On An Overgrown Path

Classical music is irrevocably and fatally tied to place. Geocentricity dictates that the only place to hear classical music is an acoustically perfect concert hall . It dictates that this concert hall must be in a city centre , and also mandates that city centres are the only place to hear classical music. And geocentricity dictates that the only music to hear in the acoustically perfect city centre halls is from the European classical tradition. New technologies have created a mobile generation - mobile computing, mobile communications, mobile listening , and mobile workplaces. Yet classical music remains wedded to immobility and geocentricity.  In his memoir Silences So Deep John Luther Adams explains how "I began to feel that my music was no longer about place, but had in a real sense become a place of its own". Aspects of the recent Arts Council England proposals may be wrong-headed. But the underlying message of the proposals was profound and, predictably, overloo...

In 2020 the classical music industry proved the truth of Oscar Wilde's famous dictum that there are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. Those of us who were advocating classical diversity back when other 'experts' were still puffing Dudamel as classical music's saviour watched in dismay as gender and ethnicity replaced merit as a measure of marketability . Similarly, those who of us who two decades ago embraced what was then called 'citizen journalism'  sunk into despair as social media proved the foolishness of crowds , and the classical industry succumbed to the  malignant power of click bait . (Yesterday the industry's cultural commentator of choice demanded that musicians " stop orchestral touring ". Today click bait addiction dictates that the same commentator  urges musicians to sign a petition to make it easier for orchestras to go on "Eurostar tours" and "trips to S...

Anybody who has been around the classical music industry for some time will be struck by the remarkable similarity between the portrait of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla on the cover of her first release for Deutsche Grammophon and Siegfried Lauterwasser 's brooding photo of Herbert von Karajan used on Deutsche Grammophon's 1979 vinyl release of the Beethoven Symphonies seen below. I tread on very dangerous ground here as expressing anything other than effusive praise for Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla simply prompts the usual social media tongue lashing . So let me make it clear right now that this release of symphonies  by the neglected Mieczysław Weinberg is very laudable . Moreover, let me also make it clear that there has never been a single artistic or personal criticism of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla on this blog. But what I have expressed several times are reservations about the way that classical music's next big things are marketed . That Beethoven cycle by Karajan was released f...

Norman Lebrecht is leading a chorus of self-righteous indignation about James Levine's $27,000 (£20,300) performance fee at the Metropolitan Opera. This per performance fee is in addition to a not insubstantial $400,000 annual salary for his artistic and administrative role as music director of the Met. But the furore about Levine's fee is still puzzling because, whether we like it or not, fees of this order of magnitude for celebrity musicians have been around for some time, and Levine prior to his fall from grace was a celebrity conductor par excellence . In 2011 a post here about a Gustavo Dudamel BBC Proms appearance asking Is a miracle maestro worth £20,000 a concert? prompted no self-righteous indignation, while another post revealed that Philip Glass' agent asked $36,000 US dollars plus transatlantic flights for a solo piano concert at an unpresuming European festival. Moreover, way back in 1991 an authoritative music journalist explained that: In the past two d...

Quite rightly the shockwaves from recent abuse scandals are reverberating through classical music . These shameful scandals, which have done untold damage to classical music's image, were ticking time bombs that too many people in the know chose to ignore. What is worrying is there are other time bombs that are being glossed over, but which may soon explode causing yet more damage. Dangerous thinking has been abroad in classical music for years, namely that its role as a priceless form of high art licenses unacceptable behaviour. It is this dangerous thinking that resulted in the misdemeanours of several celebrity conductors being glossed over for decades, and it is the same thinking that allows other less emotionally traumatising but still highly questionable behaviour to be glossed over. One vulnerability that is all too frequently ignored is the lamentable human rights records of regimes that classical music is consorting with. The United Arab Emirates is one of the new '...

In preparation for returning again to Papal Provence I have revisited David Munrow's 1973 three LP set The Art of Courtly Love . With so much soul-searching about how classical music can reach a new young audience it is worth remembering that David Munrow's BBC Radio 3 Pied Piper programme was broadcast four times a week for five years and introduced a huge audience to the riches of early music. He also presented the TV series Ancestral Voices, a title described as sounding like the greatest Led Zeppelin album never recorded; which may help explain why Munrow's popularity peaked in the early 1970s, when the young and alternative dominated the zeitgeist . David Munrow was truly multi-talented , and much of his appeal came from his advocacy of composers such as Guillaume de Machaut, Gilles Binchois and Guillaume Dufay, who were totally unknown and alien in style to the wider public in the 1970s. Today Simon Rattle, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Gustavo Dudamel are undoubtedly...

