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

Music critics are World Requiems apart

The London performance of John Fould's World Requiem last November provided some of the more entertaining blogging of 2007. Chandos have rush released their recording of the concert performance and the 2 CD set is in the shops now. It is not on my shopping list, and Andrew Clement's review in today's Guardian confirms what I heard on the BBC broadcast of the November concert - 'Most of the unwieldy and sometimes banal score lacks even the moments of originality that make some of Foulds's orchestral music intriguing ... Altogether, it's a definitive account of a disappointingly ordinary work.'

The opinion of critics will always differ. But Andrew Clements' review is suprisingly at variance with his colleague Tim Ashley's four star review of the concert performance - 'The score is emotive and eclectic ... The burning sincerity of the performance eclipsed any qualms about stylistic disunity.'

What a pity that the media feeding frenzy before the November revival of the World Requiem built up expectations that were never going to be met. It is important that works from the long tail are performed and recorded. Give me the World Requiem, with all its flaws, rather than yet another recording of Mahler 5.

All this ... and what for?
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 Classical Grammy time again

Good to see the Chandos recording of Grechaninov's Passion Week riding high in this year's Classical Grammy nominations, and congratulations to all the other nominees. The photo above is of a real live Classical Grammy, read the full story here.
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

An unremarkable and commonplace work?

The music world loves mysteries. This week it is why did John Foulds' World Requiem disappear from the repertoire four years after its first performance in 1923? The Independent proclaims proclaims Foulds (left) a 'genius', and suggests suitably exotic reasons for its disappearance. These range from resistance to the composers' socialist views to an establishment cabal that banned his music because of its mystical powers. Meanwhile Leon Botstein has been on Radio 3 ranking Foulds alongside Elgar, Vaughan Williams and somewhat puzzlingly Philip Glass.

So why did Fould's World Requiem drop out of the repertoire? Here is a reason that none of the experts seem to have thought of. It is an unremarkable and commonplace work.

That judgement comes from Peter J. Pirie writing in his 1979 book The English Musical Renaissance which I recommended last week. He says - 'A similar figure was John Foulds (1880-1939), whose World Requiem used to be performed at Armistice Day celebrations for a few years after the First World War. This is a curious genre, compound of the over-sweet taste of England in the 1920s, a megalomania that expressed itself in common chords and commonplaces, and a preoccupation with Wardour-Street Orientalism or vaguely Celtic mysticism'.

But don't take Peter Pirie's word, listen to the World Requiem on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday. Or buy the Chandos recording of the performance when it is released next year.

Just another case of the excruciating boredom of pure fact?
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