A door to the Arab world

For a valuable resource on the Arab world go to http://www.al-bab.com/. The sections on arts and culture and music in particular are very useful. Also good music resources for individual countries, for instance check out Berber music. Al-bab is a private project by Brian Whitaker who is the Guardian's Middle East editor.

Now read about the secret life of an Arab record label.
Photo is detail of Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech, Morocco. The Koutoubia dates from the 13th century and its name derives from el-koutoubiyyin which is Arabic for booksellers, as a book market once filled the surrounding streets. More art of the mosque here. Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

A Love Supreme

'A man who has never seen the world, never lived as a stranger among foreigners, who has never known a life and culture other than his own is in some way limited. He cannot help but feel his own way of life to be superior, to be the only way. This was one of the poisons I saw seeping into my company in Iraq from the beginning: parochialism, ignorance, knowing nothing about Islam or the Middle East, or any other society outside American cities like Tampa or St. Petersburg...


Many people believe in good and evil. Just that, that simple: good on one side, evil on the other. By default, we are always on the good side. This means that any who oppose us must logically be evil. Buddhism tends to take a circumspect view of good and evil, avoiding that distinction entirely and instead speaking of "positive" and "negative" actions as measured by their effect in the world. It is never as final and absolute as good and evil. Yet duality invades every level of society, from religous sermons to the political rhetoric that drove us into the Iraq war.


The absoluteness of good and evil is an incredibly dangerous doctrine, dangerous in the wrong hands and without proper restraint. I believe that experience demonstrates that never in life is anything wholly good or evil. Good and evil are metaphors, signposts to guide us in the right direction. To render good and evil as actual physical truth is to render an infinitely complex moral world into absurd black and white. Further still, to hold that truth out to the mass of humanity and invite them to act upon it is to invite disaster and fanaticism' - from The Sutras of Abu Ghraib by Aidan Delgado. The author spent a year with the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq where he worked in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, and the book charts his progress from soldier to Buddhist and conscientous objector and it is essential reading. My quote is verbatim. I am only too well aware that Telford and St. Albans in England can be substituted for Tampa and St. Petersburg without in any way altering the message.


I will be celebrating the Western Easter this Sunday (March 23) on Future Radio with A Love Supreme, and the main work in the programme is John Coltran's legendary 1964 four movement jazz suite of that name. Before Coltrane's 'gift to God' I am playing music by the Yuval Ron Ensemble. This group has been working since 1999 to break down national, racial, religious and cultural divides using the sacred and folk music of the Middle East. The Ensemble includes Jewish, Arabic and Christian Armenian musicians, and they are all actively involved in building musical bridges between people of different faiths and cultures. In the programme they will be playing music and song, appropriately, from Iraq, and also from Muslim and Jewish Andalucia. Listen online at 5.00pm UK time Sunday March 23 with a repeat at 12.50am on Monday morning for transatlantic listeners.


Now visit the green hill far away seen in the photo above here.
Photos are of five great manifestations of A Love Supreme, the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham, Norfolk and the Neue Synagogue, Berlin (both copyright On An Overgrown Path 2008), the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Istanbul, the Potala Palace, Lhasa and the Taizé Community, France. 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

Music of the Sephardic Jews on Future Radio

I find myself returning again and again to Diáspora Sefardí, Jordi Savaal’s anthology of Eastern Sephardic music and this Sunday, March 9, I will be sharing this wonderful music with Future Radio listeners. Migration, survival and assimilation are all too familiar themes today, and it is worth retelling the story of the Sephardic Jews to remind us that culture is still more resilient than politics.


During Roman times large numbers of Jews migrated into the Iberian peninsula of their own free, and their numbers were increased by Jewish slaves who were shipped into the region during the Diaspora following the defeat of Judea in the first century BC. In the fifth century Iberia came under Visigoth rule, and the conversion of the Visigoth royal family from Arianism to Catholicism brought the first persecution of Jews.


The Muslim invasion of southern Iberia in the eighth century was welcomed by the Jews, and the two centuries of Muslim rule are seen as the golden age of Sephardic Jewry. During this period Arabic culture had a major impact on the Sephardic community with Arabic being used as the principal language for Sephardic science, philosophy and everyday business. This golden age was nurtured by Abd al-Rahman III (882-942) who was the first independent Caliph of Cordoba, and the city became an important centre for Sephardic Jews.


