Brain music

Art works in public spaces, and my photos show 'Homage to Thomas Browne', a site-specific artwork that was installed here in Norwich last week. The controversial installation was created by the French husband and wife team of Anne and Patrick Poirier, and there is a musical connection. William Alwyn's Fifth Symphony was first performed in Norwich, and is dedicated to the memory of Sir Thomas Browne, with each section of the symphony headed by a quotation from Browne's best known work, Urn Burial.


Physician, philosopher, botanist and writer Sir Thomas Browne lived in Norwich, close to the site of the sculpture, from 1636 to his death in 1682. Among the authors influenced by Browne's writings are R.D. Laing, W.G. Sebald, E.M. Forster, and Jorge Luis Borges. Browne's major works are notable for their extensive references to America less than 150 years after Christopher Columbus' voyages of discovery.

In 1658 Browne published his Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial. Inspired by Bronze Age burials in Norfolk this discourse reflected on funerary customs of the world, and touched on a 21st century preoccupation, the transitory nature of earthly fame and reputation. Among the writers expressing admiration for Urn Burial were John Cowper Powys, James Joyce and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the same year Browne published The Garden of Cyrus which examines the quincunx, a five-pointed diamond shape which he believed existed throughout nature.


This quincunx pattern determines the geometry of the artwork, with the marble eye and brain, which are seen in my photos, forming two of the points of the diamond. The work comprises twenty pieces of sculpture and twenty-two lights, and the sculptures are designed to be sat on, touched and used as furniture. Anne and Patrick Poirier are internationally renown both for their gallery installations and their public works, and they have also worked with composers of electronic music.


Composer William Alwyn was born in 1905, and lived in Blythburgh, near Aldeburgh, from 1960 until his death in 1985 . His musical style was a unique mix of romanticism and modernism, he used dissonance extensively and developed his own Indian inspired alternative to serialism which divided the twelve semitones of the scale into two groups.

Alwyn's Fifth Symphony was commissioned by the Arts Council for the 1973 Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival, where it was premiered with Alwyn conducting. Although the symphony is dedicated to Sir Thomas Browne and quotations from Urn Burial are used in the score the work is not programmatic. It compresses the traditional four-movement into a concise one-movement work lasting just 16 minutes.

We are very fortunate to have Anne and Partick Poirier's 'Homage to Thomas Browne' here in Norwich, and we are also fortunate to have a first-class recording of Alwyn's Fifth Symphony in the catalogue. It is available in Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra's 3 CD set (audio samples available via that link) of Alwyn's complete symphonies on Chandos. Producer Brian Couzens captures remarkably vivid sound in All Saints Tooting. This Chandos Alwyn set is highly recommended, as is the Lyrita recording of his opera Miss Julie. For budget buyers, Naxos also have Alwyn's symphonies in their catalogue, and their new release of his chamber music and songs has been well reviewed.


Now follow this path for more evidence that art works.
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New music for bells

An exciting new audio installation at this year’s Norfolk and Norwich Festival proves, once again, that some really creative things are happening at the summer music festivals if you know where to look. The Norwich Festival has built quite a reputation with its audio installations; two years ago I featured Janet Cardiff’s 40 Part Motet which went on to New York's Museum of Modern Art, and last year Helen Ottoway’s Thin Air featured on the path.

This year’s installation features the work of contemporary composer Terry Mann whose previous post-minimalist compositions include an interlude for gamelan orchestra written for Joanna MacGregor to play in a concert of John Cage’s prepared piano pieces, and No Ordinary Piano Suite for Prepared Piano. Follow this link to hear samples of Terry Mann’s past work.

His new commission, The Bells of Paradise, is a complex hour work score for church bells, with seven scored sections linked by intervals of urban ambient sounds. Bells from twenty-two churches and cathedrals in East Anglia and London were used to give a wide range of voices. The recording is made in 5.1 multi-channel format, and was performed in Norwich in the church of St John Maddermarket during the 2007 Norfolk and Norwich Festival. The installation is a joint commission by Norwich and three other festivals at which it will be performed, Spitalfields London, Bury St Edmunds and Lichfield.

