Not the usual jazz meets classical date

Email received - Pliable: I'm an American jazz & blues fan who's finally discovering classical/new music/Zen Buddhism due to your blog. Thank you very much for your efforts.

Was wondering if you've heard Kenny Wheeler's "Other People" (CAMJ 7801-2) yet? Its with the Hugo Wolf String Quartet and pianist John Taylor. Not really the usual "jazz meets classical" date; it's quite refreshing. KW actually sits out a few on his own record!

Also, David Munrow is on the (relatively) new Pentangle box (Sanctuary/Castle UK - cover above) from the early 70s. Apologies if this is all old news to you; I don't presume to know more than the Master! Thanks again for your blog. Kind regards, TE

Now read about Sweden's best kept secret.
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

Found - thousands of happy new ears

In only six weeks more than a thousand people have visited the Overgrown Path podcast page on iTunes, and this week James Weeks talking about the music of Elisabeth Lutyens has been added to my David Munrow and Alvin Curran podcasts. Doesn't that level of interest in music from the long tail tell us something?

Elsewhere there has been some good humoured discussion of Angela Hewitt world Bach tour T-shirts, with one defender of the Bach world tour marketing machine writing - 'I think you are missing the point here, which is trying to get new people interested in her, giving her profile in the press and recognition ... every interview, every talk show appearance is promotion.'

Every talk show appearance may be promotion. But all promotion is not good promotion. And promoting serious music to mass markets is a risky business. There are very few examples of large, and loyal, new audiences being created by mass marketing. But there are numerous examples that ended in tears, where mass marketing failed to attract a new audiences, but instead drove away the core audience. The most obvious example is BBC Radio 3, where going mass market has failed to attract Classic FM listeners, but has instead, literally, switched-off the network's core audience and resulted in a net loss of listeners.

New audiences are essential for the health of serious music, but so is being realistic. We live in an age of instant gratification, and today's arts administrators and broadcasters want immediate access to new mass audiences. This is not only unrealistic, it also often achieves the opposite result to that intended. New audiences can be reached, but we need to be less greedy and more adventurous to reach them.

As always on this blog these are my personal views. But they are based on real world experience. Yes, the sample size may be small, but, as I have pointed out before, the samples are larger than the focus groups used by the BBC and others. And before the cynics sniff at a few thousand listeners for David Munrow and Alvin Curran they should remember that it was revealed recently that Rupert Murdoch's new satellite Fox Business Network is attracting an average of only 6,000 daytime viewers.

The new audience for serious music is in the receptive long tail, not in the mass market short head. The long tail of classical music has received much attention recently. But there are many other long tails - for literature, for the visual arts, for the cinema, for techno and electronic music, and others. There is overlap, but there is also a sizeable new audience for serious music waiting in those other long tails. These are people who have been driven away from classical music by BBC TV's Classical Star and Classic FM's music for dinner parties. They see serious music today as being unexciting. They don't want to be talked down to by chummy radio presenters. They want the adventurousness of Boulez in the 1970s at the Round House and Proms in London, and at the Rug Concerts in New York. But, with a few notable exceptions, we are not giving them what they want.

I have talked to some of the new audience that my internet radio programmes and blog have reached. They told me they bought CDs and downloads of music by Guillaume Connesson, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow and others after discovering them On An Overgrown Path. These new listeners are well educated, have disposable incomes, are interested in the media, travel extensively, have expensive stereo systems, watch art films, and read contemporary fiction. But they listen to non-classical music because they find it more exciting and challenging. They are the long-tail dwellers, they are a receptive new audience for serious classical music, but we need to be a lot more adventurous to reach them.

Sir Brian McMaster arrives at the same conclusion in his controversial and brave report on funding in the UK arts which was published last week. In the report he recommends 'that cultural organisations stop exploiting the tendency of many audiences to accept a superficial experience and foster a relationship founded on innovative, exciting and challenging work'. Or, as that great arts administrator and BBC Radio 3 controller John Drummond wrote "the arts are as much about controversy as about achievement".

We need to be more adventurous and controversial. We already have the exciting music. We should stop apologising for it.

Image with many thanks to AllPosters.com. 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

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 art of the animateur

I am a great fan of the late John Drummond, and have quoted him, here, many times. But, I blame Drummond for the present decline in presentation standards on BBC Radio 3. In 1987, when he became controller of the network, Drummond changed the role of the presentation team from 'neutral' announcers to presenters who, in his own words, could "communicate enthusiasm and knowledge".

