David Munrow tribute on internet radio

Double Grammy winning record producer Christopher Bishop talks about David Munrow on the record on my programme on Future Radio this Sunday (Dec 30) at 5.00pm UK time. The programme includes music from Munrow's first LP for EMI, Two Renaissance Dance Bands, which is seen above and which was produced by Christopher Bishop. Below is a page from Christopher's recording diary, the second entry down is the sessions for another classic David Munrow album, The Art of Courtly Love.

Christopher Bishop worked with many great artists during historic times. Here is an excerpt from Michael Kennedy's 1971 biography of Sir John Barbirolli: 'It was Bishop with whom Barbirolli was working at the Abbey Road Studios on a day at the height of the Beatle's popularity. As John arrived he saw the famous four and their retinue. 'Is that the Fuzzy Wuzzies?' he asked Christopher, 'because we'd better close the door in case they charge.''

Now playing - Renaissance Dance. This new Virgin Veritas double CD brings together two classic David Munrow LPs, Two Renaissance Dance Bands from 1971 (later reissued as Pleasures of the Court) and Praetorius - Dances and Motets from 1973, and adds five bonus tracks from Munrow's last recording, Monteverdi's Contemporaries, from 1975. This is a must for all Munrow enthusiasts, and a perfect introduction to his music for those too young to have grown up with his LPs. Current price on Amazon.co.uk is £5.97 ($12) - unmissable.


Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm UK time this Sunday, December 30th in real time here. An Overgrown Path podcast will follow. Read more about David Munrow on the record here.
Hear the programme on Future Radio on Sunday December 30 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here). Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. With thanks to Future Radio for making the programme possible, and in particular to Dan Nyman editor extraordinaire. Also thanks, again, to James the joiner for the sleeve scans. 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

Exclusive - David Munrow on the record

My Future Radio programme on Sunday December 30th takes an exclusive look at David Munrow on the record. In the early 1970s the scores for the BBC TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elisabeth R brought David Munrow’s music to millions. His Pied Piper radio programme was broadcast four times a week for five years, he presented a successful TV series, and wrote the scores for several major feature films including Ken Russell’s The Devils and the film version of HenryVIII (sleeve below).


David Munrow's interest in early music started when he taught in Peru before going up to Cambridge. He combined reading English at Pembroke College with independent studies of Renaissance and medieval music, and went on to form his famous Early Music Consort of London. Under his leadership the Early Music Consort became best-selling recording artists, and David Munrow’s records were considered so important that copies of them were sent to Saturn on board two NASA spacecraft in 1976.


Today David Munrow is remembered by the records he made for EMI that started in 1971 with the LP Two Renaissance Dance Bands. He was brought to EMI by their double Grammy winning recording producer Christopher Bishop (above left) who produced Munrow's first records for EMI, and who also worked with Carlo Maria Giulini, André Previn, Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Adrian Boult and many other great musicians. Christopher Bishop is my guest on Future Radio on Sunday December 30th, and he will be giving listeners an exclusive look at David Munrow on the record. The photo above shows Christopher with me in the Future Radio studios looking at the album Two Renaissance Dance Bands.

As well as discussing David Munrow's work we will be playing his recordings. These will include an excerpt from a rare early tape of Christopher Bishop conducting his own London Madrigal Singers and the Munrow Recorder Consort in a Weelkes madrigal. David Munrow on the record will be broadcast on the Sunday after Christmas, December 30th, at 5.00pm UK time, listen here in real time. The interview will be available as an Overgrown Path podcast after the broadcast.


Playlist for David Munrow on the record, Dec 30, 2007:
* Thomas Weelkes: Hark all ye lovely Saints, 3.00", London Madrigal Singers and Munrow Recorder Consort conducted by Christopher Bishop - BBC Third Programme recording 1970
* Tylman Susato: 12 Dances from the Danserye
La Mourisque, 1.13"
Branle Quatre - Bransles, 1.38"
Rondo & Salterelle, 1.34"
from Two Renaissance Dance Bands LP EMI HQS 1249 (Reissued as Pleasures of the Court)
* David Munrow: Henry VIII and his Six Wives
Pastime with good company, 1.32"
Joust, 2.34"
from Henry VIII and his Six Wives LP HMV CSD 9001
* Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, 3rd movement, Sir Adrian Boult conducting London Philharmonic Orchestra, 5.08" from LP EMI SLS 866
* Giuseppe Sammartini: Concerto in F major, 3rd movement Neville Marriner conducting Academy of St Martin in the Fields, 4.05" from LP HMV ASD 3028

For a range of David Munrow resources follow this link.
Hear David Munrow on the record on Future Radio on Sunday December 30 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here). Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.

With thanks to Future Radio for making the programme possible, and in particular to Dan Nyman editor extraordinaire. Also thanks, again, to James the joiner for the sleeve scans. Studio photograph (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Other 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 Pilgrim's Progress on internet radio

My two photos were taken at the sessions in November 1970 and January 1971 for Sir Adrian Boult's classic EMI recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams morality The Pilgrims Progress, which is based on John Bunyan's allegory of the same name. The recording was made in the Kingsway Hall, and Sir Adrian can be seen conducting the soloists, and London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir above.

The lower photo was taken in the control room during a playback, and shows from left to right, Ursula Vaughan Williams, Christopher Bishop (producer), Sir Adrian Boult, John Noble (The Pilgrim), Ian Partridge, Gloria Jennings, Christopher Parker (balance engineer), in front John Alldis (chorus master) and Sheila Armstrong. Photo credits Godfrey McDominic/EMI.


