Dona Nobis Pacem from Venezuela to Russia

Swings and roundabouts day. Elsewhere an interesting and topical thread that leads from Hugo Chávez and Gustavo Dudamel to Vladimir Putin and Valery Gergiev. Could we be coming at the same problem from different directions? Or should Gergiev spend more time rehearsing and less time politicking? While a thoughtful comment on a related Overgrown Path takes us to a music blog that is new to me, and has some interesting things to say.

The challenges facing the new nations of the former-Soviet Union have featured here frequently, and a year ago I wrote about the music of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. Recently I have been very moved by a new Ondine CD of his choral music sung by the Latvian Radio Choir with the Sinfonietta Riga directed by Sigvards Klava (header image). Vasks' music has never been inaccessible; but this new release is particularly approachable, and should appeal both to contemporary music aficionados and to those whose interest is great sacred music across the centuries.

And more musical engagement with the former Soviet Union here.
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

Photo of he who must not be named

Harry Potter really did pass me by. But now all is explained...

"Instead, this was something like Dumbledore talking about opening Hogwarts franchises all over the world -- while He Who Must Not Be Named simply wasn't."

Basically, all I meant was that Abreu came off as a kindly aged wizard who spoke with enthusiasm of spreading his magical franchise throughout the Americas, while not addressing (or being asked) about the troubling notion of being used as a P.R. ambassador for what appears to be an increasingly despotic, dangerous regime. The link to your blog was intended to take readers directly to your important post, while not mentioning Chavez by name a la Ms. Rowling's books.

That's all. Hope you didn't get the sense that I was referring to you as "he who must not be named."

Yours, Steve Smith
Associate Music Editor & Editor, Classical & Opera
Time Out New York

Many thanks Steve. I get it now. I think I probably typed Dane Rudhyar once too often today.
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

Just Venezuelan youths waving national flags

Patrick J. Smith writes - 'Pliable's On An Overgrown Path deserves the attention of almost any serious reader and lover of music, and it deserves whatever accolades can be given for his coverage of Hugo Chavez' "Bolivarian Revolution," especially as the musical world swoons over Gustavo Dudamel.

Perhaps my love of Wilhelm Furtwängler should be tempered for this reason, and - as I have said here - some recordings, like that 1943 Bayreuth Meistersinger, are problematic for me - maybe that's right; however, I cannot help but think that Dudamel is a servant of a state verging ever nearer to totalitarianism and repression. Supporting Dudamel, his youth orchestra, and other Venezuelan cultural products is akin to saying that we love the produce of a nascent dictatorship, even if we don't so much care for the dictator.


While Mr. Dudamel should not be made to suffer for being the product and superstar of the music-education program of Venezuela, we should not get in the business of supporting Chavez or the end-results of his projects until it becomes clear the Chavez is committed to democracy and human rights.'


Thank you Patrick for those wise words. The two photos show Venezuelan riot police facing university students during protests against Chavez’s decision to shut down opposition-aligned television station RCTV in May 2007. (Image credits FullosseousFlap). Perhaps DG will use them on the next Dudamel CD sleeve? Meanwhile, many readers have contacted me from Venezuela echoeing Patrick's words. For obvious reasons it is best if I don't give their names. This is typical of the messages though - 'Music will prevail... Chávez will eventually cease ... I hope sooner... We are working to see how...'

Good to see that the music is prevailing, and my article on Venezuelan music beyond the youth orchestras has attracted a lot of attention. One reader from Venezuela writes to point out my omission of Aldemaro Romero, and say 'all the rest have to learn from him'. Romero died on September 15 2007. As well as working in the classical field and founding the the Caracas Philarmonic Orchestra he was the creator of a new form of popular Venezuelan music, known as "New Wave" (Onda Nueva), derived from the joropo and influenced by Brazilian Bossa Nova. You can sample Romero's music on YouTube. The photo below shows happier Venzuelan music making, Aldemaro Romero with guitarist Saul Vera.


Strange how having an opinion is so unfashionable in some parts these days. It didn't use to be that way.
Aldemaro Romero image from Wikipedia.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

Venezuelan youth orchestrates political protest

Tens of thousands of students are expected to march through Caracas and other cities today in protest at Hugo Chávez's move to amend Venezuela's constitution, despite violence which has injured at least eight students.

