Jordi Savall and the just-in-time interview

Jordi Savall's office in Spain was quite certain, he really wanted to give an interview On An Overgrown Path when he was in Norwich. The maestro (above) even phoned me back from his home in Barcelona to say yes, he would definitely find time. I couldn't raise him again on his mobile phone after he arrived in England, but on the morning of the concert I met him at his signing session and he told me to come to the concert venue of St Peter Mancroft at the end of the sound-check at 6.45pm, and he would do the interview between the rehearsal and the 7.30pm concert start. But I arrived at St Peter Mancroft at 6.30pm to find a disaster. The taxi sent to collect him had arrived at his hotel 30 minutes late. So everything was behind schedule and the event manager thought an interview was unlikely. But a message came back from the maestro, he would do the interview after 7.00pm.

The sound-check finished late at 7.05pm and as the capacity audience started to fill the church a charming but tired Jordi Savall said he wanted a cup of tea before facing my microphone. Just after 7.10pm the recording started to the side of the stage in view of some of the audience and soon it really started to flow. But with five minutes to go to the concert start time and only half my questions asked it looked as though On An Overgrown Path might go down in history as the first blog to delay the start of a Norwich Festival concert. So I decided discretion was the better part of valour and bailed out using my scripted exit which thanked the maestro for his time. At which point, and we were now four minutes from the start of the concert, to my disbelief he said 'I just want to say one more thing...' and went on to deliver a short but inspirational message about the power of music and the need inner peace.

He never missed a beat, the concert started on time and was, of course, magnificent. And after it had ended many of the audience wouldn't leave, and the four musicians from Hesperion XXI stayed on stage for some time to talk to members of the audience about the rare instruments they had been playing including an oud, rebab, santur and 100 year old Moroccan drum. The next morning was Sunday, and Jordi Savall was leaving his hotel in Norwich at 7.00am to return to Spain. Before the interview he told me had played 182 concerts last year.

Hear my just-in-time interview complete with audience noise and Jordi Savall's message on inner peace on Future Radio at 5.00pm on Sunday May 25 repeated at 00.01am on Wednesday May 28. Or listen to the podcast which will be also be available on May 25.

The words 'Prayer for inner and outer peace' are written in Beethoven's own hand in the manuscript of his Missa Solemnis over the line in which the 'Dona nobis' theme first appears. 'For Inner and Outer Peace' was also used as the title of a moving book (below) inspired by Beethoven's masterpiece and written by another great musician and humanitarian. Read more about Antal Dorati here.

Now playing - the Sanctus from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in the recording with Philippe Herreweghe conducting the Choeurs de La Chapelle Royale and the Collegium Vocale Gent, the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and soloists. It is surprising how many of today's 'jet set' conductors have failed to scale this peak of Beethoven's creativity satisfactorily. Like Jordi Savall, Philippe Herreweghe built his reputation in early music, but, also like the Catalan musician, for Herreweghe there is no early, classical or contemporary music, just music. For me Herreweghe's performance, which was recorded live at a concert, is one of the great interpretations of Beethoven's masterpiece, as indeed is Dorati's own on BIS. Dorati's version is still in the catalogue but his book and Herreweghe's recording are both, alas, no longer available. Dorati's book was published by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, read more about their vital work for inner and outer peace here.

Photo of Jordi Savall taken by my wife during the just-in-time interview and (c) On An Overgown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

It is impossible to live without inner peace

On 11th March 2008 Madrid marked the fourth anniversary of the terrorist bombings (above) that claimed the lives of 191 people and wounded 1,856. It was the biggest terrorist attack in the history of Spain and, indeed, Europe, with 10 simultaneous explosions on four of Madrid’s district trains at the height of the morning rush hour. It happened a few minutes before 8 a.m. Later, the police exploded another two bombs that had failed to go off and a third was defused, leading to the identification of those responsible.

The ceremony of remembrance for those who were killed began at twelve noon in front of the monument inaugurated last year which stands in Plaza de Atocha. It was led by their majesties King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia, who laid a wreath at the foot of the monument. After a minute’s silence in memory of the victims, there was a rendition of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s “Da pacem, Domine”, a work commissioned by Jordi Savall for performance at the Barcelona Forum of Cultures in June 2004. Inspired in the Gregorian chant Danos la paz Señor, the piece was composed only two days after the tragic bombings as a tribute to the victims who were honoured at the ceremony of remembrance. Arvo Pärt’s “Da pacem, Domine” will be included in a forthcoming Alia Vox release.

In the words of Raimon Panikkar “It is difficult to live when there is no external peace in the world around us. It is impossible to live without inner peace, if there is no peace in our hearts”. Arvo Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine is a prayer for those whom we have lost, as well as an invocation to peace and hope, the music creating a space of peace, both in the world around us and in our hearts.

'For Inner and Outer Peace' is the title of an important book by another great musical humanitarian, Antal Dorati. It was published by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), but is out of print. All this ... and what for?

