Mixing it

Mixing it is the way forward- Pierre Boulez did it in his Domaine Musical concerts in Paris in the 1950s when he played Bach, Machaut and Dufay alongside Stockhausen, Maderna and Cage, Stravinsky did it in 1960 when he recomposed three of Gesualdo's madrigals for instruments, David Munrow did it in 1975 with The Art of the Recorder which put music from the Middle Ages alongside Britten and Hindemith, the Hilliard Ensemble did it in 1993 when they added jazz saxophone to Morales' Officium defuntorum, while in 2000 Kent Nagano did it in Berlin by programming Mahler with Ockeghem, and confirmed that mixing it really is the way forward by selling the Philharmonie Hall out.

Now The Orlando Consort, Paul Hillier and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir are doing it with a new release that mixes choral music by Guillaume Dufay and Guillaume de Machaut with twenty-first century works by Tarik O'Regan and Gavin Bryars. The main juxtaposition is Tarik O'Regan's 2006 Scattered Rhymes which is followed by the fourteenth century masterpiece that inspired it, Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame. And in the brave new world of the download even the performers mix it. Paul Hillier and his Estonian choir only perform for 16 minutes on a 61 minute CD. If you want Paul Hillier just pay to download the first track.

The marketing of this new Harmonia Mundi release also indulges in some gentle mixing, with the sleeve proudly proclaiming Production USA. Now I know my friends in Sequenza21 land are territorial but is Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, Scotland really in the U.S.A? Well I suppose the team of producer Robina G. Young and Soundmirror Inc engineer Brad Michel are from the States, and, as expected, they do a great job of delivering a credible soundstage enhanced by the church acoustics. When all is said and done Scattered Rhymes is an important new work (it reminded me of Joby Talbot's superb 2006 Path of Miracles, which cannot be bad) and 30 year old Tarik O'Regan is mixing it in all the right places with posts at Cambridge (England), Columbia (New York) and Harvard. And most importantly mixing it is a great way to reach new audiences.

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Short ride in a fast machine

'Question is - what's more environmentally friendly - going to an independent store, by anything else than on foot, or ordering a CD online?' - asked the irrepressible violainvilnius in a comment on a recent post. I don't know the answer, but we've just arrived back from Belgium with a bunch of CDs bought from an independent dealer and managed to travel by walking, a bicycle, train, bus and just one short taxi ride on the whole trip. The main part of the journey was by Eurostar train which now leaves London from the splendidly restored St Pancras station, seen in my photo above, and stops at Lille before arriving in Brussels just one hour and fifty three minutes later. It may not be environmentally perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

Now playing - MGV (Musique à Grand Vitesse) by Michael Nyman. This 27 minute orchestral work was commissioned by the Festival du Lille for the inaugaration of the TGV North-European line which we travelled on to Brussels. The first performance was by the Michael Nyman Band and the Orchestre National de Lille under Jean-Claude Casadesus in Lille in 1993.

There is a surprising amount of classical music inspired by trains, with Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Little Train of Caipira and Steve Reich's Different Trains among the best known examples. But my favourite is a little more obscure. In 1983 the composer and director of music at Ely Cathedral Arthur Wills was asked to write a work in aid of the Ely Cathedral Restoration Appeal. The result was the choral work The Spiritual Railway which sets words taken from a memorial slab in the grounds of the Cathedral commemorating a railway worker killed on the track near Ely. The Spiritual Railway was given its first performance on Platform 10 of London's Liverpool Street Station, the terminus for the Ely train.

Now take the train to the Music and Railways website which not only includes The Spiritual Railway but also manages to find railway connections in Bruckner's Fourth Symphony and Dvorak's Serenade for Wind Instruments! Which only leaves me to ask how green was your concert?
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Words on twentieth-century music

Norman Lebrecht's book may may have bitten the dust. But there is always Alex Ross' new magnus opus and much more beyond if you are looking for words on twentieth-century music. My header image shows a personal favourite music, Michael Nyman's Experimental Music - Cage and Beyond (CUP ISBN 0521653835). It was written in 1974, and although the 1999 edition didn't update it there is a new, and valuable, discography.