Masked gunmen opened fire on a university campus in clashes between pro- and anti-Chávez groups in Caracas on Wednesday. The university said the government used thugs to intimidate protesters but Mr Chávez blamed the marchers. "They generally take the path of fascist violence and confront the laws and the people, and they are always looking to the Pentagon, high-ranking generals," he told a summit in Chile yesterday.

Campuses are the focus of opposition to Mr Chávez's referendum on December 2 to permit him to run indefinitely and accelerate what he terms a socialist revolution. Raul Isaias Baduel, a retired army commander and long-time Chávez ally, has joined the opposition to the draft constitution, saying it amounts to a coup.

Today's Guardian reports it. I wonder how many music blogs will even mention it?

Now playing - Deutsche Grammophon's great recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This is what the Gramophone Good CD Guide said - It has become utterly impossible to keep track of all recordings of Beethoven's music ... So who would predict that anything new could possibly be added to what has so often been done, and done well? Thus we might have reasoned in the mid-1970s, but then the seemingly impossible came to pass. When Carlos Kleiber's recording of Beethoven's Fifth was issued in 1975 ... the great clock of Beethovenian interpretation struck the hour.

Carlos Kleiber's father, Erich, resigned his post as director of Berlin's Staatsoper in December 1934 in protest against the policies of the Nazis. He continued to work in Europe outside Germany, but the spread of Fascism forced him to leave the continent in 1939. Ironically it was to South America that Kleiber fled. He spent the years between 1939 and 1946 conducting less than world class orchestras in Argentina, Peru and Chile, and willingly accepted this as the price of his political beliefs.

In 1951 Erich Kleiber returned to Berlin and to the Staatsoper which was now in the communist sector of the city. The opera house itself had been destroyed in the last months of the war, and performances took place in the Admiralspalast, a former dance hall. Kleiber found post-war East Berlin politically brittle, and the working conditions in the still ruined city were extremely difficult. He resigned in March 1955 on principle after a dispute with the authorities over the removal of an inscription to Frederick the Great on the newly renovated Staatsoper building.

Carlos Kleiber was born in 1930 in pre-Nazi Berlin. In that year the highlights at the Staatsoper included its director, Erich Kleiber, conducting Darius Milhaud's new opera Christophe Colomb, Hans Pfitzner conducting his own Palestrina, and Richard Strauss conducting Intermezzo. So when Beethoven's Fifth finished on the CD player I switched to another DG disc, Christian Thielemann conducting the Orchester Der Deutsche Oper Berlin in three of the preludes from Palestrina and the prelude to Capriccio. Sadly the CD seems to be deleted, but recommended if you can find a copy.

Now read how the East Germans rewrote music history.
Do find a copy of Erich Kleiber, A Memoir by John Russell (Andé Deutsch 1957) if you can. 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

Musicians setting a good example

Wonderful to see so much enthusiasm for the BBC Prom by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustvo Dudamel. But respect also to Alice O'Keefe in the Independent for mentioning the unmentionable.

But with Venezuela fiercely polarised over the "Bolivarian revolution" spearheaded by President Hugo Chavez (above), Dudamel's de facto position as an ambassador for his country is far from easy. Since the government refused to renew the licence for RCTV, the opposition television station, earlier this year, there is increasing unease about restrictions on the freedom of expression.

Dudamel himself was criticised when he conducted the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra playing the national anthem at the launch of TVes, the state-controlled channel that replaced RCTV. One "open letter" circulated on many blogs compared him to Wilhelm Furtwängler, the conductor accused of being a Nazi supporter.

Dudamel is unapologetic. "The launch of TVes was an emotional moment for the country. But if you look at the 30 years of the orchestra, we have recorded thousands of anthems, for both state and private TV and radio channels. The image of the orchestra is made for everyone. ...People ask me what position I take. My position is that I make music, and I am Venezuelan. I want to promote the name of my country – not one political party or another, but my whole country."

Let's not forget that Furtwängler didn't have a monopoly on interesting views about the relationship between politics and music.

