Ysaye listening on Future Radio

There is a rare chance to hear one of Eugène Ysaÿe's sonatas for solo violin on Future Radio this Sunday. My Overgrown Path programme takes a journey from Bach to Belgium and frames Ysaÿe's Sonata No. 2 in A Minor with Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G minor and mighty Partita No 3 in E major. The Ysaÿe Sonatas are inspired by Bach, and the juxtaposition of Ysaÿe's Second Sonata with the E major Partita in the programme mirrors the Belgium composer's statement and restatement of themes from the Bach work. Thomas Zehetmair plays the Ysaÿe and the two Bach works are performed by Mark Lubotsky from Brilliant Classic's invaluable Bach Edition which offers all the composer's works on 155 CDs at a very affordable price. Listen at 5.00pm UK time on April 27 with a repeat at 12.50am on April 28.

Ysaÿe was born in Liège in Belgium in 1858, and after graduation became principal violin of the Benjamin Bilse beer-hall orchestra, which found a home in a disused roller-skating rink and became the Berlin Philharmonic - music was more fun back then. You can hear music from another composer from the Low Countries on Future Radio on May 11 when I play extracts from another rarely heard work, the Missa Pro Defunctis by the 16th century Flemish composer Jacobus de Kerle. The performers are the Belgium based Huelgas-Ensemble directed by Paul Van Nevel who featured here last year in the story of the work that inspired Tallis' Spem in alium. And there is new music from Belgium here.

Photo from the souk in Marrakech, Morocco (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Got the T-shirt? - now hear the music

There was some healthy discussion on my recent article about pianist Angela Hewitt's Bach World Tour T-shirts. No discussion on my Future Radio programme this Sunday (Jan 27) at 5.00pm UK time, just 51 minutes 3 seconds of the perfect pianism of Angela Hewitt playing Messiaen and J.S. Bach, connected by less than 5 minutes of the usual low key links from me. The audio stream can be launched here, and is available in real time only.

There is some interesting music coming up on my Future Radio webcasts in the next few months. It includes Elliott Carter's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord, Michael Tippett's Second Symphony (why aren't his symphonies performed more often?), and a new recording of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, all complete - no extracts. Through the year I will also be playing all the Vaughan Williams symphonies. Future Radio agreed to this following very positive listener responses to my broadcast of the Fifth earlier this month, and they are rearranging their schedule to accomodate the 71 minute Sea Symphony in August to coincide with the centenary of the composer's birth.

On April 6 I will be presenting Karajan and Twentieth Century Music to mark the centenary of the conductor's birth. For all his faults Karajan made some superlative records, none more so than his 1972 recording of Arthur Honegger's Third Symphony Liturgique, and I'll be playing that with his 1973 recording of Alban Berg's Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite, both with the Berlin Philharmonic. Framing all these contemporary works will be music by Bach, Tallis, Corelli and from the Sephardic Diaspora.

It's all about thinking outside the box, as Olivier Messiaen did.
Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm UK time this Sunday, January 27th in real time here (convert to local time zones here). An Overgrown Path podcast will follow. 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. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Heard the Bach - got the T-shirt

An article by pianist Angela Hewitt in today's Guardian prompts me to ask what is the difference between journalism and a press release? The full-page piece promotes Hewitt's forthcoming tour of twenty-five countries and uses the first person throughout.

I am a huge fan of pianist Angela Hewitt and will be broadcasting a recital by her of Bach (two Toccatas) and Messiaen on Future Radio on January 27. But, for me, this uncritical Guardian piece reads as though it came from her agent. Together with the Bach world tour website, the artist website, the DVD (sponsored by her piano supplier), CDs (above), and the official world tour T-shirts, posters and souvenir programme, not to forget her couturier.

I'm certain Tatiana Nikolaeva didn't have a couturier. But there is still hope. Gentlemen, old Bach is here.
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Variations on the Goldberg Variations

The big bonus of presenting programmes on internet radio is I get to play the music I want to play, not the music that a focus group tells me to play. On Monday afternoon we have a fun programme for New Year's Eve, and as part of it I'm playing a 15 minute sequence from a double CD that's a personal favourite, but that doesn't fit into any conventional programme format.

