Now - Joyce Hatto the book

I have been contacted by a journalist researching a book on the Joyce Hatto 'forgeries'. Presumably 'Joyce Hatto - the movie' will follow shortly. But deciding which pianists to put on the soundtrack album could be interesting.

Or will 'Joyce Hatto - the book' meet the same fate as a work in progress about a musician who has featured here several times? Reports suggest that biography may have been canned following threats of legal action from the musician's surviving spouse.

Before anyone asks, no I am not contributing to the Joyce Hatto volume. Photo, which is NOT Joyce Hatto is from Jans' piano page. 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

My prophets are Bach and Beethoven

Ingmar Bergman's son-in-law, Henning Mankell, writes in today's Guardian:
Even if Ingmar was a theatre director, dramatist and film-maker in his professional life, I can't stop thinking that it really was the music that meant most. He had never dreamt of becoming a musician - he said so firmly. But probably he had toyed with the thought that in another life he could have become a conductor.

The music was fundamental. He often spoke of sheet music instead of typescript. He used musical terms to describe his films and theatre. To himself and to those who participated, he talked of the works, for example, as sonatas, and he was forever searching for the distinctly musical elements in his films and productions.

The music was both beginning and end. He saw in music's most lenient moment a sort of gateway to other realities, different from those that we can immediately perceive with our senses. Perhaps it was in music that that bridge to other realities, which most of us search for, could be found.

When asked what he believed in Ingmar Bergman is reported to have replied "I believe in other worlds, other realities. But my prophets are Bach and Beethoven; they definitely show another world." For a valuable analysis of the use of Bach's music in Bergman's films by Chadwick Jenkins follow this path.

The BBC Proms may have banished Bach to bedtime, but On An Overgrown Path still retains its passion for Bach.
Image credit Swedish Television SVT. 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 Eyes of Van Gogh

Genius on the edge of madness has been a destination of the path several times, including my article I am a camera - Vincent van Gogh. So I was interested to receive this email from Alexander Barnett:

I am the writer director of the just released film, 'The Eyes of Van Gogh." The film shows the horrific year that Vincent spent at the insane asylum of St. Remy. In the article 'I Am A Camera' there are some major discrepancies which I must point out. 'His period of intense creativity there changed the course of western art.' Vincent did indeed do some excellent work there but in spite of brilliant exceptions, his greatest work, by far, was that of his Arlesian period, Feb. 1888 to May 1889.

'During his confinement this remarkable institution encouraged his painting and gave him the facilities and space to work...The far sighted Doctor Peyron was practicing an early form of art therapy...Saint Paul de Mausole is an inspirational establishment that pioneered the treatment of psychiatric illness and it still continues today the therapies that fanned the flames of Van Gogh's creativity.' The institution of St Remy never encouraged Vincent to work, on the contrary, Dr. Peyron opposed the idea from the very beginning and with the greatest reluctance allowed him to paint.

I am very glad to hear that they now offer workshops in art therapy, etc. but this was definitely not the case when Vincent was there. The sole treatment was hydrotherapy-hot baths, twice a week. The idea of any kind of work was anathema. There were no books in the asylum, no distractions except bowls and draughts. Vincent found it loathsome that they were given nothing to do. As he said, they were like vegetables, sitting around all day eating, digesting and waiting for their next meal. If the authorities today claim otherwise they're lying. Vincent's letters prove it. Vincent suffered four attacks at St. Remy. After the final one Dr. Peyron forbid him to paint in spite of his pleading. It was then that he left St.Remy. For those who would like to see what really happened at St Remy check out my film, 'The Eyes of Van Gogh - Alexander Barnett.


Discussion and exploration is what On An Overgrown Path is all about, so I'm more than happy to publish this email; but I would politely disagree with claims of 'lying' and 'major discrepancies'. My article was based on a visit to Saint Paul de Mausole (which is when I took the photo above and the others in my article). The institution's own account was then checked against several independent sources. David Sweetman's The Love of Many Things - A Life of Vincent Van Gogh (Hodder & Stoughton ISBN 03405037260) corroborates the official version with passages such as the following:

'Peyron arranged for Vincent's studio room to overlook the garden and was happy that the patient should occupy himself with painting, provided he did not exert himself too much.'

Elsewhere Jean Leymarie's Van Gogh (Skira ISBN 0333242203) explains that Dr Peyron's reasons for stopping van Gogh from painting was due to fear that the artist would self-harm by swallowing the poisonous pigments. Jean Leymarie explains how ...

... during his attacks Van Gogh did no painting. He acted like one possessed, trying to swallow raw paint from the tubes and rolling in the coal bin.

As for the relative creative importance of Van Gogh's output in Arles and St Rémy the authority on Van Gogh, Jean Leymarie, writes:

Over a hundred and fifty paintings and a hundred drawings in one year betoken, not illness, but a heroic victory over illness and make Saint-Rémy, for all the interruptions he suffered, one of the highpoints of his career. "Never perhaps," said Emile Bernard, "did he paint so well and so boldly." ... After Arles there was no falling off in the intensity of his art, but it changed poles, it passed from color to form or rather to the movement of form, from the exaltation of color to linear dynamism."

