the Dog and elsewhere. But here is how you breach the great firewall of China. Make sure New Music Reblog mirrors your site, because that's not blocked.

Martin Scorsese's 1997 film Kundun, with its Philip Glass score, was a brave and pioneering anti-Chinese government statement. Remember you read it here first.
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

Music behind the great firewall of China

In that classic 1968 film The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) is given some of the most famous advice in cinema history:

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.
Ben: Yes sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Ben: Yes I am.
Mr. McGuire: 'Plastics.'
Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will.
Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

Right now that conversation is being repeated with a slight twist:

Agent: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.
Musician: Yes sir.
Agent: Are you listening?
Musician: Yes I am.
Agent: 'China' ...

Orchestras are listening, composers from Gustav Mahler to Damon Albarn have been listening for years, Google are listening, and even Jordi Savall is listening. I'm quite sure Terry Riley and the Kronos Quartet don't need to listen to their agent, but their latest CD is on-message anyway. The Cusp of Magic (sleeve below) features Wu Man playing a Chinese relative of the lute called the pipa, an instrument which first appeared during the Quin dynasty (220BC-206BC) at the time the earliest sections of the Great Wall were built. Wu Man was born in Hangzhou in the Yangtze Delta in China and studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa.

Wu Man has a deservedly high profile on the world music scene, and her fans include Bill Clinton and Philip Glass. It was Philip Glass who once said that world music is the new classical, and who also provided the soundtrack for one of the most powerful criticisms of Chinese human rights abuse in recent years. Wu Man now lives in San Diego and she appeared at the opening of the 2007 Special Olympics in Shanghai together with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan. There are clearly some admirable things happening with classical music in China and Wu Man's advocacy of the country's musical heritage is very welcome.

But at this point politics and music collide. The article that you are currently reading about Wu Man's new CD is not available to internet users in either Beijing where she studied, or in Shanghai where she played at the Special Olympics last year. The results below from a test on WebSitePulse show the domain http://www.overgrownpath.com/ is blocked by the the government controlled great firewall of China in both cities, as is The Rest is Noise, although both blogs are available in Hong Kong (which has special administrative region status and is where my header photo comes from). But Wu Man's own website is available across the whole of China, together with the Kronos Quartet's and arbritrarily Sequenza21.


But this is a music website isn't it? So back to the music and The Cusp of Magic. The pipa is not the only unfamiliar sound in the mix and a synthesizer, peyote rattle and numerous childrens toys add to a work that defies categorisation. The Cusp of Magic was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet to mark Terry Riley's 70th birthday and it contains some beautiful writing and some startling ideas. But it is very different to Riley's early signature compositions such as In C and the episodic nature of the material does make the bigger picture difficult to see at times. If the technique isn't exactly minimalist the CD is, with less than 43 minutes of music on a full price release. Like the huge country behind the great firewall you can't ignore The Cusp of Magic. But also just like China it is more mystery than magic.


Now, I just want to say one other word to you which the great firewall of China won't like - Tibet.
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

Today's logged-in blogged-out youth

'The global forest fire of revolution in 1968 needed no internet - if anything, it was the antithesis of the sedentary, logged-in, blogged-out world of today's deactivated youth. It was a time of direct communication, between countries and within them, so that throughout the Mexican summer mimeographs worked all night to produce 'wall newspapers' telling of prisoners, police brutality, and proposed further agitation. Slogans were spray-painted on buses, handbills thrown from tower blocks and leaflets placed inside brown bags alongside bread sold by bakeries' - Ed Vulliamy writes in today's Observer in one of a series of excellent articles about the year that rocked the world - 1968.

Related logged-in and blogged-out resources here include:
* Notes of a college revolutionary
* Why aren't we marching in the streets?
* They were demanding jazz and rock and roll
* Karlheinz Sockhausen - part of a dream
* The year is '72
* Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stockhausen?
* Music can help change the world
* Music acid and the collapse of Communism
* I am a camera - St Tropez 1967

Header image is the London cast album of Hair, which opened, of course, in New York and London in 1968. 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

If I were predicting the future ...

On July 28, 2007 Overgrown Path ran a story saying 'The BBC is launching “Proms Idol ... the winner of the BBC2 show will take charge of an orchestra during the Last Night Of The Proms at the Royal Albert Hall next year.

Today's Guardian reveals 'The BBC has just commissioned a new reality TV series called Maestro, in which seven celebrity would-be conductors will go head-to-head on the podium before orchestras and choirs. The winner of the series, expected to air on BBC2 this summer, will step up to conduct an orchestra during the Last Night of the Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall in September'.

On February 1, 2006 Overgrown Path ran a story predicting Classical music nightclubs are the way to go, and followed it up on June 9, 2007 with a report about live classical music in nightclub.

Today's Guardian runs a double page spread on how Cool young clubbers in Berlin are flocking to a night with a twist: all the music is classical, and orchestras play live.

On January 7, 2008 Overgrown Path ran a story saying 'If early music is the surprise of 2008 perhaps EMI's new owners will make their acquired assets work for them by releasing a box of the complete David Munrow recordings with decent documentation instead of sub-licensing them for peanuts to other companies while also giving them away piecemeal on their own budget label?

Today's Guardian runs a story headlined Artists' ally makes his exit from EMI.

On January 14, 2007 Overgrown Path ran a story about Taser stun guns headlined The zeitgeist of the YouTube generation.