Jazz pianist Uri Caine's treatment of Bach's Goldberg Variations defies any categorisation and I'll be playing tracks varying from solo piano to full on jazz. It's all part of our Happy New Ear's programme which is on Future Radio from 1.00 to 4.00pm on Monday December 31st, the Goldberg sequence should be on air at around 2.00pm.

Uri Caine's take is just one of several variations on the Goldberg Variations in my CD collection. Least successful is Robin Holloway's 'recomposition' for two pianos titled Gilded Goldbergs on Hyperion, a double CD which takes a long time to add very little, while Jacques Loussier's jazz variations take less time to say little more.

Among my favourite variations on variations are two recordings of Dimitri Sitkovetsky's masterly transcription for strings. One is a limited edition CD recorded in the beautiful Romanesque cathedral in Vaison la Romaine by the Trio de Prague in 2002, while the other is the fine 1993 recording by the NES Chamber Orchestra on Nonesuch which is noteworthy for both its committed performance and the sleeve notes by John Adams. But Uri Caine is up there with the best, listen in at 2.00pm UK time on Monday December 30th if you can.

Read more about Dmitry Sitkovetsky and those John Adams sleeve notes here.
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Best damn record he never made

Last year I wrote about the record which Glenn Gould (above) described as the 'best damn record we've ever made' - his LP of Tudor consorte music. Today I am writing about the best damn record he never made.

Zenph Studios' "re-performance" of Glenn Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations was released a couple of months back. I didn't dream up the word "re-performance". Zenph Studios did, and here is their definition - 'A “live realization of the original interpretation.” Zenph Studios takes audio recordings and turns them back into live performances, precisely replicating what was originally recorded. Our software-based process extracts every musical nuance of a recorded performance, and stores the data in a high-resolution digital file. These re-performance files, represented in a computer as MIDI files, contain every detail of how every note in the composition was played, including pedal actions, volume, and articulations – all with millisecond timings.'

Glenn Gould in Re-performance has some big fans. They include Stereophile Magazine, who made it their recording of the month, the Glenn Gould Foundation, and Gould's recording producer Lorne Tulk. When the "re-performance" CD was released most of the coverage came from the audiophile press. The music media, including this blog, didn't get too excited. The view was that this was just an interesting technical exercise similar to the reprocessed stereo that was around when two channel LPs were launched. But we were wrong. Read this from the 'record labels and recording studios section of the Zenph website:

The Diversity of Copyright Laws

The USA has strong copyright laws; sound recordings essentially don't go into the public domain until well into the 21st century. But, in the European Union (EU), for example, recordings go into the public domain 50 years after their first release. Small recording companies in the EU already re-issue CDs of historical mono recordings in volume. That's been a small concern to the labels, but in 2006 the situation gets troubling. 1956 was the start of early stereo, which is how we still listen nowadays. Starting in 2006, the "good stuff" from 1956 forward starts going into the public domain. Year by year, labels will lose European rights to the most prized, profitable recordings in their archives. With global retailing, CDs made in the EU are readily available anywhere.

The way around this is to create new, highly-desirable music recordings, which establish a new copyright. A modern re-recording can be a premium product, protected with the latest Digital Rights Management (DRM). For a modern re-recording to be acceptable to discerning jazz, classical, and pop listeners, it must be faithful, note-perfect, and identical to the original performance. That’s our business."

And this from Zenph's Investors section:

"In our contracts we look like a cross between an artist and a record producer, receiving a combination of fixed fees and a portion of the royalty stream of the release."

Are Zenph Studios "an entertainment technology company that specializes in software and processes for understanding - and re-creating - precisely how musicians perform"?

Or are they a vehicle for "establish(ing) a new copyright ... protected with the latest Digital Rights Management (DRM) ... receiving a combination of fixed fees and a portion of the royalty stream of the release"?

