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'Neglected genius' and 'undiscovered masterpiece' have become devalued marketing-speak following the John Foulds World Requiem debacle last year. And yes, I know I've used those words myself enough times. But recently both here and on Future Radio I have tried simply to present the music, irrespective of how well or little known the composer is. The music itself is the best advocate of a composer's powers and the listener is the best judge. So as presenter I now try simply to be a conduit for the artist's genius, or otherwise. In that spirit I am discussing a composer today who will probably be as unfamiliar to most readers as he was to me until recently, and my best introduction is to say I was very surprised I had not come across him before.
Maurice Ohana's musical influences are truly multi-cultural. He was born in Casablanca , Morocco in 1913 one year after the Treaty of Fès imposed French rule on the country. He came from Sephardic-Jewish stock and his parents were of Spanish-Gibraltarian origin and held British nationality as a result of the Gibraltar connection. This meant that Ohana was a British citizen until he became a French national in 1976. But although the British side of his parents determined his nationality it was his Spanish ancestry coupled with his exposure to traditional tribal music from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa and Afro-Cuban folk-music that helped forge his musical style. The photos accompanying this post were all taken during my recent visit to Morocco and I hope they give a flavour of the unique culture that helped mould the young composer.
The teenage Ohana left Morocco to study architecture in Paris, a vocation he shared with Iannis Xenakis. But he soon switched his studies to music and became a concert pianist on graduating. He worked as pianist with a Spanish dance group and became immersed in the music of Falla, Albéniz and Granados. But he saw his future as a composer and in 1937 enrolled in the composition class at the Schola Cantorum in Paris where Renaissance polyphony added another layer to his cosmopolitan composition style. His studies were cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War and, unlike several other composers, Ohana was committed to fighting the horror of Fascism. He escaped to Britain via Portugal in 1940 and saw active service with the British Army in several theatres of war.
When Ohana returned to Paris after demobilisation in 1946 he found himself marginalised by what he considered to be doctrinaire groups who had pursued their music careers during the German occupation. Although Ohana's voice was contemporary and he certainly wasn't swimming against the tide of modernism he felt out of sympathy with Boulez and other members of the Darmstadt School. So Ohana joined with three like-minded composers to form the Groupe Zodiaque which was committed to freedom of musical expression developed from sources such as folk music and plainchant rather than the perceived tyranny of tone rows. This group gained support from Henri Dutilleux and other contemporary composers. But Ohana's refusal to align himself with the fashionable avant-garde left him unclassified and largely unknown outside France. Sixteen years after his death he remains an overlooked figure, a sad and surprising situation given the huge impact of Hispanic culture on contemporary North America.
But at this point I am going to break from the chronological narrative because I've noticed several readers logging off with a resigned sigh saying 'Oh no, here we go again, Ohana is just a late-20th century John Foulds'. Please stop before you leave. Because Maurice Ohana was not a disciple of Darmstadt and IRCAM does not mean he was a reactionary who spent his time writing 'comfort music'. His stylistic influences were pretty eclectic even if they did not include the holy trinity of Boulez, Messiaen and Stockhausen. That great figure of twentieth century music Igor Stravinsky was a major influence with Ohana's Livre des Prodiges (“Book of the Prodigies”) for orchestra paying homage to the Rite through quotation, while some of Ohana's progressive counterpoint recalls Witold Lutoslawski and there are also hints of Carl Orff in his writing for voices.
Among Ohana's early influences are de Falla with whom he shared a passion for the harpsichord, and Ohana's own wonderfully edgy contribution to the harpsichord repertoire looks forward to Xenakis and shares Elisabeth Chojnacka as an advocate. Ohana's orchestral balances were of the moment and favoured piano and percussion over strings, and he explored new techniques including the use of micro-intervals and writing for the voice as instrument rather than narrator. But counterbalancing these contemporary credentials were references to the past including Medieval and Renaissance Spain and Andalusian flamenco.
But I'm going off track again. Ohana would probably have hated my dogmatic attempts to categorise his output, and anyway the music is his most eloquent advocate. For just £12 ($24) you can buy Erato's superb 4CD overview of Maurice Ohana's music which includes what is arguably his finest work Syllabaire pour Phèdre from 1967 together with Livres des prodiges from 1979, plus his first cello concerto and some of his fine music for harpsichord played by the incomparable Elisabeth Chojnacka and much more supported by a fine essay from the composer's biographer Caroline Rae. As I said at the beginning I'm just the conduit. But, believe me, the music of Maurice Ohana is well worth unlocking. My copies of the Erato discs have received far more than the industry standard 1.3 playings and they will be receiving an airing soon on my Future Radio programme. So for this contemporary composer from Casablanca it really is - play it again Ohana
Maurice Ohana website here, read about the Sephardic Jews here.