In 1492 the Christian Reconquista of the Muslim and Moorish states of Al-Ándalus was completed when Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella, Los Reyes Católicos (The Catholic Monarchs). The same year the Jews were expelled from Spain by royal edict, and in 1497 they were also driven out of Portugal. Following their expulsion the Jews settled in north Africa, France and Italy. Initially Sephardic culture assimilated influences from the Arab culture of north Africa, from the Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Rumainians and Serbocroats and Bosnians. In more modern times Sephardic immigrants settled in other parts of Europe including the Low Countries, North and South America, and of course Israel.


The term Sephardic comes from standard Hebrew, and in modern Hebrew the term still means ‘Spain’. In Israel today the word Sephardic is used for any Jew who not in the main Ashkenazi grouping which originated from Germany, Poland, Austria and Eastern Europe. This means Sephardic includes Jews from Arabic and Persian backgrounds who may not be migrants from Iberia, but who use the Sephardic style of liturgy. As my illustrations show the Sephardic legacy is considerable, and notable Sephardic Jews (defined as having at least one Sephardic parent) include Maurice Abravanel, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Benjamin Disraeli, Hélène Grimaud, Otto Klemperer, Rosa Luxemburg, Darius Milhaud, Amedeo Modigliani, Murray Perahia, Charles and Maurice Saatchi, Baruch Spinoza, Diego Velázquez, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz - aka the second Mrs Nicolas Sarkozy.


Diáspora Sefardí is a double CD of songs, ballads and instrumental music from the eastern Sephardic communities. The music is a real revelation, reflecting diverse influences including its medieval Hispanic origins, the Ottoman style, and the folk music of the Balkans. Jordi Savaal and Hespèrion XXI play on authentic ethnic instruments, and the charismatic Montserrat Figueras sings. The recording was made in 1999 in the Castillo de Cardona, Cataluna, and the sound captured by producer Nicolas Bartholomée is quite outstanding. I will be playing music from Diáspora Sefardí on my Future Radio programme at 5.00pm on Sunday March 9 repeated at 12.50am on March 10. The coupling is a new recording of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra.


Illustrations from the excellent University of California, Irvine Sephardic culture website. Now read about another lost people.
Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm every Sunday and 12.50am every Monday UK time in real time here (convert to local time zones here). 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. 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

Music in Europe’s only majority Muslim nation

George Bush receives a hero's welcome in Albania, so here is a reflection on that fascinating country.

‘Albania was also for centuries an important centre for Suf’ism, Islamic mysticism, and when Kemal Atatürk closed the Sufi centres in Turkey, the headquarters of the Sufi Bektashi movement moved to Albania. The Bektashis, as part of Islam’s heterodox tradition, incorporated many of the traditions of pre-Islamic central Asia in their rituals. By their wanderings and easy-going emphasis on spirituality – in contrast to Arab formalism – they played an important role in the spread of Islam through the Ottoman Empire. They emphasised spiritual communion with God through prayer and meditation, rather than the importance of orthodox Islamic ritual. Women are admitted to the tekke (prayer house) without a veil and are recognised as having equal rights to men. A Bektashi meeting might include a meal where a sheep will be slaughtered, and washed down with wine – forbidden for Muslims – before the start of religious discussion.

Under (Marxist dictator) Enver Hoxha Albania’s Bektashi heritage was almost wiped out. Of fifty-three tekkes, only six were left standing. In the mid-1940s there were about 285 Bektashi Babas and dervishes, both grades of membership in the Bektashi hierarchy. By 1993 there were five Babas and one dervish left alive. The Bektashis met their deaths in prison, or at the hands of Hoxha’s executioners. Their beliefs though, live on. In March 1991 the Bektashi headquarters in Tirana, formerly converted into an old people’s home, reopened. Speakers from all of Albania’s four main religious traditions spoke at the opening – Bektash Sufis, Sunni Muslims, Catholic and Orthodox. Each led the crowd in prayer, and each paid homage to Albania’s multi-faith heritage.’

That extract is from A Heart Turned East – Among the Muslims of Europe and America by Adam LeBor (Warner Books ISBN 0751522910). LeBor travelled across Europe and America to discover what it means to be Muslim, living in the west but with a heart turned east. The book’s 1997 publication pre-dates 9/11, but this is a strength rather than a weakness as it allows important matters to emerge from the shadows of the 2001 tragedy - recommended. Adam LeBor's latest book is City of Oranges, an intimate history of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa, which has also received excellent reviews.