Today's Guardian runs a full page story headlined 'For those who like a little music with their personal protection: the Taser that plays MP3s'.

As Norman Lebrecht wrote in the Evening Standard on 8 November, 2006 'Until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town.'

If I were predicting the future ...
Photo of where the Overgrown Path begins (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. And yes, that is this post on the screens - I was predicting my next article. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The long tail reaches out

From today's Observer arts section. As I've said before, all classical music needs are more animateurs.
With thanks to that great animateur Alex Ross whose New Yorker article was reprinted in the Observer. There doesn't seem to be a web version of the article yet. I'll add a link later if it appears. 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

It's about making the link

Having an opinion is unfashionable in some places these days. But not according to a link on A.C. Grayling's website.
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In the mists

Calligraphy by Yazi Sanatcisi

Techno trivia time. The home of On An Overgrown Path is now http://www.overgrownpath.com/. No need to change anything, visitors to the old domain name are automatically redirected.

Now playing - Leoš Janáček In The Mists played by Leif Ove Andsnes. It's on the same CD as On The Overgrown Path. But if you are thinking of starting a blog you are out of luck, www.inthemists.com is taken.

Calligraphy from one of my Istanbul articles.
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The music blogs go round and round

Nice to see On An Overgrown Path, and several other fine music blogs, mentioned in the Gramophone's November e-newsletter. This is written by the magazine's editor James Jolly, who is also a BBC Radio 3 presenter. A warm welcome to new readers arriving at this "provocative and informed" blog from the Gramophone. You can check today's top stories in the right side-bar.

See the rest of my header photo here, and take a look at the Chinese equivalent of the Gramophone here.
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Baffled - twice in a week

After Harry Potter comes this.

My header photo is from Brain Music. Or you could try Britten's musical mind map.
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

If I had a hammer ...

Is there too much hammering of the BBC On An Overgrown Path?

A reader in an interesting position inside the walls doesn't seem to think so.

Neither do posters on the BBC Radio 3 messageboard.

Now find the hidden hammers here and here.
Sweet picture from Creative Chocolates of Vermont. 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

Blogs - the new wisdom of crowds?

Music blogs go respectable next Monday (Oct 29) when I give a talk at Cambridge University. My subject is Blogs - the new wisdom of crowds? and I will look at why music blogs are so successful, and what their impact really is. The conflict between traditional journalism and the new bloggers will be considered, and new media opportunities such as webcasting will also be discussed.

I will be explaining how On An Overgrown Path started, present some readership data, and give inside tips on how to create a successful blog. And, of course, no presentation from me would be complete without a scholarly mention of Norman Lebrecht and BBC Radio 3.

Full details of the talk at Pembroke College are available on the Cambridge University website, and there is limited space for visitors. Any other organisations interested in a similar presentation please contact me via overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk.

Now read how blogging is doing it for our time.
Wisdom of Crowds is a book by James Surowiecki - recommended. Picture credit Rocky 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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Weaving the Web Wider

Diversity is the lifeblood of music. I was reminded of this when reading the following in Robert Maycock's thought-provoking, but opinionated, book Glass - A Portrait:

"Unfortunately the dream of twentieth century music became corrupted. With hindsight the corruption was inevitable, because there was never enough money for everyone who wanted it. The system required selection and the exercise of power. These were the factors that brought about the rise and fall of 'the twentieth century music' that became so familiar during the century's final decades, because in narrowing the field down to one that was financially supportable, it also narrowed down the musical options.

Judging the claims, making the choices, redirecting the money: traditionally these would be grounds for exercising a Solomon-like wisdom, purified by detachment from the circumstances. The trouble was that it was becoming hard for non-specialist officials or members of committees to grasp the musical issues, particularly when it came to new music as it burgeoned off into the intricate and unfathomable realm of post-war modernism. They needed guidance. They went to the people who knew this world best, the people it had trained. Experts in new music were invited into the system. And that was how the system came to be run by those who benefited from it."

Is Robert Maycock right? Just a few years into the new century is the cycle repeating itself? Are the musical options narrowing? Are the experts running the system?

If music blogs are an indication the answer is yes. The Blognoggle elite are getting bigger, and are now part of the system. And sure, I include On An Overgrown Path in that statement. I am frequently contacted, via the blog, by journalists wanting background on music news stories. Flattering, but also frightening.

Where are the new blogs? Where are the musical options? Where is the risk-taking? Where are the young Turks ready to challenge the so-called experts? Where is the diversity on the musical web? Please email me with more newcomers like this one, this one, and this one.

Photo credit Spiderz Rule! - diverse but definitely not for arachnophobes. 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

New music - right on the ball

Email received On An Overgrown Path.

Dear Bob Shingleton. Thank you for your rapid response.

I had a quick log at your blog and you are right on the ball, I will certainly look at it from time to time now that I know it's there.

You are doing a valuable service.

All best wishes, Geoffrey Burgon (photo above)

Listen to MP3 downloads of Geoffrey Burgon's music here, and read about contemporary music and strong enthusiasms 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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The long tail of blogs

Are my jokes really that diffficult? Elsewhere it is good to see Rudolph Dunbar having a great innings, while in the paid for media Karlheinz Stockhausen is in to bat, and here's a classical blog aggregator that's worth a look (and a wait). But the trouble is aggregators ignore the long tail of blogs, such as Le Regard de James, which is the blog my header photo comes from. But who cares? - their nutritional value is lower than a bag of crisps.
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