That spectacular spike in On An Overgrown Path 's readership graph was caused by the economics blog Marginal revolutions linking to my posts about the older classical audience and the Ultimate Classic FM chart . I have no time for the 'mine is bigger than yours' bragging that Norman Lebrecht and other bloggers indulge in. But I do think there are lessons to be learnt from how a blog which assiduously avoids eulogising classical music's 'next big things' has retained a significant and wide audience . The classical record industry was built on the vision of figures such as Fred Gaisberg, Walter Legge and John Culshaw whose roots were deep in classical music. But the 1960s boom sparked by Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and others meant that rock music called the shots in the record industry, and it has stayed that way ever since. Rock music is driven by a remorseless search for 'hits' and 'the next big thing'. Because classical h...

Classical music has always had its high earning high profile celebrities. But in the era of Karajan and Stokowski healthy admiration for their music making was mixed with an equally healthy scepticism about their excesses off the podium - see above. In the era of Dudamel and Rattle admiration for their music remains; but scepticism about their excesses - see below - has been replaced by remorselessly enforced approval. This unwillingness to accept that those with golden batons can also have feet of clay is driven by the widespread misapprehension that classical music needs a new messiah, and therefore any prospective saviour must be worshipped without question . Classical music is not dead. But it is under attack by the music Taliban who zealously enforce their own interpretation of the classical revelation. These Taliban use public platforms to deride anyone whose views deviate from the orthodoxy as a " tedious collection of cynics, snobs and the professionally underwhelmed ...

That header photo comes from a 2016 Guardian review of a Wigmore Hall recital. Martha Argerich needs no introduction but her fellow Argentinian and recital partner Alberto Portugheis possibly does. Alberto Portugheis is both a celebrated pianist and teacher, and his masterclasses attract pianists of all ages and from around the world. Like his compatriot Daniel Barenboim he also campaign for peace and human rights, and in 2014 he launched his international movement Humanity United for Universal Demilitarisation (HUFUD). My recent post 'How classical music swims in very murky water' highlighted the three year corporate partnership between the the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) and the world's fourth largest aerospace and defence company United Technologies Corporation (UTC). Alberto Portugheis has left the following comment on that post: UTC is only one of many ' Merchants of death ' companies or conglomerates that use classical music to gain new c...

That Guardian subhead of "President Maduro’s cancellation of conductor Gustavo Dudamel’s tour is a clear bid to weaponise the country’s greatest export, its musical education programme" is an unfortunate choice of words. The article , which pleads for the whole world to support Gustavo Dudamel and which condemns a bid to weaponise music education, is written by Marshall Marcus who is CEO of the European Union Youth Orchestra . The European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) has a three year corporate partnership with United Technologies Corporation (UTC), a partnership publicly endorsed by Marshall Marcus . UTC is a large military contractor and earns about 10% of its revenue from the U.S. government . It is one of the largest defense industry political donors. The Center for Responsive Politics , the premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics, reports that in 2016 UTC donated $1.2 million to federal candidates of which 64% went to Republicans. Possibly as a res...

That tweet from Richard Bratby was in response to Overgrown Path posts which gave a platform to pleas by conductor Warren Cohen and baritone Stéphane Degout's for more adventurous concert programming. Now Richard is a good 'virtual' friend and I have great respect for his experience in concert management and for his journalistic prowess. But I do believe that two assumptions in that tweet need amicably challenging, because they reflect entrenched attitudes in the classical music establishment. The first assumption is that musicians performing at a concert carry no financial responsibility. Many musicians are booked on a per concert basis. As a result their financial responsibility is considerable, because if their performance is not a success they may not be booked again. Moreover a poor performance is likely to have negative financial repercussions for the management that booked them. In fact the financial responsibilities of musicians are increasing: in respons...