It is not well known that Albania is Europe’s only majority Muslim nation, and 70% of the population are followers of Islam. (Muslims account for 40% of the population in nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina). Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire for more than 500 years, and this resulted in an Eastern facing culture. There is a rich heritage of Balkan ethnic music, but little tradition of western classical music. The best known Albanian composer in the Western tradition is Çesk Zadeja (1927-1997) who worked under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha as professor of composition at the Academy of Arts in Tirana. Zadeja helped found several of the country’s music institutions, and there are several CDs of his music available.

The author Ismail Kadare (born 1936) is another leading creative figure from Albania. His novels have been compared to those of Gabriel García Márquez and Gunter Grass, and his books are best sellers in mainland Europe, although little known in English translation. His style is enigmatic, as was his attitude towards Hoxha's dictatorship, with the author himself declining to be labelled a dissident. Chronicle in Stone, about the German occupation of Albania, is one of his best-selling books, and is an excellent introduction to his work.

Hoxha’s dictatorship lasted from 1944 until his death in 1985, and it is estimated that 6000 Albanians were executed under his rule. The communist regime collapsed in 1990, and the coming of democracy sparked a resurgence in contemporary music. Two new organisations have been active in promoting new music, and a new generation of contemporary composers has emerged including Aleksander Peçi (b. 1951), Sokol Shupo (b. 1954), Vasil Tole (b. 1963), and Endri Sina (b. 1968).

Albania is a small country, with only 4m population compared with 11m for neighbouring Greece, and a daunting 71m for Turkey, and also has poor natural resources and transportation. Although the transition from despotism to democracy has been a prolonged process, Albania has played a conciliatory role in managing ethnic tensions in south-eastern Europe, is working toward joining both NATO and the EU, and currently has troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The story of Albania’s emergence, politically and artistically, from one of most repressive political regimes in the world is a fascinating one.

As Europe’s only majority Muslim nation, and one with ambitions to join both the EU and NATO, Albania deserves more than a George Bush photo opportunity. More information from readers on contemporary music and arts in Albania would be very welcome.

Now read about songs of freedom in neighbouring Greece
Photo of mosque in Albabia's capital, Tirana, from Donika.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

I'm at the Pudding Shop

Modern Istanbul's complex geography renders it all but unmappable: three dozen districts swelling over seven hills, no single centre, fingered by water, jumbled in time. Age dilutes its fluidity. I can't keep a grip on its currents of slippery politics, of chaotic transport, of residents drawn together to argue, talk and trade. Its light is maritime, a sea lies over each shoulder, yet the city is 2,000 miles from any ocean. A ten-minute stroll takes me from a sleepy Greek fishing village to a Hapsburg cul-de-sac reminiscent of a Klimt painting. Across the horizon surge waves of new world tower blocks. In the shifting expanding spiral of my wanderings, I find its anarchic streets, its shifting colours, its millions of voices, its dreams of a legendary past at once foreign and familiar.


I'm at the Pudding Shop, the first meeting point on the hippie trail to Kathmandu. In 1957, two brothers from the Black Sea, Namik and Idris Çolpan opened the Lale Pastanesi across from Istanbul's Blue Mosque. For a couple of years, well-to-do Turks stopped by for frothy black kahve and honey-soaked baklava topped with green pistachios. Then, the tiny, open-fronted patisserie attracted the attention of the early overlanders, both because of its central location and their sugar-craving munchies. Overnight, the travellers made the Lale their place, renaming it the Pudding Shop. Outside its door, London double-deckers and fried-out Kombis parked along the Hippodrome. Pop music played in its garden. The well-to-do Turks stood outside, their mouths agape, watching their sons and nephews drink coffee with paradise-bound freaks in Apache headbands and paisley waistcoats.


Today, the cafeteria is indistinguishable from a dozen of its neighbours, apart from a few faded sixties photographs tacked on the rear wall. Beneath them, a handful of Lycra-clad Danish civil servants procrastinate over dessicated pizzas and köfte meatballs. At the next table, a sunburnt Englishman nurses an early Troy Pilsner.