The same picture seen through different eyes I guess. And here, to remind us of his genius, are the olive trees at Saint-Rémy seen through the eyes of Vincent Van Gogh.


Now read about an opera set in a mental hospital.
Header photo is still from The Eyes of Van Gogh, the middle photo is by Pliable and copyright On An Overgrown Path. The painting above, Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun, is exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 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

Into Great Silence

“In these letters I have often taken you on my holiday journeys: India, California and Venice. This time it is more of an inner journey which I would like to share. I write under the powerful impression of the film Into Great Silence, which depicts life in the Carthusian monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, in the French Alps, where the monks live mostly in solitude and silence. Some of you may well have seen it, so I will not describe the film, rather convey the feelings and reflections which arose out of it for me. Let me only say that I think it is a masterpiece of photography and film making, quite apart from being a profound experience which has transformed my life in many subtle ways.


In a world where strident noise, frenzied activity and constant stimulation are the daily diet, a film in which hardly anything happens for nearly three hours, with no dialogue, no commentary and no music (except Gregorian chant), is a considerable challenge. However, the queue snaking down the road in front of the Playhouse in Norwich on that winter Sunday afternoon was a striking manifestation of the thirst for something different. Everyone was surprised by this unexpected turn-out, not least the Cinema City staff who struggled to cope. And from start to finish you could have heard a pin drop.


A slow pace, images remaining on the screen for what seemed like minutes, a very strong sense of rhythm – the passing seasons made a counterpoint with the regularity of monastic life, its alternation of solitary prayer, study and community, punctuated by bells – created a spell. In the silence, the natural sounds of everyday living: echoing footsteps in stone passages, large wooden doors opening and closing, chopping wood, cutting cloth, drawing water, and plainchant singing, took on a particular poignancy.


I was struck by how unnatural our lives have become; in this monastery, daily activities are still closely connected with nature and all materials are natural: stone, wood and cloth; vessels are made of clay, tin or wood, not a sign of plastic! Walls are bare, objects are starkly simple and few, but there is not a trace of ugliness. I felt that these men, who live enclosed with no possessions of their own and very few choices, were maybe more free than us, who battle daily with a multiplicity of external possibilities (how many brands of biscuits on the supermarket shelves?) and believe that freedom is to have exactly what we want.


And I reflected on the power of silence, emptiness and the space between things. I have often noticed that what makes a great musician is the ability to breathe, to pause, to hold a note suspended. The inexperienced player tends to rush through, to get the notes right. But without the silence, there is no real music, just a dead sequence of sounds. Silence creates rhythm, and cycles, without which there is no life: as the old wise man in the Bible puts it: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; there is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”


Without the pauses, the breathing space, the in-between times, there is no harmony, no creation, no unfolding of life. It is not by chance that language has the expression “a pregnant pause”. All creative change needs this space for reflection, this empty time when the old way of being is no more, and the new is not yet. We ignore this at our peril, and our culture, which constantly rushes into action, does not seem to be able to produce any viable, durable change, only vacillation between extremes.”

Aude Gotto writes in the Spring newsletter of the King of Hearts Centre for people and the Arts in Norwich. Into Great Silence is released on DVD in the UK on May 23, and on October 23 in the US. Now read Aude writing about India.

All the stunning images are stills from the film by director Philip Gröning. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "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

Songs of Freedom by Mikis Theodorakis

The role of the artist in a society where human rights are denied is a recurring theme On An Overgrown Path. As I write Maria Farandouri sings To Yelasto Pedi from Mikis Theodorakis’ sound track for the 1969 film Z (poster above). This legendary film was a barely fictionalised account of the assassination in 1963 of the Greek socialist politician Gregoris Lambrakis MP, and the film and its soundtrack, became an international symbol of opposition to the Greek military junta. This dictatorship savagely suppressed human rights until its overthrow in 1974, and brought tanks onto the streets of Athens, as is shown below.


The junta was established in April 1967 when right wing army colonels led by George Papadopoulos seized power under the pretence of preventing a communist takeover. The dictatorship received the initial support of King Constantine II, although the King went into exile in December 1967 following the failure of a counter-coup. The King had failed to win support from the US who regarded the military junta as an ally against the nearby Eastern European Soviet bloc. With the Colonels firmly in power human rights were denied, political parties were outlawed, and opponents imprisoned, with Amnesty International estimating that more than 2000 prisoners were tortured. Symbols of western youth culture were banned including rock music, long-hair and atheism.

Mikis Theodorakis was no stranger to opposition and the political left. He had worked in the resistance against the occupying Italian and German forces in World War 2, and was exiled in the subsequent Greek Civil War. After these conflicts he studied music at the Athens Conservatoire, and in Paris with Olivier Messiaen. Following the military junta in 1967 Theodorakis (below) went underground, and his music was banned by military decree. He was imprisoned for five months until an international pressure group including Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, and Harry Belafonte achieved his release, and he went into exile in April 1970. Theodorakis continued his opposition in exile through concerts and by enlisting the support of international leaders, and his sound-track for Z became a rallying call for opponents of the military regime. The film, which was directed by Constantin Costa-Gravas, was hugely important in drawing attention to the junta’s denial of human rights, and I remember it as one of the cult films of my post-university years.