Elsewhere Mark Grant recommends Albert Glinsky's Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, (University of Illinois Press ISBN 0252025822) while on these pages composer and violinist Elaine Fine argued the case for Peter Conrad's Modern Times, Modern Places (Knopf ISBN 037540113X). I have recommended Paul Giffiths' A Concise History of Western Music (CUP ISBN 0521842948) to several readers, and fellow blogger Garth Trinkl bought it, and confirmed that the chapters on twentieth century music are thought-provoking.

Nicholas Kenyon's excellent 1981 book The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC ISBN 0563176172 OP) is the best guide to the golden age of new music in 1970s London under William Glock and Pierre Boulez. The appendix listing first performances is a who's who of twentieth-century music. How ironic that it was Kenyon himself, as director of the BBC Proms, who later masterminded the transition from the riches of Boulez to the wretchedness of Ball.

William Glock was controller of music at the BBC from 1959 to 1972, and his autobiography Notes In Advance (OUP ISBN 0198161921 OP) paints wonderful portraits of musicians from Igor Stravinsky to Elliott Carter. I have quoted him here on Bruno Maderna. Glock championed the music of Elisabeth Lutyens among others, and she features in the invaluable 1994 The Pandora Guide to Women Composers by Sophie Fuller (Pandora ISBN 004409362), together with Elizabeth Maconchy, Judith Weir, Thea Musgrave and other path regulars.

The very positive response to my recent post on the British music champion Maurice Miles, and to my webcast of Gerald Finzi's Cello Concerto, confirmed that interest in twentieth century composers extends well beyond the fashionable few who now feature at the BBC Proms and over on Sequenza21. If you want to explore beyond the fashionable few, here are two titles that you won't see mentioned elsewhere. Both are out of print, but well worth searching out.

Peter J. Pirie's The English Musical Renaissance - Twentieth Century British Composers & Their Works (Gollancz ISBN0575026790 OP) does what it says on the can, but doesn't bang on it. It was written in 1979, and takes the story up to Peter Maxwell Davies. Good coverage of composers who should be better known, including Frank Bridge (who was a major influence on Britten), Percy Grainger, John Ireland and Peter Warlock.

My other recommendation is The Music Makers - The English Renaissance from Elgar to Britten by Michael Trend (Weidenfeld ISBN 029778403 OP). This covers the same period as Peter Pirie's book, but read it for portraits of characters such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Rutland Boughton (I feel a path coming on - see below), Ethel Smyth and Lord Berners. Their day will come, meanwhile other book recommendations are very welcome.

Now playing - the original Hyperion vinyl LPs of Rutland Boughton's opera The Immortal Hour. This magical work is a 'choral drama' in the style of Wagner. Everything about it is extraordinary. It became a major commercial success in London's West End between 1922 and 1932. The libretto is by William Sharp (1855-1905) who transcended his gender and wrote under the name Fiona Mcleod. The first performance of The Immortal Hour was at Boughton's newly founded Glastonbury Festival in 1914, and the Festival went on to become a preeminent rock event. Most extraordnary is that, despite this high profile, The Immortal Hour has been swallowed in the mists of time. But thankfully the Hyperion version lives on in a budget priced CD re-issue. If you don't know it, you are missing something very special.

Now read about a classical label whose owner DJ'd at Glastonbury.
The letters OP after an ISBN denote Out of Print. But copies are usually available from second-hand dealers. 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

Dog eats dog....

In the classical music world musician owned record labels are all the rage, and my post MaxOpus was about Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' innovative web site, which is complete with music downloads.

Michael Nyman of 'The Piano' fame is the latest to join the bandwagon (pun intended). Neglect by his corporate label Warner Classics is the accusation, and MN Records is Nyman's own label.

But Warner Classics are not taking the accusation lying down, here is their letter from today's Guardian.

There is one very simple reason that Michael Nyman is starting his own label: no one else will release his records any more. He blames the low profile of Facing Goya and Sangam on "inadequate marketing by Warner's". Sadly for him, the real reason was inadequate music which is, I imagine, a harder pill to swallow.

Matthew Cosgrove, Director, Warner Classics