The jury is out. But the copyright date on my CD of Gould's 1955 Goldbergs is 1956, which means it is among "the "good stuff" from 1956" which has entered the public domain in the EU. Today, here in the EU, the "re-performed" Goldberg's on the Sony Classical label retail for £14.99 ($30.52), and the original mono 1955 recording is available on Naxos for £5.99 ($12.20).

With thanks to IP detective extraordinaire Carol Murchie. 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

Bach's distant cousin is a real discovery

There is more music by Bach than by any other composer in my CD collection. But until last week one Bach has been absent. Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731), seen in the portrait here, was a distant cousin of Johann Sebastian, and was the first Bach to be employed in a leading musical position in a court, serving the ducal court in Meiningen for twenty-eight years. In 1726 J.S. Bach performed eighteen of his cousin's cantatas, and integrated some of the stylistic elements into his own compositions.

Much of J.L. Bach's music has been lost, but eleven motets, twenty-two sacred canatatas, a Funeral Music and Mass, two secular cantatas, an orchestral suite and a double violin concerto survive. The CD that I added to my colection was an important new recording of ten of the motets by the Belgian choral ensemble Ex Tempore Gent (photo below) and the Orpheon Consort directed by Florian Heyerick.

Much headline seeking nonsense has been written recently about the impending death of classical music. Yes, the traditional big players among the symphony orchestras and corporate record companies may be struggling. But that is mainly due to the self-serving antics of over-paid jet set maestros and unimaginative programmes.

For evidence of the rude health of classical music look no further than the many flourishing European vocal groups that have featured on these pages recently, including Exaudi, Estonian Philharmoinc Chamber Choir, Tonus Peregrinus, Flemish Radio Choir, Les Jeunes Solistes and now Ex Tempore Gent. Founded in 1989 by Florian Heyerick, Ex Tempore Gent is a professional ensemble that is building a big reputation in repertoire ranging from 1600 to the present, with particular specialisation in the 17th and 18th centuries.


J.L. Bach's Motets are a revelation, and a real discovery. This is a distinctive musical voice that deserves to be heard irrespective of the Bach connection - listen to MP3 audio samples here. Ex Tempore Gent are persuasive advocates of this fine music, and the sound quality captured by Emmanuel Théry in Eglise de Bessières - Saint Gérard, Belgium is excellent. This new recording comes from the Stuttgart based Carus who have also released a CD of J.L. Bach's Cantatas. Choral groups should note that Carus are also publishers of J.L. Bach's scores.

Carus are a very enterprising publisher and record company who also support modern composers. One example is their fine recording of Rudolph Mauersberger's moving Dresden Requiem which I wrote about last year.

More little known Bach is to be found on a new Sony release. The Gesualdo Consort of Amsterdam directed by Harry van der Kamp have recorded a double CD of the complete works of C.P.E. Bach for vocal ensemble and bass continuo, including litanies, motets and psalm settings. This is a premiere recording for a number of the works, and as a bonus there is Harry van der Kamp's realisation for eight voices of the Contrapuntus XlX from J. S. Bach's Art of Fugue. Mre evidence of the rude health of classical music and recording.

Now read about a Bach chorale's secret French connection.
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Czech out free Bach downloads

Hello Mr Pliable, Here's something that I think you and your blog readers will enjoy.

To continue your treasure trove of music downloads series, here's Czech Radio's recent musical offering - http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/download_eng

It's JS Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos with the early music ensemble Musica Florea (photo above), freely available for download. A very worthy effort, especially since visitors have the option of downloading in lossless FLAC format.

Cheers from the Philippines - Joshua A

Many thanks Joshua, but let's hear both sides of the argument.
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My prophets are Bach and Beethoven

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

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

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

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

The BBC Proms may have banished Bach to bedtime, but On An Overgrown Path still retains its passion for Bach.
Image credit Swedish Television SVT. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

BBC Proms banish Bach to bedtime

Here are Pliable's personal picks for the coming week's BBC Proms. All Proms are available for seven days online, detailed programmes and broadcast times for every concert are available from the BBC web site.