Tribunal - "What would you do if Britain were invaded?"

Britten - "I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example"

From transcript of Benjamin Britten's appearance before a tribunal for the registration of Conscientous Objectors, 28 May 1942.

Boulez saw benefits in the German occupation of Paris. "The theaters were crowded. People could not leave the cities and all of them jammed into concert halls. I went to a concert given by my own piano teacher and could hardly get into it. The Germans virtually brought high culture to France."

From Boulez - Composer, Conductor, Enigma by Joan Peyser (Schirmer ISBN 0028717007)

Now read how a strange mind can produce great new music.
Image credit Dowbrigade. 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

Why Simon Bolivar is important

The opera Simón Bolívar by Thea Musgrave was a joint commission by the Los Angeles Music Centre and Scottish Opera. Born in Scotland in 1928 Musgrave studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, knew Benjamin Britten, and has lived in the United States since 1974. For more on Thea Musgrave, and other women composers, follow this path.

Thea Musgrave's two act opera tells the story of the Venezuelan folk hero Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), who liberated six South American countries from Spanish colonial rule. Bolívar was a passionate idealist, and brilliantly successful freedom fighter (he is seen in the painting above finalising his campaign). But he failed to unite the liberated countries under one flag, and today they are the independent states of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia. In the 21st century Simón Bolívar is still revered for defeating the Spanish and liberating the region from colonial domination.

There is no commercial recording of the opera Simón Bolívar. But on Sunday (Aug 10) I will be playing Thea Musgrave's concerto for oboe and orchestra, Helios, in my Overgrown Path webcast on Future Radio, see below for webcast details. It is in another of my programmes of fine music that is rarely broadcast, yet alone heard in the concert hall. After last week's rare American symphonies, the music this week is all by British born composers. As well as Thea Musgrave's Helios there is Edmund Rubbra's Symphony No. 10 (see my post The Year is '72), and William Alwyn's Symphony No 5 'Hydriotaphia' (see my post Brain Music).

* Simón Bolívar, the opera by Thea Musgrave, was premiered by Virginia Opera (in the other Norfolk!) in January 1995. Stephen Guggenheim sung the title role, and the composer's husband, Peter Mark, conducted.
* Thea Musgrave's Two's Company is given its world premiere at the BBC Prom on August 31.
* The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, with their conductor Gustavo Dudamel, are at the BBC Proms on August 19 playing Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony.
* The 224th anniversary of the birth of Simón Bolívar was celebrated around the world on July 24 2007.
* On July 22 2007 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz said that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting the country will be expelled. In May 2007 Chavéz closed down an opposition run TV station.
* Now read about politician Hugo Chavéz and composer Carlos Carlos Chavéz in a tale of two Chavéz

My programme of Brain Music, including Thea Musgraves Helios, will be webcast between 5.00pm and 6.00pm British Summer Time, and is available on web radio. Convert on-air times to your local time zone using this link. Click here for the audio stream. Windows Media Player doesn't like the 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 happen to be in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.

Painting of the meeting of San Martin(right)and Simon Bolívar(left)in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 26, 1822, at which was decided the campaign to liberate South America from Spanish control, from Aceros-de-espana. 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

Flattery will get you everywhere

More F1-related dopiness here. The author writes one of the very best classical-music blogs out there-- in his lucid intervals between spells of fellating Hugo Chavez and bemoaning the training of armed guards - from Australian Tim Blair's blog.

But I can think of more pleasurable experiences than this.
Illustration by Jeff Smith. 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

A tale of two Chavez

Many column inches here, and elsewhere, devoted to the music education and freedom of press policies of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavéz. Wouldn't some of them be better spent reappraising the music of his namesake, Mexican composer Carlos Chavéz?

Carlos Chavéz (photo above) was born in 1899, and lived to 1978. During the mid-20th century he was a major influence on the Mexican musical scene, and his important achievements include the formation of the Orquesta Sinfónia del Estado de México. His early works coincided with the period of post-revolutionary government in Mexico when Indian music and indigenous culture became a prized national asset. The Sinfonia India is the second of Chavéz's seven symphonies. The single movement work was completed in 1936, and incorporates authentic Indian melodies from the state of Sonora. The scoring is Indian exotic, including maraca, Yaqui metal rattle, water gourd, tenabri (butterfly cocoons), teponaxtles (a member of the xylophone family), a rattling string of deer hooves, tlapanhuehuetl (bass drum) and rasping stick, as well as full orchestra.