Terry Mann’s new work is the second electronic composition for church bells in recent years. Jonathan Harvey’s 1980 Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco was commissioned by the Centre George Pompidou in Paris and created at IRCAM by sampling the sound of the great tenor bell at Winchester Cathedral. Appropriately The Bells of Paradise and Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco are being performed together on June 16 at a Spitalfields Festival concert in London. Also on the programme, which is a celebration of bells, is Chris Dench's work for solo piano passing bells: night. At the Lichfield concert Bells Of Paradise is being previewed before Philip Glass' opening concert of solo piano music.

The Spitalfields concert will be recorded by the BBC for later broadcast, but On An Overgrown Path has scooped Radio 3 for the first opportunity to hear The Bells of Paradise online. Terry Mann has agreed to the complete opening section ‘Birth’ (3’ 18”) being made available on the path, and if your speakers are live you will have heard it, with those gamelan echoes, as you read this post.

And talking of IRCAM and the Norwich Festival …
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Bach and the art of noise

To the Goldberg Variations this morning played by up and coming young harpsichordist Matthew Halls (above) as part of the ever stimulating Norfolk and Norwich Festival. That most magical of all musical journies managed to survive separate interruptions from a mobile phone and a serial cougher. Matthew Hall proved why he is a professional musician and I am not. He cooly played through the ringing of the mobile phone. If it had been me at the keyboard I would either have asked the offender to leave, or left myself.

I witnessed one of the more imaginative responses to intrusive coughing at a concert conducted by Bernard Haitink at the Festival Hall in the 1970s. A serial cougher decided to accompany the posthorn solo in the third movement of Mahler's monumental Third Symphony. Maestro Haitink continued to beat time with his baton while using his left hand to extract a white handkerchief from his pocket and hold it high over his head.

Talking of phones read about an unexpected Steve Reich premiere
Photo credit Clarion Seven Muses. 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

Opera's other ring

Opera at the big houses is a circus with acts that include £10million donations, vanity productions and shuffle maestros. My photo above was taken last night at an opera as far away from £170 ticket prices as you can get, but it was still a circus.

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome is one of the oldest surviving circus buildings in Europe still used for circus performances. The survival of the remarkable building, which dates from 1904, is almost certainly due to the circular arena, or ring, which very unusually doesn't have a stage. This meant it was unsuitable for conversion into a theatre or cinema, and the structure has survived for more than a century virtually unchanged, although the original audience capacity of three thousand has been reduced to today's Health and Safety friendly nine hudred.

The historic photo below, showing the interior, is the first of two kindly supplied by the current owner Peter Jay, and was taken soon after the Hippodrome was opened. One of the remarkable features of the building is the water feature created when the floor of the circus ring sinks and is flooded with 60,000 gallons of water. The feature is still in regular use, but not for last night's opera!


When the Hippodrome was opened Great Yarmouth was a fashionable seaside resort, and the second historic photo below shows the circus building in its heyday. In the hundred years since then the town's fortunes have declined, with the collapse of both the tourist industry and commercial fishing leaving the area economically blighted, a stark contrast to fashionable Aldeburgh which is just 25 miles to the south.

Today Yarmouth is a bleak place dominated by amusement arcades, fast-food joints, and cheap hotels for migrant workers. The Hippodrome's front lot has been sold as a slot arcade, but, by a miracle, the building remains intact behind it, and is still a working circus due to the heroic efforts of former rock star Peter Jay who now owns and actively manages it (does anyone out there remember Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers?). For details of circus performances follow this link.


Norfolk and Norwich Festival took the inspired decision to bring opera to the Hippodrome in 2007 for the first time ever, with Armonico Consort Touring Opera bringing their much praised production of Purcell's Fairy Queen for just one night. Bringing an innovative production to a new venue in a town that never sees live opera is what music festivals are all about. This adventurous approach simply underlines how the BBC, and other corporations, have hijacked the word 'festival' to give credibility to events such as the BBC Proms that are now little more than cynical exercises in massmarket entertainment and commercialism.