Drummond's change was well intentioned, but terribly misguided. It has been responsible for a disastrous sequence of presenters from Paul 'music for lovers' Gambaccini in the 1990s to Petroc Trelawny and his colleagues today, whose idea of communicating enthusiasm and knowledge is to regurgitate half-digested chunks from a children's encyclopedia of music. The disease isn't just confined to the radio. BBC TV's Classical Star, which is fronted by Radio 3 presenters Charles Hazlewood and Chi-chi Nwanoku, has been described by an eminent musician as 'an obscene pantomime that plays games with the feelings of young, talented and vulnerable people'.

What John Drummond failed to see was that presenters who can communicate enthusiasm and knowledge for classical music without turning it into 'an obscene pantomine' can't be trained. They are born with the skill, and they are very few and far between. 'Presenter' is an inadequate and devalued word for describing such a rare person. Instead I suggest the French word 'animateur' - someone who really brings their subject to life.

Radio 3 should abandon its present crop of 'classical jocks'. It should return to an enthusiastic but neutral presentation style. It should learn from Radio 4, which has avoided the 'chummy' presenter trap, and by so doing has retained its integrity, and its audience. Radio 3 should allow the music to speak for itself. Which is something it has forgotten how to do. And it should search for a few great animateurs to bring classical music back to life, both on radio and television.


The BBC need look no further than their own archives to identify the DNA of a great animateur. David Munrow's Pied Piper radio programme was broadcast four times a week for five years in the 1970s. Munrow (above) delivered enthusiasm and knowlege in huge quantities without compromising scholarship or integrity. Pied Piper brought early music to life for a generation, and I, and many others, are indebted to him for that. Munrow also branched out into television with his very successful Ancestral Voices programme, and he started to develop a career as a conductor. Munrow did so much as an animateur of classical music, and he promised so much more. Alas, he took his own life in 1976, aged just thirty-three.

Television was the medium of choice of another great animateur, André Previn, whose BBC TV programmes reached millions without sinking to the depths of Classical Star. The photo below shows Previn with Carlo Maria Giulini on the set of the television programme 'Who needs a conductor?' Previn also animated classical music in the States with his 'Previn and the Pittsburgh' TV series.


Leopold Stokowski pioneered the role of the animateur in the States, and he worked his magic in the days before television dictated the media agenda. Disney's full length 1940 feature film Fantasia brought classical music to life for millions, and is still regarded today as pivotal in introducing a new audience to serious music. Fantasia was Stokowski's brainchild, and he appeared on screen in a sequence which is seen being filmed in the photo below. (Picture credit Disney Productions).


When television replaced the movies as the entertainment medium of choice Leonard Bernstein took over from Stokowski' as animateur par excellence. Bernstein's famous Young Person's Concerts attracted huge television audiences for an extraordinarily wide range of repertoire, with his broadcast on Christmas Day 1967 reaching an astonishing twenty-seven million viewers.

I have in front of me the programme for the November 2 1963 telecast of a Young Person's Concert - Moussorgsky Prelude to "Khovantchina", Randall Thompson Scherzo from Symphony No. 2, Walter Piston Suite from "The Incredible Flautist", and Brahms Academic Festival Overture. Contrast that with this perceptive comment from fellow blogger Jessica Duchen about BBC TV's Classical Star - 'The most depressing thing about the programme is the way that the music itself is sidelined and chopped up. Evidently our friends at the Beeb don't think that viewers can cope with a whole movement of Mendelssohn.' My header photo shows Bernstein with members of the audience after a Young Person's Concert, and they don't seem at all phased by a whole movement of Randall Thompson. Lenny was a true animateur if ever there was one.

Glenn Gould was also both a great musician and a great animateur, and I have already written about his love affair with the microphone. His radio programme The Art of Glenn Gould ran for forty-eight weeks in the mid 1960s in Canada, and covered everything from the Moog synthesizer to Mozart, and in 1974 he produced a ten week series on Schoenberg. In the late 1960s he turned to television, starting with a series of four Conversations with Glenn Gould in a co-production with the BBC. His television work became as arcane as his radio documentaries, with the hour long The Well-Tempered Listener creating a complex visual montage of Bach's music. Gould's main succeses were in the technically more flexible medium of television. In 1970, in a neat tribute from one great animateur to another, Gould produced the acclaimed Stokowski: A Portrait for Radio. The photo below shows him at work in the recording studio.