With thanks to David Derrick for giving me the key to this particular door. All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
The London performance of John Fould's World Requiem last November provided some of the more entertaining blogging of 2007. Chandos have rush released their recording of the concert performance and the 2 CD set is in the shops now. It is not on my shopping list, and Andrew Clement's review in today's Guardian confirms what I heard on the BBC broadcast of the November concert - 'Most of the unwieldy and sometimes banal score lacks even the moments of originality that make some of Foulds's orchestral music intriguing ... Altogether, it's a definitive account of a disappointingly ordinary work.'
The opinion of critics will always differ. But Andrew Clements' review is suprisingly at variance with his colleague Tim Ashley's four star review of the concert performance - 'The score is emotive and eclectic ... The burning sincerity of the performance eclipsed any qualms about stylistic disunity.'
What a pity that the media feeding frenzy before the November revival of the World Requiem built up expectations that were never going to be met. It is important that works from the long tail are performed and recorded. Give me the World Requiem, with all its flaws, rather than yet another recording of Mahler 5.
All this ... and what for?
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
This week's John Foulds moment has uncovered a hidden appetite for obscure and mystical early twentieth century music with Theosophical connections. Which pretty well sums up the music of Dane Rudhyar.
Rudhyar was born Daniel Chenneviere in Paris in 1895, and changed his name when he emigrated to America in 1916. During his first two decades in the US he wrote extraordinary piano music. It uses Scriabin and Debussy as a launchpad into a unique post-Romantic musical universe that embraces dissonant counterpoint. Rudhyar's music is little known today, and was not a major influence on other twentieth-century composers. But his work outside music had considerable influence.
In the 1920s Rudhyar was a central figure in the Halcyon Theosophical community in Southern California. Among those influenced by the community was Henry Cowell, who went on to teach John Cage. After 1934 Rudhyar stopped composing and became a leading advocate of astrology. He wrote more than thirty books on the subject. The Astrology of Personality (1936) is the best known, and remains in print today. In 1976 Rudhyar returned to composing, and his late output included two string quartets.
You can sample Dane Rudhyar's music played by pianist, and sometime composer, Steffen Schleiermacher on an excellent Hat Hut CD. The exemplary sleeve notes are by Kyle Gann, and have been used as one of the sources for this short article. Visit the Dane Rudhyar archival project here.
Now read about what has been described as the best music of any late-twentieth century composer.
Image credit 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
A poorly Jessica Duchen writes this morning about John Fould's World Requiem - Tragic but true: after all that fuss, the piece didn't float my boat. It wouldn't, of course - I am allergic to much of the English choral tradition and to most concert requiems, and it possessed the qualities I'm least comfortable with in both. Still, it seemed worth giving the poor thing a chance. Perhaps it was bound to disappoint after the massive build-up we all gave it (except for Pliable, who saw this coming a mile off. Chapeau, mon ami. I stand by my insistence that it should be heard before being slagged off, but now it's fair game).
Jessica, thank you. You are a lady, and I value debate above everything else. Incidentally, I had heard the choir rehearsal sequences before posting the Peter J. Pirie quote. But having listened to the BBC Radio 3 broadcast last night I fear that the critics will be less kind than you or Peter Pirie. Get well soon.
Image is not Fould's World Requiem, but it is the Albert Hall. Credit Cornish Federation of Male Choirs. 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
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK, when we remember all those who lost their lives in the struggle for peace and freedom. Remembrance Sunday has many musical connections, ranging from Benjamin Britten through Arvo Pärt, to George Lloyd, who was himself traumatised in action.
Next Saturday I will be at a performance in Norwich Cathedral of Herbert Howell's 1936 Requiem. This is an economic, intense and moving work that lasts for little more than fifteen minutes, and is scored for SSAATTBB and organ. There is an excellent recording of it on Naxos by the Choir of St Johns' College, Cambridge directed by Christopher Robinson. The CD also includes Take him, earth, for cherishing, the motet composed by Howells to mark the assasination of President John F. Kennedy. We will be remembering that sad event just five days after the Norwich Cathedral performance of Howell's Requiem.
My footer photo is a reminder of one of the more obscure musical connections to Remembrance Sunday. It shows the Cenotaph in Whitehall where the nation remembers the war dead today. The stark monument was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, whose daughter we caught recently walking with Stravinsky. And that mention of 'Twelve-tone Lizzie' brings me to an important question that lies behind my scepticism about the current media hype surrounding John Foulds' World Requiem. Why does our public music of remembrance have to be 'accessible' and not too challenging? Why does it have to be so 'Classic FM'?