Purcell's Fairy Queen is a musical fantasy (or 'semi-opera') based on the ideas and characters in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Designer Thomas Guthrie took his inspiration for the Armonico Consort production from the 19th century painter of Shakespearian fantasies Richard Dadd. The artist established a reputation in that extraordinary genre, the Victorian fairy painting. But he changed career direction when he was committed to a mental institution in 1843 after killing his father. In echoes of Vincent Van Gogh, an enlightened doctor in Bedlam encouraged Dadd to paint without commercial constraints , and the results inspired last night's production which, as my photos show, was set in an old-style mental hospital.


The production used comedy, music, song, dance, puppetry and circus skill, but was also musically completely authentic and extremely well sung. What an evening! - live music-making of the highest order, imaginative staging that gave real meaning to those tired words 'music theatre', an inspired choice of venue, and a vision from the Norfolk and Norwich Festival that redefined inclusiveness. But above all an evening that challenged our preconceptions of what opera is, what a music festival is, and even what we are. Here are director Thomas Guthrie's wise words:

For me both Dadd and Fairy Queen represent the need for marriage within us all, whether we are actually 'married' at all, or even inclined to it. The marriage in the Fairy Queen is a union not between characters we have come to know and feel for, as it is in Midsummer Night's Dream, but at a deeper level a marriage of mind and heart, of heaven and earth, fairy and mortal, lost and found, inward feeling and the outward expression of that feeling. It concerns us all because we are in a relationship with ourselves as well as with the world around us. A marriage that none of us can escape.


Now read about how another artist was encouraged to paint by an enlightened doctor
Three production photos taken by Pliable at Hippodrome performance on May 9 2007 using available light with Casio EX-Z120 digital camera. 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

Estonian chamber choir - small is beautiful

'Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful' famously wrote E. F. Schumacher. Friday night's opening concert of the 2007 Norwich and Norfolk Festival by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Paul Hillier was small, both in forces and duration, and it certainly was beautiful. This was one of those rare evenings when the planets align. The programme of Nikolai Kedrov, Arvo Pärt, Tchaikovsky, Cyrillus Kreek and excerpts from Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil was sublime. The choir demonstrated their peerless authority in the Baltic repertoire, and Paul Hillier demonstrated why he has built such a reputation as a musician's conductor.

The venue was Norwich's far from small Norman cathedral, but despite the towering architecture this was very much a chamber performance where, refreshingly, individual lines did not take second place to overall effect. We had bought top price seats in the second row as we know from experience that separate lines become confused in the reverberant cathedral when heard from further down the nave. As a bonus our front seats also allowed us to observe Paul Hillier's unique taste in conducting footwear, he has certainly found a schumacher with style.

In his provaocative book, What We Really Do (The Musical Times ISBN 0954577701), another fine choral conductor, Tallis Scholars founder Peter Philips, argues that sacred choral music is best performed in modern concert halls because both the sound and the amenities are better. Despite this view the Estonian Choir hedged their bets on this current tour. Two of their four concerts are in modern halls, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, and the superb new 1200 seater Perth Concert Hall in Scotland. Incidentally, both these magnificent looking and sounding concert halls were built in the last fifteen years, which is enduring evidence that, despite the gloom merchants, classical music is very much alive and kicking today.

The other two concerts by the Esonian visitors and their English conductor are in traditional churches in, Norwich and Edinburgh . At Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh it must have been a surprise for the choir to find themselves swapping the turbulent politics of 21st century Estonia for the turbulent politics of 21st century Scotland.

Performance venues are an essential part of live music-making, so are commissions for new music. I have already written here how Arvo Pärt's I am the true vine was commissioned by Norwich Cathedral in 1996. Credit should be given to the patrons of two more works by Pärt performed by the Estonian choir in the cathedral on Friday evening. Da pacem Domine was commissioned by that musical life-force Jordi Savall, while Bogoroditse dyevo (Mother of God and Virgin) was written for King's College Choir, Cambridge in 1990.