Sadly one match of animateurs that seemed to be made in heaven didn't work out for Gould. In April 1962 he played the Brahms' D-minor concerto with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. Conductor and soloist disagreed over Gould's spectacularly slow tempi, prompting Bernstein to deliver an apparently critical pre-performance talk. The two animateurs never performed together again, although this was due as much to Gould's self-imposed exile from the concert hall as to any long-term animosity between the two flamboyant musicians.


Last week I told the story of Radio 3 presenter Sarah Walker, who was caught out (in more ways than one I suspect) when a helpful CD player added a fifth movement to Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. Ms. Walker's CV tells us that in 1995 she completed a PhD in English experimental music. That's the problem. She, and her fellow BBC presenters may have the right qualifications on paper. But, in practice, they fail dismally; both as neutral announcers in the manner of the great Cormac Rigby, and as animateurs in the manner of David Munrow. It's not me that's saying it. It is the audience statistics.

The composer Jonathan Harvey knows a thing or two about experimental English music. He has worked at IRCAM and written a study of the music of Stockhausen. His Mortuos plango, vivos voco for eight channel tape was created at IRCAM, and uses computers to manipulate the sound of the great bell at Winchester Cathedral. It is one of the masterpieces of electronic music, and in the notes for it the composer writes:

In entering the rather intimidating world of the machine I was determined not to produce a dehumanised work if I could help it, and so kept fairly closely to the world of the original sounds. The territory that the new computer technology opens up is unprecedently vast: one is humbly aware that it will only be conquered by the penetration of the human spirit, however beguiling the exhibits of technical wizardry; and that penetration will be neither rapid nor easy.

We're all trying to be too clever. We've forgotten the importance of the human spirit, except when we are trampling it underfoot on BBC TV's Classical Star. We've missed the point that digital technologies, new books, internet radio and blogs alone are never going to attract a new mass audience for classical music. But great animateurs can.

The good news is that the art of the animateur is not dead. The opening of this autumn's Lincoln Centre season in New York was transmitted live on network television. The TV presenter was that indominatable human spirit Itzhak Perlman (photo below, credit Allegro films), and his words about the telecast are a lesson for all of us.

"Television was how I came to the States (to appear on the Ed Sullivan show - Pliable) and I've always felt very comfortable doing it. Of course, there are battles. Television will always err on the side of making something not quite as classy as it could be. I try to put my foot down because people in the mass media often don't give audiences credit. To bring a large audience to a piece of serious music and make it accessible does not mean reducing it in any way. And I've learned that if something is good, even if it is a little difficult, people will get that it is good."

Writing in the Cambridge Review in October 1957 Peter Laslett, founder of the Open University, described the BBC Third Programme as "a sevice which is literally the envy of the world". Fifty years later the service is in danger of becoming the laughing stock of the world. It doesn't need rocket science, or expensive technology, to reverse the decline. It just needs John Drummonds ill-judged presentation changes to be reversed. And it needs the BBC to remember the words of that great animateur Itzhak Perlman - "If something is good, even if it is a little difficult, people will get that it is good."


Now read how John Drummond and Leonard Bernstein just didn't hit it off.
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

David Munrow documentary and resources

BBC Radio 4 broadcast an excellent documentary on early music specialist David Munrow this evening. You can hear the programme on demand here until July 28th. More David Munrow resources via this path.
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

David Munrow - more than early music

'David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London transformed our view of medieval music. The impact of their performances far surparssed any that had gone before: by demonstrating how medieval music could sound normal, they created a niche for it in the concert hall and on record that it has never lost' ~ From Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's notes for Music of the Gothic era

May 15 2007 is the thirty-first anniversary of the death of David Munrow. His contribution to the acceptance, understanding and performance of early music almost defies summary. He was born in 1942, and learnt the bassoon and recorder as a child. Between school and university he travelled and taught in South America , and started the collection of ethnic instruments that were to give him, and the world, a new perspective on early music making. He read English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was encouraged by Thurston Dart to take an active role in the music-making of that most musical of cities. It was at Cambridge that he started giving his unique combination of lectures and recitals on woodwind instruments that set him on a career as an evangeliser and performer of early music.

In 1966 he joined the wind band of the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed incidental music for the Bard's plays in Stratford and London. Shortly after he formed the Early Music Consort, an ensemble that was to challenge and change the performance style of early music. Among the original members of the consort were James Bowman and Christopher Hogwood (photo above).