* August 7, 7.00pm - Mahler Symphony No. 10 in Deryk Cooke's completion and Britten's Sinfonai da Requiem. Two superb works, but in one programme? Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic dispense the double dose of death. Noseda and the BBC don't quite seem to have got blogging. The latest entry in his 'Life of a Conductor' blog on the BBC Philharmonic site is for April 2007. If you want to find out about chocolate in Torino it is a rivetting read

* August 7, 10.00pm - it is really good to see Nicholas Kenyon using the late-night Proms slot for fringe repertoire. The choral music in this late-night Prom is all from that little known composer J.S. Bach, and the performers are Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan. But let's count our blessings. The late-night Proms suffer less from the intrusive audience noises and disruptive inter-movement dribbles of applause that have sadly become a feature of the main concerts. When will a visiting conductor finally have the nerve to criticise the sacrosanct, and spoilt, Prommers? While Masaaki Suzuki plays Bach at bedtime the core repertoire in the main concert at 7.30pm the following day is John Dankworth and the BBC Concert Band. At least Aldeburgh got it right. Masaaki Suzuki conducted a life-affirming B minor Mass as the closing concert of the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival. While back in London all the Proms can offer is the cringe-inducing Last Night, which at least includes a token three minutes of music by Thomas Adès.

* August 10, 9pm - this not-quite-late-night Prom is exactly what the slot should be used for, with Nitin Sawhney bringing his cross-genre and cross-cultural music and a lot of friends. Check out his music here on YouTube.

* August 11, 6.30pm - one of the season's highlights is the young in mind Sir Colin Davis conducting the European Union Youth Orchestra in a programme ending with Sibelius' glorious Symphony No. 5. But why the 6.30pm start time for a Saturday evening concert? Could it be that the BBC2 live telecast has to fit in with the sacrosanct 9.00pm programme junction for BBC1 and 2 and their satellite channels?

* August 12, 4.00pm - the bright idea of a Proms Ring Cycle ends somewhat ambiguously with a 'pick-up' performance of Götterdämmerung. Donald Runnicles conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Christine Brewer is Brünnhilde and Stig Andersen Siegfried. The BBC Symphony's Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony on July 26 with Andrew Davis showed they can play gloriously with the right music and the right conductor. But if they didn't have time to prepare Sam Hayden's new 15 minute work for the July 17 Prom what chance Götterdämmerung?

There was some very interesting discussion here on the music that wasn't in Marin Alsop's American Prom on July 17. This Sunday, August 5th I will be playing Americans symphonies in my Overgrown Path radio programme. The featured works will will be William Howard Schuman Symphony No.5 (Symphony for Strings), Aaron Copland Short Symphony (No. 2), and Alan Hovhaness Symphony No. 2 "Mysterious Mountain".

The programme is a test transmission, and will be broadcast between 5.00pm and 6.00pm British Summer Time on Sunday August 15, 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. Details of future webcasts are here.

Now, for more whacky JSB try Bach and modern technology.
CD sleeve is Bach at Bedtime from Philips, and I aplogise for touching out the logo. 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

Bach in the little town of Bethlehem, PA

The Handel and Haydn Society of Boston perform Haydn's The Seasons at the BBC Proms on Monday (July 23), and their conductor Sir Roger Norrington gives an interesting interview in today's Guardian.

The Handel and Haydn Society is a chorus and period instrument orchestra dating from 1815. They pioneered American performances of the Handel oratorios, and in the 1870s also presented Bach's oratorios in almost complete versions for the first time in America.

But the first American performances of Bach's St John and St Matthew Passions, and the B minor Mass didn't take place in Boston, or even New York. These masterpieces were first heard in the U.S. of A in 1888, 1892 and 1900 respectively under the conductor John Frederick Wolle (seen at the organ in my photo). Wolle had studied Bach's music in Munich with Joseph Rheinberger, and the American premieres of all three works were given by his Bach Choir in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, of all places.