Those mentions of King's College Choir, Cambridge and the Mother of God and Virgin bring this overgrown path full circle. On Friday evening we were privileged to hear the Estonian choir in Norwich. The following afternoon we viewed the Balkan (not Baltic!) Icons exhibition at the Michaelhouse Centre in Cambridge, and the icon above of the Virgin Mary with infant Christ painted by the Serbian artist Todor Mitrovic in 2002 is from that exhibition. Do explore the images via this link, they are simply stunning. And from the immensely moving icons exhibition it was just a few steps to choral evensong in King's College Chapel.

E.F. Schumacher also wrote ~ 'Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful '. Amen to that.

We are now off to Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers followed by jazz from the Bobo Stenson Trio. If you can't be there why not read about Monteverdi in Cambridge?
My header image is from the Balkan Icons exhibition which is touring internationally. I will be featuring more images from this wonderful exhibition in the future. 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

More to summer than the BBC Proms

The BBC’s privileged position as broadcaster, promoter, orchestra manager and new music commissioner guarantees maximum media coverage for their Promenade Concerts. The Proms may be the biggest music festival in the world, but it is not the only show in town. Some of the other festivals can teach the BBC a thing or two about innovative programme planning – here’s a taster of the events I will be attending, and writing about, in the coming month:

Norfolk & Norwich Festival
May 4 ~ Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir conducted by Paul Hillier, Kedrov, Pärt, Kreek and Rachmaninov (All-night Vigil excerpts), at Norwich Cathedral.
May 6 ~ afternoon, Monteverdi: 1610 Vespers, Eastern Early Music Forum conducted by Philip Thorby (not part of the official festival), evening, Bobo Stenson Trio at Norwich Playhouse
May 13 ~ Matthew Halls harpsichord, Bach Goldberg Variations at King of Hearts

Aldeburgh Festival
June 12 ~ morning, Luigi Nono portrait, a performance of Hay que camino’ soñando for two violins, Vive a Venezia - film about Nono, and a talk by the composer’s widow Nuria Schoenberg Nono, at Jubilee Hall and Aldeburgh Cinema.
June 12 ~ evening, Death in Venice, Benjamin Britten. New staged production of the only Britten opera written for Snape, directed by Yoshi Oida, at Snape Maltings.
June 13 ~ afternoon, Jakob Kullberg cello, Per Nørgård, Bach, Bent Sørensen, and Britten at Jubilee Hall.
June 13 ~ evening, Monteverdi Il Sesto Libro de Madrigali, Concerto italiano directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini at Snape Maltings
June 21 ~ morning, Masaaki Suzuki organ, Guilain, Byrd, Purcell, and Bach, at Framlingham Church
June 21 ~ afternoon, film: Gesulado, Death for Five Voices directed by Werner Herzog, Aldeburgh Cinema.
June 21 ~ evening, Elephant and Castle, a new opera using film, digital sounds, installations and live performance. Music from classical composer Tansy Davies and DJ/electronica artist Mira Calix. It’s at Snape Maltings but our tickets say ‘outdoor promenade, come dressed for the weather’.

Artistic Director Thomas Adès has certainly created an innovative programme for the Sixtieth Aldeburgh Festival. But it’s interesting that the first two events to sell out were Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach B minor Mass, and a showing of Visconti’s film Death in Venice. If you can't be there, be here On An Overgrown Path.

Now read how music rose from the wreckage at Snape
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Paul Hillier and mystery of missing movements

Hard on the heels of my post about concerts getting shorter comes the mystery of the missing movements in Rachmaninov’s All-night Vigil. On Friday (May 4) the 2007 Norwich & Norfolk Festival opens with a concert in Norwich Cathedral by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir conducted by Paul Hillier (pictured above).

The first half of the concert is a treasure-trove of Orthodox church music, Kedrov, Pärt, Tchaikovsky and Kreek, although at 28 minutes it is not the most generous of programmes. But then comes the mystery. The second half is the Rachmaninov All-night Vigil Op. 37 with the first two sections of the Matins service (The Six Psalms and Praise the Name of the Lord) omitted. This cut removes just over four minutes of music from a 55 minute work.