Munrow is best known for bringing little known medieval and Renaissance music to a wide audience. But his activities were not confined to concerts and recordings. He used early instruments in the film and television scores which he composed, including The Six Wives of Henry VIII, A Man for All Seasons, and The Devils (with Peter Maxwell Davies). He also worked with folk musicians including Dolly Cousins and The Young Tradition. And he was actively involved in new music, among the first performances he gave were Elisabeth Lutyens' The Tears of Night (1972), and Peter Dickinson's Translations (1971) and Recorder Music for recorder Player and Tape (1973). He was a natural communicator, his BBC Radio 3 programme the Pied Piper was broadcast four times a week for five years and introduced a huge audience to the riches of early music, and he also devised and presented the TV series Ancestral Voices.

David Munrow's recorded legacy is considered so important that one of his recordings was included on the Voyager space craft's 'golden disc' that was sent to Mars a year after his death. The following is a brief guide to three 'essential' recordings, all of which are available in the UK for around just £10 ($18) for each double CD. No serious music collection should be without them.

* The Art of Courtly Love - a collection of French secular music from Guillaume de Machaut to Guillaume Dufay. Although the time span is little more than a hundred years it covers one of the most astonishingly rich and varied periods in medieval music, including not only the development of polyphonic song, but also the summit of the song writer's art. Recorded by EMI in Studio 1 Abbey Road in late 1972 and early 1973 this is relatively early Munrow, and the musicians include Early Music Consort founders James Bowman, James Tyler and Christopher Hogwood.

* The Art of the Netherlands - a collection of early Renaissance secular and sacred vocal music. When this recording was made by EMI in 1975 many of the Flemish composers on it, including Brumel, Josquin, Ockeghem and Obrecht were unfamiliar to listeners. Now thanks to Munrow's pioneering work they are well represented both in the catalogue and in live performance. The first CD is devoted to secular songs, while the second is made up of Mass movements and motets. The singers include Sally Dunkley who went on to perform with the Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen and the William Byrd Choir. To purists Munrow's presentation of 'bleeding chunks' of Renaissance masses may appear anachronistic, but this is wonderful music presented with commitment and inspiration. The variety is a strength not a weakness, and the result is a persuasive overview of the music of this period. As well as being an important recording in its own right this budget priced two CD set is an invaluable 'sampler' for anyone wanting an introduction to Renaissance polyphony.

* Music of the Gothic Era is a remarkable survey of vocal music from the 12th to 15th century, progressing from the Notre Dame School, through Ars Antiuqa to Ars Nova. The composers include Léonin, Pérotin, and Machaut, and the singers include James Bowman and Roger Covey-Crump. Music of the Gothic Era was made in 1975,predating by thirteen years the Hilliard Ensemble's recording of Pérotin on ECM, a recording which used two of the same singers. Munrow's performance was pioneering in every way, and it pointed to a new direction with a revised consort exploring sacred repertoire, which alas he did not live to realise. Some of the realisations may be out of step with today's concepts of 'authentic performance', but Munrow's scholarship, vision, enthusiasm and sheer exuberance result in compelling music-making that it is still outstanding in every way after thirty years.

The Archiv division of Deutsche Grammophon recorded Music of the Gothic Era in the Chapel of Charter House School. David Munrow no longer had an exclusive EMI contract. Like Herbert von Karajan, who was also an EMI artist at that time, he signed contracts with both Deutsche Grammophon and EMI to maximise his commercial leverage. Munrow was ambitious, but he never lost his sheer enthusiasm and exuberant delight in music making. His irrepressible personality and talent meant he was now a media figure, and a career as a conductor and broadcaster outside the early music world was predicted.

But it was not to be. David Munrow completed the sessions for Music of the Gothic Era in October 1975, and followed by recording the LP Monteverdi's Contemporaries for EMI in November 1975. These were his last recordings. He took his own life on 15th May 1976, aged thirty- three.

Other David Munrow resources On An Overgrown Path include:
* David Munrow and the Voyager golden record
* Exclusive - a little piece of recording history,
* Monteverdi in Cambridge
* Follow this link for a discography
Article first published On An Overgrown Path in Feb 2006. Image credits: Header - Castle Classics, Early Music Consort - Musicteachers.co.uk, The Art of the Netherlands - www.amazon.com , recording session - Nigelnorth.net
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

Wikipedia as rumour mill

Wikipedia reports today that they are blaming US Congress staff for partisan changes to a number of political biographies.

I use Wikipedia a lot and link to it frequently, and as regular readers will know my article on Scott Ross was used by a third party for Wikipedia's entry on that fine musician. But I find increasingly Wikipedia is being manipulated to reflect personal views rather than fact.