The theme of my Overgrown Path radio programme at 5.00pm UK time this Sunday (Oct 7) will be Pilgrims of the Soul, and I will be playing the Prologue and Act 1 of this recording of The Pilgrim's Progress in the second part of the programme. (Which means two Pliable will be taking part, with the singing role taken by the tenor Wynford Evans). Act 1 contains several of the themes that Vaughan Williams used in his Fifth Symphony, including the Romanza that begins the symphony's lyrical slow movement.

Preceeding The Pilgrim's Progress will be a sequence from the concert of medieval and traditional pilgrim songs by Sarband and the Osnabrück Youth Choir that I featured here recently. This should be a fascinating programme. The music I'll be playing is below. More details at the foot of the post, or listen in real-time only by clicking on this image:



From Pilgrims of the Soul - Jaro 4248-2

Dum pater familias Codex Calixtinus
Laudemus virginem Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
Salve virgo regia (instrumental) Codex Ripoll (Paris, BN lat. 5312)
Splendens ceptigera Llibre Vernell

Ya rai'i z-ziba Traditional: Al-Andalus
Salve Regina Codex Las Huelgas

Nani nani Traditional Sephardic
O successores fortissimi leonis Hildegard von Bingen - 21' 55"

From The Pilgrim's Progress by Ralph Vaughan Williams - EMI CMS 7642122

Prologue
Act 1 - Scene 1: The Pilgrim Meets Evangelist
Scene 2 - The House Beautiful - 26' 44"

More on The Pilgrim's Progress here.
Listen to the Future Radio audio stream here. Convert Overgrown Path radio on-air times to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. 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

Exclusive - a little piece of recording history

© C. Bishop & On An Overgrown Path
2006 brings the thirtieth anniversary of the death of early music legend David Munrow. Above, in advance of the article I'm running next week, is an exclusive piece of recording history. The image is scanned from the recording diary of Christopher Bishop who signed Munrow to EMI and produced many of his classic recordings. The second entry down is for the sessions for the Art of Courtly Love in November and December 1972, and December 1973. These resulted in the three LP set that catapulted David Munrow to prominence.

The pencil diary entries haven't reproduced too clearly, but the artists in the other sessions make interesting reading - Perlman, Giulini (including the Missa Solemnis which I wrote about recently), King's College Choir and Sir David Willcocks, Oistrakh, Boult, Evelyn Barbirolli and Menuhin.

Those were the days, now the best EMI can offer us is Wild.

Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Image credit - © C. Bishop & On An Overgrown Path
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to David Munrow and the Voyager golden record

Reflections on the Philadelphia Orchestra

Infoshare, the excellent blog from the US Music Library Association pointed me in the direction of the Philadelphia Orchestra tour blog. It's a journal of the orchestra's current tour of Asia (photo to the right is cellists Alex Veltman and Udi Bar-David in Hong Kong). The blog is well worth visiting, and is a really good example of a blog working as a journal rather than a vehicle for personal rants.

Mention of the Philadelphia Orchestra reminds me of my brief involvement with them some twenty five years ago. I was with EMI/Angel at that time, and one of my roles was artist promotion. Riccardo Muti was the cat's whiskers and had just been appointed to the Music Directorship in Philadelphia in succession to Ormandy, and this gave us the opportunity to record there. Although the quality of the Philadelphia Orchestra was superb there had always been a feeling of disappointment with the sound of the RCA recordings with Ormandy made in the acoustically rather dry hall of the Curtis Institute in the city.

Angel Record's John Coveney found the acoustically excellent Met Church which started life as an opera house (see footnote for full history). The church at that time was in a very run down part of the city (it is probably now surrounded by expensive lofts). We recorded Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Stravinsky's Firebird among other works there. The Met Church posed unique problems including an antique heating system which ruined takes with metallic creaks during pianissimos, and lumps of plaster falling from the ceiling during fortissimos . The acoustics though were fine and the sound was wonderful, largely because we imported the production team of Michael Gray (sound engineer) and Christopher Bishop (producer) from the UK for the recordings. I still have the Mussorgsky on vinyl, the analogue sound is very exciting; but like much of Muti's work the interpretation strikes me as mostly circumference, and little circle.

I remember desperately trying to find a cab for Muti in the rather tough street outside the Met Church in tropical heat at the end of one session. Muti appreciated my efforts by saying - 'if this had been a Deutsche Grammophon session they would have arranged a limo.' Plus ca change....

Footnote from my sleeve note for Muti's 1979 Pictures at an Exhibition LP - The Met Church building was built as an opera house in 1908 by Oscar Hammerstein 1 (grandfather of the famous lyricist-librettist) and opened in November of that year. The first season stars included Garden, Melba, Tetrazzini and McCormack. It was the eleventh of thirteen theatres and opera houses he built in New York, Philadelphia and London (the now demolished Stoll Theatre). It was perhaps his most ambitious, most beautiful and near-perfect auditorium. An enormous hall seated 4,200 patrons, every one of whom had perfect sight-lines to the stage. In April 1910 it was purchased by the Metopolitan Opera Company of New York, and renamed the Metropolitan Opera House. As its use diminished over the following years it became the scene for everything from school graduations to prize fights, with very occasional appearances by the Philadelphia Orchestra. In May 1954 the building was acquired by the Reverend Thea Jones who allowed EMI/Angel to use it as a recording venue for the first time in 1978. That is what I wrote in 1978. What has since happened to the Met Church/Metropolitan Opera House? I can find no more recent information on the internet. Can any readers update the story?

If you enjoyed this post follow the overgrown path to My first classical record