Now check out another great organ console photo.
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Naughty but nice

What are your musical equivalents of chocolate cake? - the performances you know you really shouldn't be enjoying, but do. Here is my menu of 'naughty but nice' music dishes:

Uri Caine's Wagner E Venezia - yes, I know it is a serious taste crime to admit to enjoying the Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg played in the Piazza San Marco by an ensemble that includes accordion, piano and acoustic bass. But I do. Quite appropriately the recording was made live at the Gran Caffé Quadri, Piazza San Marco, Venice, and is complete with authentic background café sounds which provide a splendid counterpoint to the Tristan Liebestod. If you've never sampled this lovingly crafted, and packaged, chocolate torte from Uri Caine (photo above) I warmly recommend ordering a portion.

Karl Münchinger's Art of Fugue and Musical Offering with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester reminds us of how Bach used to be performed before musical scholarship moved on. As one reviewer said: "This lush performance of Bach's complex Art of Fugue is as emotional as Barber's Adagio for Strings." But these 1976 recordings still blow me away. Stunning playing recorded in classic Decca sound in the Liederhalle, Stuttgart by the legendary team of producers Ray Minshull and James Mallinson, and recording engineers James Lock and Martin Fouqué.

Wagner makes his second appearance on my ultimate 'naughty but nice' disc. This is Glenn Gould playing his own transcriptions of Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey and the Prelude to Die Meistersinger. This reissue is worth the price for these two transcriptions alone. The disc also includes Gould conducting members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a painfully slow Siegfried Idyll, which at almost twenty-five minutes outstays even Knappertsbusch's interpretation by several minutes. This conducting debut was the last thing Gould recorded before he went on tour with Bach, and it leaves us thankful that he didn't give up the day job. (Photo above shows a young Gould with one of his first teachers).

Bach sung in English may well be considered 'naughty.' But not only is my next nomination 'nice', but it is high up in my list of the greatest recordings ever made. Benjamin Britten set down his account of Bach's St John Passion in April 1971. With performers including Peter Pears, Gwynne Howell, John Shirley-Quirk, HeatherHarper, Alfreda Hodgson, Robert Tear, and the Wandsworth School Boys' Choir you know this is going to be something special. The English Chamber Orchestra reads like a Who's Who of instrumentalists. Kenneth Sillitoe is leader, Richard Adeney (flute), Cecil Aronowitz (viola) and Adrian Beers (double bass). Philip Ledger plays the harpsichord continuo originally prepared by Britten and Imogen Holst. And the 'naughty' English translation is made by none other than Peter Pears and Imogen Holst.

This recording of the St John Passion was made by Decca in Snape Maltings. It has to be said that if there is a weakness it is the engineering which falls somewhat short of Decca's signature Snape sound. Also watch out for the intrusive low frequency 'thumps' in the opening chorus which producer David Harvey really should have covered from alternative takes. But one factor places this performance in that stellar group of the greatest ever made - Britten's interpretation. Some of the tempi are surprisingly brisk, but this is one of those rare performances where musicality and humanity meet as equal partners. Naughty, but simply sublime.

Purists will consider any Bach transcription 'naughty but nice.' But my third Bach nomination comes just about as close to the spirit of the original as it is possible to get with a transcription. Paolo Pandolfo (right) was a founder member of early music group La Stravaganza, and is recognised as one of the leading exponents of the viola de gamba. His transcription of Bach's six Cello Suites (BWV 1007-12) on the enterprising Spanish Glossa label is really more of a re-interpretaion that a transcription. Four of the six keys are transposed, the well known G major Suite No. 1 is played in C major, the C minor Suite No. 5 is played in D minor, and so on. But this is done simply to make the most of the range of the viola de gamba, and it works beautifully allowing the warm tone of the gamba to really ring out. These are personal interpretations, and Pandolfo's reshaping of some of the lines will not be to everyone's taste, but this is wonderful music making.

To conclude with a 'naughty but nice' piece that I always find inexplicably moving - the finale to Bernstein's Candide, 'Make Our Garden Grow'. This is classic Lenny, over the top, superbly written, and absolutely heart on sleeve. One reviewer wrote of "its soaring sentimentality". I find it absolutely irresistible - just like chocolate cake. And if you want the recipe for the example seen in my header photo here it is.