Newsweek's 2012 profile headlined "Bravo, Gustavo! How Maestro Dudamel is saving classical music" was remarkably prophetic. As his latest property transaction seen above and Rolex brand ambassador role seen below confirm, Gustavo Dudamel has indeed saved classical music. He has saved the celebrity culture with its top-heavy reward structure , he has saved the vital skill of staying onside with the media , and has saved the fine art of embracing just enough new music to stay cool . Moreover he has saved venerable and highly lucrative star vehicles such as the Rolex sponsored Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker , and has saved the casuistry of running with the humanitarian hounds while hunting with an ethically compromised regime . In fact Gustavo Dudamel has saved classical music's elitist and privileged status quo. Dudamel's many apologists will argue that rich rewards for celebrity conductors are nothing new. Which is quite true. But Herbert von K...

This is the season for album of the year listings . By convention these lists are dominated by new releases, and it is now time to question that convention. Promoting new recordings at the expense of the old is a longstanding practice. But in the past the recorded catalogue was not so comprehensive and technology developments were delivering genuine improvements in recording quality. Whereas today's new releases all too often offer lacklustre accounts by celebrity musicians of a limited repertoire - Mahler, Shostakovich etc - recorded at concert performances in compromised sound . Which is why it is many years since I bought a Simon Rattle album, and why I have never bought one by Gustavo Dudamel. Judgements of merit have been replaced by the commercial imperative of the new. Dead musicians do not earn big commissions for management agents , record company and retailer margins are slim on budget reissues, and Arturo Toscanini and Pau Casals cannot brief their to place Guardian ...

Gustavo Dudamel, Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, Jordi Savall and Joyce DiDonato are among the leading musicians who have performed in the Gulf States in recent years, and the the inaugural BBC Proms Dubai festival takes place in March 2017. So, given classical music's ongoing love affair with social media, the launch of the 140 Characters website deserves a heads up. This is the work of Human Rights Watch , and in recognition of Twitter’s 140-character limit, the interactive website profiles 140 prominent Bahraini, Kuwaiti, Omani, Qatari, Saudi, and Emirati social and political rights activists and dissidents - see images above - and describes their struggles to resist government efforts to silence them. All 140 have faced government retaliation for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and many have been arrested, tried, and sentenced to fines or prison. Dubai, which is hosting the BBC Proms, is the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, and Abu Dhabi, which ha...

There is a dearth of click-baitable music stories at the moment. So the Guardian has fallen back on the tired old 'here comes the next saviour' formula with a piece by click-baiter extraordinaire James Rhodes on the Greek-Russian conductor Teodor Currentzis*. Back in 2005 the Telegraph ran a similar piece on Currentzis which was modestly headlined 'I will save classical music'. Not to be outdone, seven years later Newsweek ran the puff piece above lauding how Gustavo Dudamel is "saving classical music". Each of us will have our own views on whether salvation has finally arrived . But if it has, it clearly does not extend to the avaricious and restrictive management agency system which is responsible for many of classical music's current problems. Dudamel has played the agency game to perfection , and Teodor Currentzis is managed by IMG Artists , which describes itself as "a global leader of performing arts, social media, and festival and e...

In a comment on my post about Stokowski the technology visionary , Antoine Leboyer observes that "Karajan also understood the importance of the medium as a message... these days, Karajan's and Stokowski's style have made them out of fashion but who has taken their place?" Who indeed? Herbert von Karajan was a technology enthusiast and his close friends included Sony executive Norio Ohga who was a key figure in the development of the Compact Disc . Like Stokowski, Karajan regarded technology as a servant that could help him achieve his artistic ideals. This attitude contrasts sharply with today's leading musicians who see new technology as a master that has to be obeyed without question . Who among today's celebrity maestros is playing an active role in freeing recorded sound from its straightjacket of compression ? Antoine's observation that Karajan's style has gone out of fashion applies far beyond technology. Today it is modish to dismiss Ka...

Ross Daly's worldview that : "There’s a way to belong but not to be a native... I live outside a national identity and that’s always been a great advantage... I can feel at home anywhere” is reflected in his music. Born in Kings Lynn, England and raised on both sides of the Atlantic, Ross studied the sitar in India and rabab in Afghanistan. He settled in Crete in 1974 because, to quote him: "Some things in life grab you; Crete and its music did that for me”. In 1982 he established the Labyrinth Musical Workshop in the Cretan village of Houdetsi as a loosely structured collective exploring the modal music of different cultures. He explains that he chose Houdetsi because "A village is better than a city for this, everything’s in walking distance. We began with one-week seminars, everyone living together.” Every summer the Labyrinth Workshops draw students from around the world to seminars and masterclasses taught by celebrated musicians from the modal traditions. In...