Yesterday I uploaded an article about early music pioneer David Munrow. I researched it over several months and talked to some people who worked closely with him. There is remarkably little published material available on Munrow, although an 'unauthorised' biography is in preparation. Some of the best sources are articles in the excellent periodical Early Music published immediately after his death thirty years ago.

In these circumstances Wikipedia should be an obvious source. There is an article in Wikipedia on David Munrow, but I ignored it. It is written from a highly personal viewpoint, and contains (as at 9 Feb 2006) the following statement: "Munrow committed suicide in 1976, while suffering from depression. There are many rumours as to why. He used to overwork, and it was an open secret that he was gay which must have caused domestic problems." This entry is of no use. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and should deal in facts, not rumours and 'open secrets'. Moreover does Munrow's alleged sexuality have any relevance to his achievements? Even if the reported speculation was correct he would hardly be the first gay classical musician.

The concept of Wikipedia is that anyone, including me, is free to correct misleading passages like the one above. But this only works if the article is fundamentally sound, and all that is needed is fine tuning. Increasingly the articles on Wikipedia are becoming fundamentally suspect as US Senators and others use them to reflect their own agendas. And that sadly is where the great collabarative dream breaks down.

Image credit - BBC
Image owners - if you do not want your picture used in this article please contact me and it will be removed. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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David Munrow - Early Music's Pied Piper

'David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London transformed our view of medieval music. The impact of their performances far surparssed any that had gone before: by demonstrating how medieval music could sound normal, they created a niche for it in the concert hall and on record that it has never lost.' From Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's notes for Music of the Gothic era

2006 bring the thirtieth anniversary of the death of David Munrow. His contribution to the acceptance, understanding and performance of early music almost defies summary. He was born in 1942, and learnt the bassoon and recorder as a child. Between school and university he travelled and taught in South America , and started the collection of ethnic instruments that were to give him, and the world, a new perspective on early music making. He read English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was encouraged by Thurston Dart to take an active role in the music-making of that most musical of cities. It was at Cambridge that he started giving his unique combination of lectures and recitals on woodwind instruments that set him on a career as an evangeliser and performer of early music.

In 1966 he joined the wind band of the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed incidental music for the Bard's plays in Stratford and London. Shortly after he formed the Early Music Consort, an ensemble that was to challenge and change the performance style of early music. Among the original members of the consort were James Bowman and Christopher Hogwood (photo above).

Munrow is best known for bringing little known medieval and Renaissance music to a wide audience. But his activities were not confined to concerts and recordings. He used early instruments in the film and television scores which he composed, including The Six Wives of Henry VIII, A Man for All Seasons, and The Devils (with Peter Maxwell Davies). He also worked with folk musicians including Dolly Cousins and The Young Tradition. And he was actively involved in new music, among the first performances he gave were Elisabeth Lutyens' The Tears of Night (1972), and Peter Dickinson's Translations (1971) and Recorder Music for recorder Player and Tape (1973). He was a natural communicator, his BBC Radio 3 programme the Pied Piper was broadcast four times a week for five years and introduced a huge audience to the riches of early music, and he also devised and presented the TV series Ancestral Voices.

David Munrow's recorded legacy is considered so important that one of his recordings was included on the Voyager space craft's 'golden disc' that was sent to Mars a year after his death. The following is a brief guide to three 'essential' recordings, all of which are available in the UK for around just £10 ($18) for each double CD. No serious music collection should be without them.

* The Art of Courtly Love - a collection of French secular music from Guillaume de Machaut to Guillaume Dufay. Although the time span is little more than a hundred years it covers one of the most astonishingly rich and varied periods in medieval music, including not only the development of polyphonic song, but also the summit of the song writer's art. Recorded by EMI in Studio 1 Abbey Road in late 1972 and early 1973 this is relatively early Munrow, and the musicians include Early Music Consort founders James Bowman, James Tyler and Christopher Hogwood.

* The Art of the Netherlands - a collection of early Renaissance secular and sacred vocal music. When this recording was made by EMI in 1975 many of the Flemish composers on it, including Brumel, Josquin, Ockeghem and Obrecht were unfamiliar to listeners. Now thanks to Munrow's pioneering work they are well represented both in the catalogue and in live performance. The first CD is devoted to secular songs, while the second is made up of Mass movements and motets. The singers include Sally Dunkley who went on to perform with the Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen and the William Byrd Choir. To purists Munrow's presentation of 'bleeding chunks' of Renaissance masses may appear anachronistic, but this is wonderful music presented with commitment and inspiration. The variety is a strength not a weakness, and the result is a persuasive overview of the music of this period. As well as being an important recording in its own right this budget priced two CD set is an invaluable 'sampler' for anyone wanting an introduction to Renaissance polyphony.