I must declare an interest in this symphony. During the 1980s I spent some time in Mexico helping develop the classical music market in that wonderful country. For that project EMI recorded Chavéz's Sinfonia India as part of a two LP project Music of Mexico featuring 20th century works by local composers. The conductor was Enrique Batiz (left), with the Orquesta Sinfónia del Estado de México. The sessions were produced by Brian Culverhouse in the Sala Nezahualcoyotu in Mexico City. The vinyl LP of Sinfonia India plays as I write, and still sounds quite magnificent with all those wonderful percussion colours. If we want to celebrate the musical achievements of Latin America let's pay some more attention to Carlos Chavez and the other Mexican composers featured on those long deleted records.

* Music of Mexico Volume 1 was released in 1981:
Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940): Sensemayá
José Pablo Moncayo: (1912-1958) Huapango
Revueltas: Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca
Chavéz: Sinfonia India
This release had a gatefold sleeve, and it was used to full advantage to display an allegorical mural by the Mexican revolutionary artist Diego Rivera depicting the independence of Mexico. Those were the days when sleeve art was art! View the mural via this link.

Volume 2 was released in 1984:
Revueltas: Redes
Revueltas: Ocho por Radio
Blas Galindo (1910-1993): Suite, Homenaje a Cervantes
Rodolfo Halffter (1900-1987): Tripartia

EMI departed from their usual practice of shipping the recording equipment and house production team out to Mexico City from England. Instead freelance Brian Culverhouse acted both as producer and balance engineer, and the digital recording equipment was supplied by Soundstream, Inc from the US.

Now read about a composer from Cuba - Odaline de la Martinez
Image credit, from an excellent online biography of Carlos Chavéz. 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

Is Hugo Chavez really music to our ears?

Venezuela, and its charismatic president Hugo Chavez, have featured On An Overgrown Path several times recently. Back in November I raised concerns about the objectivity of the Guardian's coverage (above) of Venezuela's acclaimed music education programme, and only yesterday I highlighted human rights activist Harry Belafonte's support for Chavez. So today's Observer article Mr Chavez and the death of freedom makes interesting reading. Here is an extract:

"Consider, for it's a looming headline event in 2007, the Hugo Chavez dilemma. On the one hand, many committed media freedom warriors in Britain - including Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists - vociferously support Venezuela's totemic president and all his egalitarian works. They raise money for his causes, pass NUJ conference motions of support and generally despise scribblers on the other side who think him a bit of a demagogue.

On the other hand, Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, wrote recently that the IFJ Caracas office had 'recorded 700 incidents of harassment, intimidation and violence against the media in the last four years alone'. He went on to talk about 'severely compromised conditions for professional journalism', and about how 'Chavez's violent rhetoric' against media owners has put genuinely open-minded commentators 'under constant pressure'. In a country where polarised politics habitually overwhelms much journalism, White observed, 'neither the private sector, and even less the public sector, which many see being transformed into a governmental mouthpiece, pass the test of independent journalism'. Those conclusions are substantially supported by other press freedom organisations from all over the world: the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, the International Press Institute in Vienna, Reporteurs Sans Frontieres in Paris.

So this isn't just any old spat. It's conflict, and one which is about to grow much rougher as Chavez announces that, when its current licence to broadcast ends in March, Radio Caracas Television - the company's second-biggest media company - is out of business and that its CEO 'had better start packing his bags ... No media outlet will be tolerated here that is at the service of coup-ism, against the people, against the nation, against national independence, against the dignity of the republic'. "

Perhaps we should remember that fascist dictator Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time in Italy? For more on the lifeblood of democracy, freedom of the press, take An Overgrown Path to Blogging for Tibet

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

Music can help change the world

The Vienna Philharmonic’s glacial progress towards appointing female players reminds me both of how far we have travelled in the last forty years in the areas of race and equality, and how far we still have to go.

