The best record store in the world?

Let's celebrate the best record stores in the world before they are all submerged beneath characterless web sites and anonymous file downloads. One of the truly great stores is shown in my photos here. Rombaux at Mallebergplaats 13 in Bruges, Belgium opened as a piano retailer in the early 1920s, and has remained an independent store which is now run by the third generation of the original owners. The piano origins of the business can be seen in the legend over the door in the final photo in my sequence.


Despite retaining its traditional look Rombaux's store has moved with the times. It has recently been completely refitted with floor to ceiling CD browsers to hold their massive range and their is a separate room for opera recordings with auditioning equipment. The company also continues to sell pianos and other instruments and the store next to the current one has been acquired for a new instrument showroom.


This is a classical music store, but jazz and world music are also stocked. There is no discounting, so given the current strength of the Euro prices reflect the quality of the store. Visit the Rombaux web site here. Despite the prices I defy anyone to visit this store and not leave with a pile of CDs. Below are details of just two of the new recordings with local connections that I bought there.


Hans Neusidler - music for renaissance lute played by Bart Roose. Flanders has a particularly rich musical heritage and continues to be home to a thriving music scene. The emphasis is on early music but, like the country itself, tastes are catholic and we were in Bruges for the John Cage Happening. Lutenist Bart Roose was born in Ostend in 1962, studied in Ghent and Antwerp and now teaches at the Conservatoires of Aalter and Gentbrugge and lives in Bruges. Hans Neusidler was a leading figure of the German lute school of the sixteenth century, and the music on this recording dates from the 1530s. Released on the Belgian Passacaille label this CD is beautifully played and atmospherically recorded in the Maria-Aalter Chapel 'De Brooders van Liefde' in Flanders. Wonderful late night listening.


Joseph Haydn - Harpsichord Concertos in F and G and Divertimento in F played by Ewald Demeyere with La Petite Bande directed by Sigiswald Kuijken. Another home team, young Belgian harpsichordist and regular bande member Ewald Demeyere studied in Antwerp while Sigiswald Kuijken was born in Brussels and studied in that city and at the Bruges Conservatoire. A typically spikey performance from La Petite Bande finely captured in the Doopsgezinde Kerk, Haarlem across the border in Holland. (Interestingly Doopsgezinde Kerk is a member of the Universal Mennonite Congregation - the Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after Dutchman Menno Simons [1496-1561] and are one of the historic peace churches committed to nonviolence and pacifism.) This excellent CD is released on the Accent Records label, which appropriately was founded in 1979 by the the Belgian maker of baroque recorders and transverse flutes Andreas Glatt.


Rombaux in Bruges is undoubtedly one of the best record stores in the world. Other examples of this much-needed but sadly threatened species gratefully received On An Overgrown Path. In the meantime I'll relish those few wonderful hours in Bruges when record shopping was fun again.

* Another candidate for best record store in the world is Prelude Records in Norwich. In a pleasing convergence of independent retailer and independent record label Jordi Savall will be in Prelude this Saturday (May 17) at 11.30am not only signing his discs but also playing his viola da gamba ahead of his evening Norwich Festival concert. Music to the ears of the independents!

All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and 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.
Image credit WLVT.org. 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

Soli Deo Gardiner

The BBC Proms welcomes Sir John Eliot Gardiner on Sunday. Or do they? Former Proms director and BBC Controller of Music, the late John Drummond, takes up the story:

" John Eliot Gardiner (left) had a strong personal following. For me, both Roger Norrington and Nikolaus Harnoncourt were much more impressive conductors, but Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir Prom would usually sell out and give us our annual chance to have a falling out with Gardiner himself, whose lofty attitude to colleagues and the BBC did not endear. One year he proposed Gluck’s Orfeo. I took it largely to obtain the Proms debut of the American soprano Sylvia McNair, whom I had much admired since hearing her at St Louis. She made a dramatic entrance at the top of the side stairs, dressed in a brilliant lemon-yellow dress. Slowly descending the staircase, she reached the stage for her entrance aria. At this moment, Gardiner stopped the orchestra and retuned. I was furious: it was so grotesquely offensive and unmusical. When I went round to commiserate with Sylvia, she told me he had done it at every one of the preceding performances.

One year Gardiner persuaded me to accept a performance of the Bach B minor Mass without soloists, using members of his own excellent Monteverdi Choir for the solos. Much as I admired the choir, I was not entirely sure that individual members could carry such major parts in such a big building. However, I need not have worried. Without reference to the Proms office or any regard for the financial implications, Gardiner changed his mind and booked a roster of five distinguished soloists which cost me thousands. He was quite unapologetic, and I was considered impertinent to have questioned his judgement. His judgement was probably correct; his manner of achieving it was unacceptable.

Gardiner’s extraordinary arrogance was admirably demonstrated at a Gramophone magazine awards ceremony when, claiming he had to get back to Paris for rehearsals, he insisted that his award should be presented separately and before the celebratory lunch. He was nevertheless still in his place at table when the ceremony ended some three hours later."

As told by John Drummond's in his autobiography Tainted By Experience (Faber ISBN 0571200540).

Now playing – Haydn’s The Creation, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque soloists. He may be ‘extraordinarily arrogant’ but Gardiner can make some extraordinarily moving music. This recording won Gramophone and CD Compact (Barcelona) awards when it was released in 1997. It was recorded in All Saints Church, Tooting by producer Karl-August Naegler and Tonmeister Rainer Maillard. The performance is superb, and the sound is also superb. It has recently been re-released in Archiv’s new Grand Prix mid-price series and is highly recommended. John Eliot Gardiner went on to have a spectacular bust-up with Deutsche Grammophon, a split which resulted in the creation of his own label Soli Deo Gloria. It seems tantrums are written into the score in the early music world. As John Drummond recalls Sylvia McNair may have found Gardiner’s treatment of her in Orfeo “grotesquely offensive and unmusical”. But she went on to sing the role of Gabriel in his recording of The Creation.

Now read John Drummond on another high profile maestro.
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

The Seven Last Words

My photograph was taken at the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham, Norfolk, and celebrates both the birth of Joseph Haydn 275 years ago, on March 31st 1732, and the start of Holy Week.

Now playing – Emerson Quartet performing Haydn’s ‘The Seven Last Words’. The cathedral in Cádiz commissioned Haydn, who was a devout Catholic, to write orchestral interludes for performance between the spoken parts of the service in the great Spanish Baroque church during Holy Week. The composer wrote seven adagios for the cathedral, and transcribed these for string quartet in the year of their first performance, 1787, and later made a choral version. The Emerson’s recorded ‘The Seven Last Words’ in New York in 2002 as part of their complete Haydn project.

Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, and ranks as one of the most important composers of all time. However, unlike Mozart's, today's important anniversary of his birth has passed virtually unnoticed. He was the first great Viennese composer, and is known as both the "Father of the Symphony" and the "Father of the String Quartet" in whose footsteps Mozart and Beethoven followed.

Meanwhile back in Cádiz, Manuel de Falla was buried in the crypt of the cathedral in 1946.

Now enjoy Easter at Aldeburgh
Photograph by Pliable. 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