The reason for the cut completely escapes me, and a call to the festival organisers came up with no explanation. The newly released recording of the All-night Vigil by the same forces on Harmonia Mundi is, of course, complete. Can any reader solve the mystery of the missing movements?

Stop press: just as I was about to upload this post the following email was received - I'll keep you posted:

Hi Bob, I’m chasing Paul Hillier, the Estonians’ conductor, for the answer to your question about the Rachmaninov.

Meanwhile, I’m delighted that you remain such an avid supporter and follower of the Festival! When I see articles like the one in the Guardian a few weeks ago bemoaning Norwich’s lack of arts festival – despite the fact that we are now one of the dozen largest city festivals in the uk – it takes the support of people like you to remind me why we do it. Thank you.

Best, Jonathan
Jonathan Holloway
Festival Director
Norfolk & Norwich Festival

* On the same path I offer you the ultimate time travel. After the Norwich concert Paul Hillier and the Estonian choir travel to the superb new Perth concert hall in Scotland. On Monday they give a lunchtime concert, the programme is the All-night Vigil!

Now read about another unorthodox take by Paul Hillier on a familiar work
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Hildegard comes to Norwich via IRCAM and Darmstadt

The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has a long and illustrious history of first performances. Probably the best known took place in Norwich Cathedral in 1899 when Sir Edward Elgar premiered his composition Sea Pictures, while Ralph Vaughan Williams gave the first performance of his Five Tudor Portraits in the Cathedral at the 1936 Festival. (Vaughan Williams noted 'I think they thought they'd get 'O Praise the Lord, but I sent them the Five Tudor Portraits.') Last night, in the very same performing space in the former Benedictine Abbey, the world premiere of James Wood's opera Hildegard was staged as part of this year's Festival.

James Wood (photo below) studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, before reading music at Cambridge (a recurring destination on this overgrown path) where he was an organ scholar, and then going on to study percussion and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. He was Professor of Percussion at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses from 1982 to 1994, and has had two BBC commissions played at the Promenade Concerts. He has increasingly used electronic and electro-acoustic techniques, and has composed two works for the IRCAM institute in Paris including Mountain Language for alphorn, MIDI cowbells and computer. In 2002 he conducted the world premiere of Stockhausen's Engel-Prozessionen at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

It was pretty clear form those credentials that his new opera was going to be an uncompromising piece. The commission came from the avant-garde Percussion Group The Hague, the New London Chamber Choir, and the Belgian Ensemble, Champ de Action. It was conceived originally as a contemporary version of the traditional liturgical drama, based on the life and visions of celebrated twelfth-century writer, composer and mystic, Hildegard of Bingen. (the concept was inspired by Fiona Maddocks excellent book, Hildegard of Bingen). The score which uses microtonality and multiphonics is for substantial forces, two soloists, mixed ensemble of ten players, percussion ensemble of six players (in this performance the co-commissioning Percussion Group The Hague), chamber choir and electronics. Electronics are central to the work. Sound images are managed by a proprietary technolgy known as the Spatialisateur developed in the research labs of IRCAM. Multiple arrays of speakers from Taguchi surrounded the audience (loudspeakers are the new black in Norwich this year, see my post Tallis' Forty Loudspeaker Motet), and spatial effects are an important part of the score. In some sections the percussionists play from points around the audience, the soloists and choir move around the Cathedral, and one section is delivered by a secondary ensemble with its own conductor from behind the audience.