In 1968 Harry Belafonte, whose album Calypso was the first LP to sell more than 1 million, appeared on a primetime CBS television special hosted by British singer Petula Clark. In the show, the two singers performed a duet, and Petula Clark held on to Belafonte's arm, as my still from the programme shows here. After the first take the director asked them to repeat the song, standing apart. It transpired that an executive from the show's sponsor, an automobile manufacturer, saw the first take and ordered it to be re-shot. His reason was that showing a white woman touching an African-American might adversely affect car sales in southern states.

An outraged Petula Clark and her husband Claude Wolff, the show's executive producer, destroyed all the takes except the first one. The transmission went ahead with the original duet, and the programme achieved very high viewing figures following press exposure of the sponsor's attempted inteference. But Belafonte was less successful when he used footage of the violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention in a Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour programme - CBS cut the sequence before the show was broadcast.

Harry Belafonte refused to perform in the southern states of the US between 1954 and 1961, and was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King. He has been a vociferous opponent of the current Bush administration, and has criticised the African-Americans holding senior positions in it. Belafonte has also controversially supported the regime of Hugo Chavéz, President of Venezuela, a country that has received international praise for its progressive music education.

For more on 1968 read Notes of a College Revolutionary.
Image credit Belafontetracks. 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

Classical music and the paid-for media

Norman Lebrecht recently roared “Until bloggers deliver hard facts and estate agents turn into credible critics, paid-for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town”. So on Friday it was good to see a paid-for newspaper setting the standard and covering the wonderful music education programme in Venezuela. In a major article that made the front page of the influential Film & Music supplement (above) Guardian journalist Charlotte Higgins visits both Venzuela and Rome, and sings the praises of what she calls ‘The System’, or to give the Venzuelan education programme its full title Fundacion del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela.

Also championing Venezuelan music education is Simon Rattle, who gushes euphorically in the article about wunderkind conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and declares "If anyone asks me where is something really important going on for the future of classical music, I say here." Rattle and Dudamel are just two of the big names that appear in the article, the others are Claudio Abbado, and the Berlin Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, and Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestras.

Now I am a huge advocate of music education, and have written about it on these pages, and I am also a great admirer of what is happening in Venezuela. But there are some hard facts that didn't make it into Charlotte Higgins' article. Music education in Europe and North America has been the victim of another system, known as the free market. This balances supply and demand, and, whether we like it or not, this has put a greater value on training computer programmers than orchestral musicians. But some in classical music have benefitted from this system, particularly the artists agents who have found a lucrative niche matching musical supply to demand.

The Guardian article prominently namechecked Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, and the Berlin Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony and Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestras. Now follow this link to the website of leading artists agent Askonas Holt, and you will see that the artists represented by them include Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, and the Berlin Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony and Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestras. Uncanny isn't it? - particularly as the footnote to the article is also rich in namechecks - "The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela's recording of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, is out now on Deutsche Grammophon".

The practice of music critics being supplied with free concert tickets and CDs is long established. But in the brave new global world of classical music the stakes are much higher. Follow this link and you will find that there are major international tours in 2007 by the Gothenburg Symphony and Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra organised by Askonas Holt and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and some global exposure in the Guardian isn't going to harm ticket and CD sales for that is it?

This is not just an isolated example of global promotion. Several music critics, including Norman Lebrecht, have recently written reviews of the Vienna premiere of John Adams new opera The Flowering Tree. The orchestra for that premiere was another band from South America, the Orchestra Joven Camerata de Venezuela, and in December the opera is in the repertoire of Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, who are of course in the Askonas Holt stable, before being performed by the San Francisco Symphony, who are co-commissioners and also Askonas Holt artists. The opera is also coming to London, so some exposure there in the Evening Standard doesn't go amiss either. And back with Venezuelan musicians the Guardian article won't hurt the 2007 Edinburgh Festival appearance of Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which is promoted by Askonas Holt, as is the major US tour that follows.

I am the first to agree that classical music needs all the exposure it can get, and also that our children need all the music education they can get. But, equally, don't readers of the paid-for newspapers need all the hard facts they can get on The System behind these glowing articles?

For more on The System follow An Overgrown Path to No such thing as an unknown Venezuelan conductor.

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