An extract from the highly recommended Magic Bus by Rory MacLean, (Penguin ISBN 0670914843). The photo above shows my wife surrounded by children from a Muslim school near the beautiful church of Kariye Camii. Contrary to received wisdom the pupils were encouraged to talk to us and ask about Western life, and their teacher was happy for me to talk to the 13 year-olds about the Armenian genocide.

Turkey has many problems, but the open faces of those young people and their delight in asking and answering questions are quite a contrast to Western schools today. Here in the UK the children are taught not to speak to strangers, and attitudes are moulded by the paid-for media, not face-to-face debate. Travelling for our teenagers means a Health and Safety approved £7199 ($14000) Gap Year package, complete with personal travel adviser. Yes, we certainly found Istanbul refreshing. Unlike some, this blog is normally 100% animal-free. But here to end this section is a happy hound in a Beyoğlu street who hasn't yet found the need for a personal travel adviser ...


Now playing - Ahmet Kanneci plays Turgay Erdener. Born in 1957 Turgay Erdener studied at Ankara State Conservatory. He has written for a wide range of forces, and his output includes a symphony dating from 2003. This Sony CD features four works for solo guitar, all played by their dedicatee Ahmet Kanneci whose studies included both architecture and music. My photo shows Erdener at the piano with Kanneci standing. Modern but accessible music, the three folk tunes are particularly beautiful. If you like the seriously under-rated Preludes and Fugues for guitar by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco you will enjoy the music of Turgay Erdener. A great discovery, but the problem is buying it if you aren't travelling to Istabul. The best I can offer is this Turkish online retailer.

Now follow me on the hippie trail in 1967, then chill with a visit the Pudding Shop website for a virtual kahve and baklava, and end with a massage at our favourite hammam (Turkish bath).
All Istanbul photos taken by Pliable in March 2007 by Pliable. 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

Books and music reflect the crisis of Islam

A report on Arab Human Development in 2002, prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and published under the auspices of the United Nations, reveals some striking contrasts. “The Arab world translates about 350 books annually, one-fifth of the number that Greece translates. The cumulative total of translated books since the Caliph Mamoun’s time (the ninth century) is about 100,000, almost the average that Spain translates in one year” …

Islam is one of the world’s great religions. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught men of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It is our misfortune that we have to confront part of the Muslim world while it is going through such a period, and when most – though by no means all – of that hatred is directed against us.

Two reflections from The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis,(Phoenix ISBN 0753817527). This concise book is an expansion of a New Yorker article first published in November 2001. Bernard Lewis is the Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University. His books have been translated into more than twenty langauages, including Arabic, Persian and Turkish.

Now playing – The Fall of Constantinople sung by a veritable fixture On An Overgrown Path, Cappella Romana directed by Alexander Lingas. The ancient capital of Byzantium was caught between Latin West and Islamic East, and this CD captures the peak of that civilization with Byzantine chant and polyphony from the majestic ceremonies in the great Christian cathedral of Hagia Sophia. But the music also reveals the paradox of the Near East as it triumphantly asserts the dominance of the west, while fervently pleading for the healing of religious divisions.

It was this very paradox that was the downfall of Byzantium, and on 29th May 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, and that jewel of Eastern Christianity, Hagia Sophia, became a Muslim mosque. The fall of Constantinople is recognised on this inspirational CD with laments by Manuel Chrysaphes and Guillaume Dufay. Chrysaphes was the Lambarios at Hagia Sophia at the time of the fall, and he expressed his desolation by setting the verses from Psalm 78 using kalophonic chant, which are sung on the CD by Cappella Romana. My header picture, from the excellent Byzantine.net, shows Hagia Sophia as it might appear today, had it not become a mosque, and later a tourist attraction. In this visual reconstruction the minarets have been removed and the life-giving cross restored to the dome.

Professor Lewis’ book and Cappella Romana’s CD shed much needed light on the crisis of Islam. But before anyone gets too self-righteous about those thought-provoking statistics on book availability in the Arab world, they should dwell on the fact that this important CD from Cappella Romana’s is not available in Europe, I had to import my copy from the US.

Tonight the Overgrown Path literally leads to Constantinople and we fly out to Istanbul. Tomorrow I will be standing under the great dome of Hagia Sophia. There will be a few day's break in posts while we revel in the legacy of Byzantium, so please visit some of the other excellent music blogs in my sidebar until I return.