Story source Alia Vox. 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

Mahler’s message for German parliament

Early in the morning of 26th April 1986 two explosions destroyed reactor no. 4 at the Soviet nuclear power station at Chernobyl in Ukraine. This started the chain of events that led to the world's worst nuclear power accident, and left victims like the children seen above in an oncology unit in the area. 26th April 2007 is Chernobyl Day, and On An Overgrown Path can exclusively reveal that Germany’s Environment Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, is using Mahler’s music to send a powerful message to the country’s parliament.

Last year I told the story of the 20th anniversary Chernobyl concert held in Berlin which featured Thomas Quasthoff singing Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. Sigmar Gabriel is Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in German chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet. This week, in a dramatic gesture that underlines the terrible risks associated with nuclear power, he has sent all 614 elected members of the Bundestag a CD of the Chernobyl anniversary concert. Herr Gabriel is no stranger to controversy, and he recently made headlines when he accused the United States of blocking progress on two key areas of global environment protection.

The Mahler CD was recorded in the famous Philharmonie Hall in Berlin, and the performers include Grammy winning baritone Thomas Quasthoff, and the orchestra of the Hanns Eisler Academy conducted by Christian Ehwald. As well as music by Mahler, Schubert and Mozart the CD includes readings from the best-selling book by Belarus author Swetlana Alexijewitsch titled Tschernobyl - Eine Chronik der Zukunft (Chernobyl - a chronicle of the future), and from the writings of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the philosopher Günther Anders.

The benefit concert and CD is just one of many remarkable projects in the twenty-three year history of IPPNW Concerts. They are part of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan international grouping of medical organisations dedicated to the abolition of the nuclear threat, who work with the long-term victims of nuclear incidents ranging from Hiroshima to Chernobyl. Their work was recognised with the 1984 UNESCO Peace Prize, and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

* Buy the Chernobyl anniversary CD online via this link.

Read the full story of the Chernobyl anniversary concert here, about IPPNW Concerts here, and read this story which says it all. Image credit Belarusguide.com. 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

Mahler songs mark Chernobyl anniversary

Early in the morning of 26th April 1986 two explosions destroyed reactor no. 4 at the Soviet nuclear power station at Chernobyl in Ukraine, and started the chain of events that led to the world's worst nuclear power accident. There will be many events next week to mark the twentieth anniversary of this terrible disaster, but few will be as courageous, or as deserving, as the Benefizkonzert zum 20. Jahrestag der Reaktorkatastrophe in Tschernobyl concert in Berlin on 24th April.

The sheer audacity of IPPNW Concerts is breathtaking. In partnership with the Berlin Philharmonic Society they have booked the famous Philharmonie Hall in Berlin, and have persuaded a distinguished line-up of musicians including Grammy winning baritone Thomas Quasthoff, and the orchestra of the Hanns Eisler Academy to donate their services. The programme is movingly appropriate, Gustav Mahler's lament for dead children Kindertotenlieder, and Franz Schubert's Octet D803 played by the Scharoun Ensemble of Berlin. Preceeding these will be a reading from the best-selling book by Belarus author Swetlana Alexijewitsch titled Tschernobyl - Eine Chronik der Zukunft (Chernobyl - a chronicle of the future).

The concert is a fundraiser for two totally appropriate causes. The Lower Saxony Fund for the Children of Chernobyl (Kinder von Tschernobyl-Stiftung des Landes Niedersachsen) funds early recognition and treatment of thyroid illness among Chernobyl survivors, while Homeland Chernobyl (Heimstatt Tschernobyl e.V) helps resettle displaced families in environmentally friendly housing in the Chernobyl area.

Among the guests at the concert will be twenty young people from the Belarus town of Gomel which was badly affected by the radioactive fallout from nearby Chernobyl. Also attending will be a lady from Kiev whose technician husband died in the disaster. This guest had arranged to bring her young son to Berlin, but last week he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, probably as a consequence of radiation from the accident.

Benefizkonzert zum 20. Jahrestag der Reaktorkatastrophe in Tschernobyl is the latest fundraising project in the twenty-two year history of IPPNW Concerts. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) is a non-partisan international grouping of medical organisations dedicated to the abolition of the nuclear threat. They work with the long-term victims of nuclear explosions and accidents from Hiroshima to Chernobyl. Their work has been recognised with the 1984 UNESCO Peace Prize, and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Their concert in Berlin is an extraordinarily appropriate way to mark this terrible anniversary. I know all the readers On An Overgrown Path will join me in sending best wishes for a successful, and financially beneficial, evening.

* Your donation matters. All funds sent through IPPNW Concerts' donation account will be tranferred to the two benefiting charities. To make a donation contact IPPNW via this link.

* Full details (in German) of the concert at 8.00pm in the Philharmonie Hall in Berlin via this link, and tickets can be booked online here. German resorces can be translated by Babel Fish Translation.