Following the suppression by tanks of a student uprising at Athens Polytechnic in November 1973 (seen in the photo above) popular opposition to the junta gathered momentum. Papadopoulos was overthrown by General Dimitrios Ioannides, who then unsuccessfully attempted to depose the President of Cyprus. This debacle triggered the collapse of the Greek military junta, and democracy was restored with elections in November 1974.

Greece lies on the edge of the Middle Eastern political fault line, and the cataclysmic upheavals in the region since 1974 mean that the dark days of the Colonel’s rule are now largely forgotten. The CBS LP of Theodorakis’ music played by John Williams and sung by Maria Farandouri, and including the Theme from Z, was part of the soundtrack of my life in the 1970s. Seven of the songs are settings of Greek translations of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, while the Theme from Z sets words from the verse-drama 'The Hostage' by the Irish writer Brendan Behan. Maria Farandouri left Greece in 1967 when the junta banned Theodorakis' music, and she sung in more than 300 protest concerts around the world.

The recording was made by legendary CBS staff producer Paul Myers, and my vinyl copy still sounds quite wonderful today. But by the time the LP catalogues were being transferred to CD in the late 1980s communism was collapsing and the Greek junta was ancient history, so Songs of Freedom didn’t make it onto CD in the major territories. But Theodorakis remains a folk hero in Greece. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, and opposed NATO’s involvement in Kosovo and the invasion of Iraq, and has been very critical of George W. Bush. More controversially he was also been critical of Israeli Government policies under Ariel Sharon, and this led to accusations of anti-Semitism.

Mikis Theodorakis’ continuing high profile in Greece thankfully means that Songs of Freedom remains in the Sony catalogue in that country, albeit sadly without the original beautiful sleeve art which is reproduced above. But in a chilling timewarp the original English sleeve notes are retained for the CD version, so they read as though the Colonels are still in power! It is available online from the splendid Studio52 in Thessalonika; my copy arrived speedily and cost €12.50 plus shipping.

Songs of Freedom is a classic of the gramophone. It contains very moving performances by two very fine musicians. But more importantly, it is living proof that creative artists have an important role to play when human rights are denied.

Now read the notes of a college revolutionary.
Image credits; That wonderful poster for Z from Filmpostersdownunder.com, tank on Athens street from Wikipedia. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "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

A Skin Too Few

Flew back from France yesterday lunchtime, and in the evening went to a screening of A Skin Too Few at The Cut community arts centre in Halesworth, Suffolk. On An Overgrown Path has already visited the music of Nick Drake (left) several times, and Dutch director Jereon Berkvens' 48 minute film made in 2000 is a reflection on Drake's life and music (photo of Nick to right).

This was not an easy film to make. There is no archive footage of Drake, who died in 1974 at only twenty-six, other than childhood home movies. And there are no radio interviews or other audio recordings, just the three sublime albums, plus four songs from a final recording session. Cameraman Vladas Naudzius shot the film on 35mm film stock rather than video, and this gives a haunting and elegiac feeling exactly in tune with the music. The film was made by the Dutch Humanist Broadcasting Foundation & LuijtenMacrander Productions, and was supported by the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting and Thuiskopiefund who earn our thanks for making this project possible. Nick Drake is at last being recognised as an important voice, with many leading musicians paying homage to him, including Brad Meldhau whose new CD released this month, Day is Done, takes its title from a Drake song. Despite increasing interest A Skin Too Few has not been released on DVD, so a cinema or broadcast viewing is the only way you will see it.

Director Jereon Berkvens says: "A Skin Too Few is my attempt as a filmmaker to approach the silent landscapes, locations and people in the life of this unorthodox loner in the hope of understanding his state of mind." The film succeeds brilliantly. It is lovingly made with evocative footage of Cambridge and Drake's parents' home in Tanworth-in-Arden, and it brings us closer to understanding this genuine creative artist. The inspiration for Nick Drake's lyrics included Chaucer, Blake, Flaubert and Shakespeare, and he read English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He was also influenced by a wide range of music. His friend Robert Kirby, who arranged the songs for the first album Five Leaves Left, was reading music at Caius College, Cambridge, and his enthusiasms included Baroque and early music. .

When Nick's mother found her son dead in his bedroom from a drug overdose an LP of the Brandenburg Concertos was on the record player turntable. In A Skin Too Few there is an unforgetable scene shot in the bedroom in Tanworth-in-Arden. (See production shot above). Jereon Berkvens includes a few well chosen props. Movingly one of these is the correct period LP sleeve of Thurston Dart's performance of the Brandenburgs on L'Oiseau-Lyre.

More on Nick here.
Photo credits: Nick Drake - Riverfronttimes.com, production shot - Humanist Broadcasting Foundation & LuijtenMacrander Productions 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