Now read about my first classical record
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

Max Reger - more conspicuous than Schoenberg

'In the very early years of the twentieth century Max Reger held a more conspicuous place in Austro-German music than Schoenberg; certainly he was far more productive, especially of instrumental music. Several of his works are sets of variations culminating in a fugue, but contrapuntal energy is almost omnipresent, driving through dense harmonic textures. He acknowledged his source in making piano arrangements of Bach’s music, as indeed did Busoni, a musician of mixed German-Italian background best known at this period as a virtuoso pianist' ~ from A Concise History of Western Music by Paul Griffiths (Cambridge University Press ISBN 139780521842945).

Max Reger, seen in the photo above playing the organ in 1913, died on May 11 1916 aged 43

Now Playing ~ Variations and Fugue on a theme of J S Bach played Marc-André Hamelin piano. This excellent Hyperion disc of Reger’s piano music also includes his Variations and Fugue on a theme of Georg Philipp Telemann, and Five Humoreques. Wonderful sound from the beautiful acoustics of St George’s, Brandon Hill, Bristol.

For another view on Reger’s status read music history rewritten.
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A composer of outsize ambition and ability

Perhaps first at Reincken's Hamburg apartment, Bach came under the influence of the great Dietrich Buxtehude, organist at St. Mary's in Lübeck and a composer of outsize ambition and ability who was working with all the styles and traditions of Europe. Buxtehude would have a more than musical influence on Sebastian in his first job, and it was in him perhaps more than anywhere else that Sebastian would find the inspiration for what was perhaps his greatest gift to Western culture: forging from a multinational babel a single language of European music ~ from Evening in the Palace of Reason by James Gaines.

Dietrich Buxtehude, born circa 1637, died 9 May 1707.

* For an excellent overview of his music look no further than Pièces Pour Orgue - Dietrich Buxtehude played by Francis Jacob (Zig-Zag Territoires ZZT 030901) which very effectively alternates the solo organ with harmonisations of the chorales for three voices. Francis Jacobs plays the Bernard Aubertin organ in the church of St Martin de Vertus.

* My header picture is the only one known portrait of Dieterich Buxtehude. The painting is Allegory on friendship by Johannes Voorhout, and it shows Buxtehude with a score in his hand, and the Hamburg organist Johann Reincken, who is mentioned above, sitting at a harpsichord. The painting is dated 1674.

And for more from James Gaines take the path to Gentlemen, old Bach is here ...
The extract above is from Evening in the Palace of Reason by James Gaines published by Fourth Estate ISBN 0007153929. 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

Joy of Music - a celebration of diversity

Joy of Music is a book by Leonard Bernstein based on the scripts he wrote for an educational TV series in the late 1950s. The book is a celebration of diversity, ranging from American music theatre, through Mahler and the importance of contemporary music, to Bach’s use of counterpoint in his chorale preludes.


My photographs are a visual celebration of the vibrant musical life beyond busking superstars, child prodigies and MySpace. The photos were all taken at Oxfam Books and Music, Norwich on 26th April 2007. Just left click on the images to enlarge, you'll see real diversity - everything from Monteverdi to Stockhausen, and there is even a record deck to audition them on. I’m now away for a few days, so do explore the joy of music through the wonderfully diverse mix of music blogs listed in my side-bar.


The sleeve above is Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations, so why not read about the best damn record he ever made?
All photos copyright On An Overgrown Path, 2007. 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

Bach chorale's secret French connection

As the French presidential election approaches On An Overgrown Path travels to the Languedoc region of that fine country, and, totally unexpectedly, uncovers a Bach chorale's French connection. Nîmes has some of the best preserve Roman public buildings in Europe. The jewel in the crown is the 1st-century temple known as the Maison Carrée, shown in my photo above, which has survived virtually intact because it was fortunate enough to stay in use for a remarkable range of activities including a meeting hall, stable, Catholic church and archive.

The miraculous Maison Carrée is mirrored across the central piazza by Sir Norman Foster's remarkable 1993 Musée d'Art Contemporain and Médiathèque (photo below and background of header photo). This inspired building is, as the Lonely Planet guide says, 'everything modern architecture should be: innovative, complementary and beautiful.' The Maison Carrée itself dates from 19 BC and was originally dedicated to Caïus Caesar and Lucius Caesar before being rededicated as a Christian church in the fourth century. The tides of religion have ebbed and flowed over Languedoc across the centuries, including the Manichaean doctrine espoused by the Cathars in the 11th and 12th centuries which resulted in the Albigensian Crusade.