Doing a staggering job of conducting this complex score was Jonathan Stockhammer (photo below). Originally from Los Angeles he studied Chinese and Political Science before majoring in Composition and Conducting. He is now based in Europe, and works closely with the Percussion Group The Hague. He is also closely associated with the New London Chamber Choir and Critical Band which provided the excellent performing forces. For Hildegard Norwich Cathedral was reversed in layout (the pews are not fixed) so the audience faced the mighty West Door with its magnificent stained glass window above. Starting at nine o'clock at night, and lasting for more than an hour and a half without a break the performance was a challenge for performers and audience alike. (In true Rite of Spring fashion a number of the audience left during the performance. It wasn't their fault, or the composer or performers. It was the fault of the Festival publicists who had inexplicably failed to convey the avant-garde nature of this wonderful and inspiring work in the brochure. Surely better to lose the conservative parts of the audience before they book, rather than during the performance?) . The theatrical elements did support the texts, but this was more staged oratorio (a fashionable concept at the moment) than real opera. At times though the costumes and strobe lighting were more Phantom of the Opera than Pompidou Centre.

Hildegard is at the cutting edge of contemporary composition. It uses voices, instruments and technology to produce some very beautiful sounds. There are also some very ugly sounds, but these were planned as 'inharmonic' music for the Devil, as the composer explained in an excellent programme booklet. (Norwich and Norfolk Festival organisers note, the programme book produced by the performers was exemplary, unlike the meagre offerings for other Festival performances this year). Sometimes though it did seem that the sheer range of performers and technology available to James Wood tempted him to use complexity for its own sake. Less can be more, even when so many sonic toys are available. (Photo above The Critical Band).

The central role of the Percussion Group The Hague brought back memories of Peter Maxwell Davies and the Fires of London in his Eight Songs for a Mad King, and the score for Ken Russel's 1971 film The Devils. The overall atmosphere in the Cathedral, the late hour, the tiredness after a day at work, the range of instruments and electronics surrounding the audience, the buzz of the unknown, it all took me back to the Round House, Chalk Farm in London in the 1970's when Pierre Boulez was at the helm of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the opera houses were designated for arson.

There are further performances in London (St John's Smith Square), St David's Cathedral Pembrokeshire, and Salisbury Cathedral. The Salisbury performance is being recorded for broadcast by the BBC on Hear and Now on Radio 3 on a yet unidentified Saturday evening at 11.00 o'clock. This should be available as a webcast from the BBC Radio 3 website, check there for more details. More details of the other performances are available on the New London Chamber Choir web site.

Overall a brilliant evening. A great credit to the composer, performers (special mention for conductor Jonathan Stockhammer and Sarah Leonard in the fiendishly difficult role of Hildegard), and to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival organisers (no accusations of 'dumbing down'on this one) for pushing the envelope so far. (But more transparent promotional material next time please). The work was a triumph, and it was wonderful to see the beautiful old Benedictine Abbey with its echoes of Elgar approving. The final effect of the opera was the simplest, and most striking. As darkness fell during the performance the luminous stained glass of the mighty West Window darkened. With Jonathan Stockhammer conducting the closing pages of James Wood's wonderful score (and parallels with Parsifal are not over the top) external lighting illuminated the stained glass. Once again we saw that Art and Truth will always triumph over the everyday, the bland and the unadventurous.

Update 13th May: Andrew Clements, who famously savaged Maazel's opera 1984 (see my post 1984 - the sequel) was less positive in his review of Hildegard in today's Guardian giving it just two out of a possible five stars, and saying "there are moments in Wood's score suggesting what might have been, and what still might be." Open this link for the full review. Different strokes for different folks.....

Update 14th May: Composer James Wood has kindly corrected a couple of facts in his biographical details.

Update 15th May: Richard Morrison's Times review of Hildegard seems to be more on message that Andrew Clement's in the Guardian. Richard Morrison writes...' once you accepted that you were trapped for 90 minutes in a dark nave with a chorus that attacked you from front, side and rear (the brilliantly drilled New London Chamber Choir), six frenetic drummers (Percussion Group the Hague) and an instrumental ensemble (the Critical Band) whose jagged fanfares were bounced electronically a round the nave like aural boomerangs — well, it was all rather ear-popping and thrilling.'

Update 26th July: For the last laugh on this story follow this link Classic misunderstandings - Hildegard

Stained glass in Norwich Cathedral

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