* Music of the Gothic Era is a remarkable survey of vocal music from the 12th to 15th century, progressing from the Notre Dame School, through Ars Antiuqa to Ars Nova. The composers include Léonin, Pérotin, and Machaut, and the singers include James Bowman and Roger Covey-Crump. Music of the Gothic Era was made in 1975,predating by thirteen years the Hilliard Ensemble's recording of Pérotin on ECM, a recording which used two of the same singers. Munrow's performance was pioneering in every way, and it pointed to a new direction with a revised consort exploring sacred repertoire, which alas he did not live to realise. Some of the realisations may be out of step with today's concepts of 'authentic performance', but Munrow's scholarship, vision, enthusiasm and sheer exuberance result in compelling music-making that it is still outstanding in every way after thirty years.

The Archiv division of Deutsche Grammophon recorded Music of the Gothic Era in the Chapel of Charter House School. David Munrow no longer had an exclusive EMI contract. Like Herbert von Karajan, who was also an EMI artist at that time, he signed contracts with both Deutsche Grammophon and EMI to maximise his commercial leverage. Munrow was ambitious, but he never lost his sheer enthusiasm and exuberant delight in music making. His irrepressible personality and talent meant he was now a media figure, and a career as a conductor and broadcaster outside the early music world was predicted.

But it was not to be. David Munrow completed the sessions for Music of the Gothic Era in October 1975 and followed it by recording the LP Monteverdi's Contemporaries for EMI in November 1975. These were his last recordings. He took his own life on 15th May 1976, aged thirty- three.

Other David Munrow resources On An Overgrown Path include:
* David Munrow and the Voyager golden record
* Exclusive - a little piece of recording history,
* Monteverdi in Cambridge
Image credits: Header - Castle Classics, Early Music Consort - Musicteachers.co.uk, The Art of the Netherlands - www.amazon.com , recording session - Nigelnorth.net
Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk. Image owners - if you do not want your picture used in this article please contact me and it will be replaced.

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.

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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

David Munrow and the Voyager golden record

A really excellent one hour long programme on early music performer, broadcaster, and musicologist David Munrow (right) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 yesterday (7th Jan), and you can catch it via 'Listen Again' until 13th January.

David Munrow died by his own hand on 15th May 1976 aged just thirty-three. The two Voyager space craft launched a year after his death each contained an eclectic 90-minute 'golden record' of music from many cultures, including Eastern and Western classics. Among them is a performance by David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London. Here is the music chosen for Voyager, and I am sure it will generate some comment:

* Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
* Java, court gamelan, "Kinds of Flowers", recorded by Robert E. Brown. 4:43
* Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
* Zaire, Pygmy girls' initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56
* Australia, Aborigine songs, "Morning Star" and "Devil Bird", recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
* Mexico, "El Cascabel", performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
* "Johnny B. Goode", written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
* New Guinea, men's house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20
* Japan, shakuhachi, "Tsuru No Sugomori" ("Crane's Nest") performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
* Bach, "Gavotte en rondeaux" from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
* Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
* Georgian S.S.R., chorus, "Tchakrulo", collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
* Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
* "Melancholy Blues", performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
* Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
* Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
* Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
* Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
* Bulgaria, "Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin", sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
* Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
* Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, "The Fairie Round", performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
* Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
* Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
* China, ch'in, "Flowing Streams", performed by Kuan P'ing-hu. 7:37
* India, raga, "Jaat Kahan Ho", sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
* "Dark Was the Night", written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
* Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37

Totally crazy, incidentally, that the BBC aired this important music programme on their Radio 4 current affairs station. And even more crazy that Radio 3 did not publicise it, instead devoting endless promotion to a very poor 'experimental' 'docu/drama' (ugh!) on the composer John Blow.
A more detailed tribute to David Munrow for On An Overgrown Path is in preparation, reader contributions to this are very welcome.
Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
List of Voyager recordings taken from Wikipedia
Image credit - Castle Classics
Image owners - if you do not want your picture used in this article please contact me and it will be removed. If bandwidth is a problem with your permission I will host your image.
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Monteverdi in Cambridge