If you must have your Nimrod, but you like to be tonally challenged, why not try Thomas Adès' first string quartet Arcadiana? This was first performed at the Cambridge Elgar Festival in 1994. It is quintessential Adès, and you definitely won't hear it on Classic FM. But the sixth movement is titled O Albion, and for seventeen devotissimo bars in E flat, the key of Nimrod, it movingly pay homage to the time of Elgar and those that died in the trenches of the Somme. But if you come from the World Requiem 'big is beautiful' school why not try Geoffrey Burgon's 1976 Requiem, and give your loudspeakers a real workout? More on Geoffrey Burgon here.
In his peerless War Requiem Benjamin Britten stressed reconciliation as well as remembrance by specifying (but not obtaining) a British, German and Russian soloist for the work's first performance in Coventry Cathedral, the preserved ruins of which are seen below. If, like me, you value reconciliation as well as remembrance, and are uncomfortable with the jingoism associated with the Albert Hall, I give you two personal choices of music for Remembrance Sunday.
Toru Takemitsu's Requiem (for string orchestra) was written in 1957 in memory of the Japanese film composer Fumio Hayasaka. It is a slow, elegiac work lasting a little over ten minutes. The three movements are marked Lento, Modére and Moins lent. Disarmingly the composer later explained "I was never able to write an Allegro ..."
I write this waiting for the start of the BBC broadcast from the Cenotaph. A CD is playing that moves me even more than the Nimrod that will be played in a few minutes. Eleven young choristers from the famous Kreuzchor were among more the 25,000 killed in the British and American bombing of Dresden on February 13th 1945. As well as the terrible loss of its choristers, the famous choir also lost its its neogothic choir school on the Georgplatz, its library of sheet music and archive, and its very raison d'être, the beautiful Kreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross) which dated from the 13th century.
The cantor of the Kreuzkirche, Rudolf Mauersberger, completed his Dresden Requiem in 1961. It is a profoundly moving memorial to the victims of the bombing of Dresden. But it was also a living symbol of Dresden's resistance to the repressive political regime in the GDR until Die Wende in 1989. There is an excellent recording of the Dresden Requiem by the Kreuzchor on the German Carus label. My header image is a session photo from the recording in Dresden's Lukaskirche in 1994. This has been the venue for many famous recordings, including Herbert von Karajan's 1970 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Rudolf Mauersberger's Dresden Requiem was written for the boy's voices of the Kreuzchor. Much of the singing is a capella, but the score also uses a small ensemble of organ, celeste, trombones, double basses and percussion. It is certainly not atonal, but neither is it 'Classic FM'. And it has been performed in Dresden every year since its premiere more than fifty years ago.
You can read the full story of the Dresden Requiem, and listen to samples, here. To my knowledge it has never been performed in London. Let us remember the dead of the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, as well as all other victims of war. And let us hope for a London performance of Rudolf Mauersberger's Dresden Requiem in the future.
* Update - read here how the World Requiem un-Foulded.
Follow this path to see Dresden restored from the ruins.
Image credits. Header Carus, middle Wikipedia, footer Ministry of Defense 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
The music world loves mysteries. This week it is why did John Foulds' World Requiem disappear from the repertoire four years after its first performance in 1923? The Independent proclaims proclaims Foulds (left) a 'genius', and suggests suitably exotic reasons for its disappearance. These range from resistance to the composers' socialist views to an establishment cabal that banned his music because of its mystical powers. Meanwhile Leon Botstein has been on Radio 3 ranking Foulds alongside Elgar, Vaughan Williams and somewhat puzzlingly Philip Glass.
So why did Fould's World Requiem drop out of the repertoire? Here is a reason that none of the experts seem to have thought of. It is an unremarkable and commonplace work.
That judgement comes from Peter J. Pirie writing in his 1979 book The English Musical Renaissance which I recommended last week. He says - 'A similar figure was John Foulds (1880-1939), whose World Requiem used to be performed at Armistice Day celebrations for a few years after the First World War. This is a curious genre, compound of the over-sweet taste of England in the 1920s, a megalomania that expressed itself in common chords and commonplaces, and a preoccupation with Wardour-Street Orientalism or vaguely Celtic mysticism'.
But don't take Peter Pirie's word, listen to the World Requiem on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday. Or buy the Chandos recording of the performance when it is released next year.
Just another case of the excruciating boredom of pure fact?
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
'Neglected genius' and 'undiscovered masterpiece' have become devalued marketing-speak following the John Foulds World Requiem debacle last year. And yes, I know I've used those words myself enough times. But recently both here and on Future Radio I have tried simply to present the music, irrespective of how well or little known the composer is. The music itself is the best advocate of a composer's powers and the listener is the best judge. So as presenter I now try simply to be a conduit for the artist's genius, or otherwise. In that spirit I am discussing a composer today who will probably be as unfamiliar to most readers as he was to me until recently, and my best introduction is to say I was very surprised I had not come across him before.