Now, read about the composer who set the psalms in Ottoman Turkish, and hear the result
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

Primetime TV for new opera

"There are good and bad pieces in every style but the thing that does worry me is the enormous prominence in broadcasting to some really very wooden sounding music. To take the most obvious example the Górecki 3rd Symphony, how can anything which has so little life in its sound be so important? There are other composers I don't mind mentioning in the same category like Pärt and Nyman. I don't understand how the situation has arisen that there is so much of this, and I fear commercial interests are behind a great deal of it"

Fighting talk from a fighting lady whose new opera about a fighting subject gets prime TV airtime on the UK's Channel 4 on Christmas Day. Judith Weir (above) is one of the most widely performed contemporary composers from the UK. Her 50 minute song cycle woman.life.song was commissioned by Jessye Norman, while We are Shadows was composed for Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Her most recent work includes The welcome arrival of rain for large orchestra written for the Minnesota Orchestra, and Tiger under the Table for the London Sinfonietta. She studied composition with John Tavener while at school in London, and with Robin Holloway while at King's College, Cambridge . For six years she taught composition at Glasgow University and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and she has also held visiting professorships at Oxford and Princeton Universities.

Judith Weir was born in Cambridge of Scottish parents, and as a contemporary Scottish composer numbers Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and James MacMillan among her peers. Theatre, narrative and folklore are important to her, and she has written three full length operas. In collabaration with storyteller Vayu Naidu she created the musical narrative 'Future Perfect' (header picture) which has been performed in England and India. She is a true evangelist for contemporary music, and it is interesting that the three contemporary composers that have featured recently On An Overgrown Path have all been women, Odaline de la Martinez, Jane O'Leary , and now Judith Weir.

An approach to composition as uncompromising as her views on Górecki is another characteristic of Judith Weir. Her new opera Armida (picture below) is a retelling of Torquato Tasso's 16th century poem Jerusalem Delivered. The original is a romantic story about a Christian crusader and a Muslim witch. Some pretty illustriuous names have already turned the poem into operas, including Gluck (1777), Rossini - which created one of Maria Callas' greatest roles (1817), and Dvorak (1904). But Judith Weir is undaunted. In her contemporary setting Armida is turned from Muslim sorceress into an 'embedded' TV news reporter covering a middle-eastern desert war. The opera has a strong anti-war message, and in the closing scenes war-mongering is replaced by what the composer describes as 'cultivation and repose'. The music is scored for a group which is a hybrid of half chamber ensemble, and half jazz band.

Pretty heady stuff. And if you can receive UK commercial TV Channel 4 you can see the whole 50 minute opera on Christmas Day,thankfully interrupted by just one commercial break. The photo to the right is from the TV production.

Judith Weir's uncompromising outlook was reflected in her music for BBC Radio 3's Private Passions programme. Here is the choice of music of one of our most wide-ranging contemporary composers:

* Trad. arr. Copper, 'The Sweet Primroses,' Bob and Ron Copper Topic TSCD 600
* Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex (excerpt from Act II), Tatiana troyanos (jocasta), Lajos Kozma (Oedipus) / Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of RAI Rome / Claudio Abbado Memories HR 4128
* Brahms, Sextet No. 1 in B flat Opus 18 (second movement), L'Archibudelli Sony SK 68252
* Kevin Volans, White Man Sleeps (first movement), Smith Quartet Landor CTLCD 111
* Trad., Dzil Duet (from Accra, Ghana), performers unknown Nonesuch 7559-72082-2
* Britten, 'Carol' (from Sacred and Profane), The Sixteen / Harry Christophers Collins 13432
* Bach, Gloria (from Mass in F, BWV 233) Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart / Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Budapeat / Helmut Rilling Hannsler CD 98924
* Loewe, 'Herr Oluf', Kurt Moll (bass)/Cord Garben (piano) Harmonia Mundi HMA 1905171

There is an excellent article on Judith Weir's opera Armida on the Guardian web site
Opening quotation from BBC Radio 3 web site, listen to the audio file via this link -
Programme broadcast on 13th December 1997.
Listen to the latest BBC Radio 3 Private Passions programme with this link.
Information reproduced from Private Passions by Michael Berkeley, published by Faber ISBN 0-571-22884- 4
Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dott uk
Image credits:
Header - Scene from Future Perfect linked from Vayu Naidu Company
Judith Weir - BBC
Scene from Armida – Guardian
Image owners - if you do not want your picture used in this article please contact me and it will be removed.
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Cure for Marin Alsop fatigue