In the 16th century the tide turned once more bringing the new Protestant heresy down the Rhône from Calvin's Geneva. Tolerance was again out of fashion among Catholics, and the rallying call for the persecuted Protestants in their prison cells and wilderness assemblies was the Huguenot Psalter. This remarkable work, which is also known as the Genevan Psalter, appeared in its definitive form in 1562, and became the most successful hymnbook of all time.

The Huguenot Psalter set out to reintegrate laymen back into the liturgy by translating the Psalms into the vernacular, and setting them to simple melodies. Calvin wrote in the preface that the Psalter contained 'songs not merely honest but holy', and that it avoided what was 'in part vain and frivolous, in part stupid and dull, in part foul and vile and consequently evil and harmful'.

As the Calvinists had no musical legacy they created their own drawing on a wide range of sources including French folk-songs. And in a remarkable piece of reverse osmosis some of the resulting chorales were incorporated back into the Lutheran mainstream, one notable example being "Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sind" (Bach VII, No. 58). Among the composers who transcribed melodies from the Huguenot Psalter were Samuel Mareschal, Pascal de l'Estocart, Philibert Jambe de Fer and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.

The exciting news is that children's voices of the Maîtrise de Nimes have recently recorded a selection from the Huguenot Psalter titled Resveillez-vous chacun fidèle. (The title is taken from Psalm 33 - Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous). This very beautiful, and desirable, new release (left) is sung in French, and was recorded at the historic Protestant Temple of Le Vigan in the Gard under the direction of Vincent Recolin, and uses the two manual organ in the Temple.

This CD is typical of the cultural melting-pot that is Europe today. It is released by the enterprising K617 label which is run by Le Couvent Centre for baroque music in the north-eastern Moselle region of France close to the German border, and in truly global fashion Le Couvent specialises in baroque music from Latin America.

Resveillez-vous chacun fidèle is much more than a useful exploration of little known early music. The Huguenot Psalter contributed to the development of the chorale form which reached its peak with Bach. This lovingly sung and recorded CD is an important addition to the catalogue, and can be bought online from the FNAC website where short audio samples are also available, or online from K617. As Martin Luther said: 'God preaches the Gospel through music too.'

* Founded in 1990, the Maîtrise de Nîmes brings together young people who are trained in choral singing between the ages of eight and seventeen within the framework of a general school education at the Institut Emmanuel d'Alzon in Nîmes. The Maîtrise provides an artistic education which enables the children to practise a wide range of musical activities. There is an emphasis on baroque music, but the schools activities have also included performing Jacques Loussier's Mass Lumières in 1966 at the inauguration of the inspirational new cathedral at Evry that I wrote about here recently. The photo below shows the choir in front of the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, which features in my header photo. The age of the choristers ranges from 9 to 17.


* The Huguenot Psalter was a product of the Calvinists, and Brother Roger, who founded the Taizé Community which has featured here several times, was also a Calvinist and was born in Switzerland. Music is a central feature of the Taizé liturgy as well.

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Now read how France said no - with help from Father Joe

Click here for a Glenn Gould forgery

Or is it a forgery? Read here how digital technology helps build a virtual concert hall.
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

Bark's St Matthew Passion

From Saturday's Washington Post review of Helmut Rilling's performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Unfortunately, during some of the most extraordinary moments of the score -- from the beginning of the trial right up to and including Christ's crucifixion -- one heard a strange wailing from the balcony. As it happened, it was a seeing-eye dog, which eventually quieted down or was removed -- a noble beast, to be sure, but its steady whimpering made for bizarre counterpoint with music of such exalted lamentation.

The concert, most likely without canine descant, will be repeated tonight at 8.
Thanks to Garth Trinkl for the heads-up, but don't blame the headline on him. Image credit -Musichouseshop.com. 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
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Gentlemen, old Bach is here