* The concert is being recorded by the European Broadcasting Union for transmission on Deutschlandradio Kultur and other international stations on 27th April.

* Watch a video podcast (29.4MB) of an interview (in German) with IPPNW Concerts founder Dr Peter Strauber from the Berlin Philharmonic website via this link.

Images from Kinder von Tschernobyl - Stiftung des Landes Niedersachsen. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If this post struck a chord take An Overgrown Path to Terry Riley - Requiem for Adam

For unto us a child is born

It was a night spent in the basement of a burnt out building.
People injured by the atomic bomb took shelter in this room, filling it.
They passed the night in darkness, not even a single candle among them.
The raw smell of blood, the stench of death.
Body heat and the reek of sweat. Moaning.
Miraculously, out of the darkness, a voice sounded:
"The baby's coming!"
In that basement room, in those lower reaches of hell,
A young woman was now going into labor.
What were they to do,
Without even a single match to light the darkness?
People forgot their own suffering to do what they could.
A seriously injured woman who had been moaning but a moments before,
Spoke out:
"I'm a midwife. Let me help with the birth."
And now life was born
There in the deep, dark depths of hell.
Her work done, the midwife did not even wait for the break of day.
She died, still covered with the blood.
Bring forth new life!
Even should it cost me my own,
Bring forth new life!
by Sadako Kurihara

Sadako Kurihara was at her home in Horishima when the atomic bomb exploded on August 6th 1945. Two days later, in a nearby basement shelter just a mile from ground zero, a baby was born in pitch darkness surrounded by the dead and dying. The seriously injured nurse that delivered the child died, but the baby survived and grew into an adult who sixty years later still lives in the city.

After the trauma of Hiroshima Sadako Kurihara was determined to express her furious hatred of nuclear weapons, and to campaign against their use. Her talent as a poet gave her a powerful outlet for her beliefs. Her most famous work is the story of the baby born amongst nuclear devastation. In Japanese it is Umashimenkana, which translates as Bring forth new life.

For the rest of her life Sadako Kurihara was a staunch anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigner. She published a literary magazine on the theme of the atom bomb attacks on Japan, and circulated an anthology of anti-war poems when discussion of the bombing was restricted by the occupying Allied powers. The author of more than five hundred poems in a writing career spanning more than seventy years, she died in March 2005 aged 92.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) is a non-partisan international grouping of medical organisations dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons. They work with the long-term victims of nuclear explosions and accidents from Hiroshima to Chernobyl, and their work has been recognised with the 1984 UNESCO Peace Prize, and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. For the last 21 years IPPNW-Concerts has been working from its Berlin office with top musicians world-wide to raise funds for their work. The organisation is run by medical practitioner Dr Peter Hauber and his wife, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Berlin recently.

As well as being a fantastic cause there is some music well worth exploring available on IPPNW-Concerts' own CD label, and in co-productions with Swedish label BIS. These are all live recordings of concerts promoted by IPPNW over the years. There are forty-nine CDs in the catalogue with composers ranging from Monteverdi to Elliot Carter. The nuggets worth mining include Furtwängler's Te Deum coupled with Brahms and Hindemith (CD40).

Of particular relevance to this article is Wort und Musik - 60 Jahre nach Hiroshima. This is a live recording made at the March 2005 'Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project' which mixes readings in German from a range of authors including Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein and Sadako Kurihara with relevent music including the aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Shostakovich's String Quartet No 8 and Schubert’s Quartettsatz. On the lighter side there are also a number of jazz recordings worth exploring, including the Berlin Philharmonic Jazz Group playing live in 2004 in the Philharmonie in Berlin with the world-famous baritone Thomas Quasthoff.

IPPNW co-productions with also contain some real gems. My own favourite is a live Missa Solemnis from the Philharmonie in Berlin with Antal Doráti conducting the European Symphony Orchestra, University of Maryland Chorus, and a distinguished group of soloists. Another BIS co-production recorded at the Philharmonie with the New Berlin Chamber Orchestra and members of the Czech Philharmonic and HdK-Chamber Choir conducted by Martin Fischer-Dieskau includes two of Doráti’s own compositions (his Pater Noster, Prayer for Mixed Choir and Jesus oder Barabbas? a melodrama after a story by Karinthy Frigyes for Speaker, Orchestra and Choir) alongside works from Bartok and Martinu. Finally among the BIS co-productions a live Mahler Symphony No 9 with Rudolf Barshai conducting the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra is a rarity well worth investigating. All proceeds from the sale of these CDs benefit those in dire need as a result of war, industrial and natural catastrophe. Need I say more?

Now take An Overgrown Path to I am a camera - Dresden Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Image credits:
Header - Drawing and text, Tomiko Miyaji September 15, 1945, from Hiroshima Peace site
Other images record companies
Image owners - if you do not want your picture used in this article please contact me and it will be removed.