On An Overgrown Path

Bhaskar Menon, a leading figure in EMI Worldwide, has died aged 86. In a typically delusive Slipped Disc post Norman Lebrecht states that "He was responsible, with George Harrison, for organising the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh". So now the click bait has hit social media and Norman's readership numbers  are spinning like a fruit machine , let's look at the facts. In his autobiographical I Me Mine George Harrison recounts how:  "It must have been in 1971 when I was in Los Angeles doing the Raga soundtrack album. Ravi [Shankar] was talking to me and telling me how he wanted to do a concert, but bigger than he normally did, so that he could raise maybe 25,000 dollars for the starving in Bangla Desh. He asked if I could think of some way of helping, say for instance for me to come on and introduce it or maybe bring in Peter Sellers… something to help, anyway. " Ravi Shankar and George Harrison went on to organise The Concert for Bangladesh , with help fr...

Sri Nisargadatta 's teachings retain remarkable relevancy. Particularly this one, with its pertinent ambiguity: The real world is beyond our thoughts and ideas; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes. In 1967 George Harrison accepted a commission to compose the music for Joe Massot's movie Wonderwall . It was the first album on the Apple label and was released three weeks before the Beatles White Album in November 1968. But it is puzzlingly forgotten despite being an early and important essay in what eventually became World Music. George Harrison used the commission to produce a mini-anthology of Indian music, because, to quote him, "I wanted to help turn the public on to Indian music". In his sleeve essay he pays tribute to the then chairman of the Gramophone Company of India Bhaska...

A comment on my post Should we change the way classical audiences listen? by MarkAMeldon extolling the virtues of pre-stereo recordings of Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch and Rafael Kubelik ends with the cryptic question of back to mono anyone? Which prompted me to listen again to the Griller Quartet's mono recording of Ernest Bloch's four string quartets which I first praised On An Overgrown Path eleven years ago . Pau Casals declared that "The best composer of our times is Ernest Bloch" and the Griller's interpretations provide strong support for that controversial claim. Seen above is one of the original LP releases, and below is the now deleted 2004 CD transfer . These 1954 Decca recordings were produced by the late Peter Andry who later became general manager of EMI's International Classical Division, where he was my boss in the late 1970s . Forget about the old technology used to make these recordings, because on a monitor qual...

Pierre Boulez once famously declared :"I hate Tchaikovsky and I will not conduct him... but if the audience wants him, it can have him". Much that I admire Boulez I can think of many good reasons not to hate Tchaikovsky, among them his Third Orchestral Suite. Given the enduring popularity of Tchaikovsky's symphonies it is surprising that the four movement Suite is not better known, because it was originally conceived as a symphony and was composed between two of his most popular symphonies, the Fourth and Fifth. The photo above shows the overgrown feline standing guard over my 1975 EMI LP of the Suite No 3. On this disc Sir Adrian Boult conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the violin solo in the final movement is played by Rodney Friend who went on to lead the BBC Symphony Orchestra. If my memory serves me correctly Sir Adrian made the recording at the suggestion of EMI's Douglas Pudney who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the repertoire and a wonderful n...

Our ears tell us that multiple microphone set-ups compromise sound quality in classical recordings, and that, conversely, simple microphone arrays enhance sound quality. So, extrapolating that finding to the extreme, the best sound quality will come from a single microphone, which means, of course, mono sound. In a recent post David Derrick celebrates the sound of Thibaud, Casals and Cortot playing Beethoven’s Archduke Trio captured in mono by EMI in 1928, while the 1955 Decca recording of Blochs magnificent and neglected string quartets by the Grillers seen above provides further proof of the sheer musicality of mono sound. What is striking listening to those Decca discs of the Bloch quartets is the solidity of the sound. It is ironic that the word 'stereo' comes from a Greek root meaning 'solid', yet today stereo and other multi-channel formats all too often trade solidity of sound for technical complexity. Stereo and multi-channel sound - multi-channel define...

A few days ago I quoted Norman Lebrecht as saying that the late Peter Andry was: ...part of a golden generation of gifted Australians who enriched British life and world culture. A reader has reminded me that in 2005 Norman wrote : Little in their [Australians] sunkissed insularity has equipped them for the ethnic and economic diversity of British arts and their focus is so short-term that only the most desperate of boards would, it seems to me, choose a second-string Aussie above a locally experienced, lifelong committed Brit. It makes no sense at all... The arts thrive on merit, and if an Aussie is the best candidate for any top job I'll be the first to put a chilled Chardy in their fist. But the Aussies are currently here mob-handed and mostly for the wrong reasons. Their country needs them more than we ever will. The message to these misfits is: Aussies, go home. From which we must assume Norman Lebrecht will play a central role in the forthcoming twelve day BBC Radio 3 Mozar...

In a belated Slipped Disc tribute to Peter Andry the record company executive and producer is quite rightly described by Norman Lebrecht as "part of a golden generation of gifted Australians who enriched British life and world culture." Herbert von Karajan's many great recordings for EMI , which included Salome and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , are probably Peter Andry's greatest contribution to world culture. Or as Norman Lebrecht described them in the Independent in April 2008 - "The clapped-out legacy of Karajan that impoverished classical music" . On An Overgrown Path's tribute to Peter Andry is here . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Also on Facebook and Twitter .

One of the legendary figures of the classical music industry Peter Andry (above left) died on December 7th 2010 in the St John & St Elizabeth Hospice in St John's Wood, London. Peter Andry was educated in Australia before joining Decca in England in 1954. He moved to EMI as a producer in 1957 working for David Bicknell who ran HMV while Walter Legge was still managing the Columbia label. Following Legge's departure in 1964 Peter Andry moved to an executive producer role and took over the management of all EMI's classical music activities under what was to become the International Classical Division. The artists who recorded for EMI during Andry's years with the company are a role-call of the greats of classical recording and include Karajan, Callas, Rostropovich, Domingo, Beecham, Muti, Previn, Giulini, du Pré and Klemperer. During his tenure many classics of the gramophone appeared on the HMV label, including Karajan's Dresden Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg a...

Why are conductors always remembered for their failings? Much has been written about the less appealing side of Herbert von Karjan . But when I was working for EMI I saw the more human side of the maestro. At the Salzburg Festival in 1977 Karajan both directed and conducted the first Salzburg production of Richard Strauss' Salome . and that summer I was very fortunate to be representing EMI at the Salzburg Festival together with Peter Andry and Peter Alward . Over the years Karajan had established the tradition of hosting an informal barbecue and sports event for the Festival musicians, singers, and production staff in the grounds of his magnificent house at number 41 Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße in Anif, to the south of Salzburg. The EMI team, including me, were invited to the 1977 Karajan barbecue a few days after the opening of Salome . In the stables behind the house in Anif Karajan kept, alongside his treasured race-specification Lancia Delta Turbo, a battered VW Bug. This w...

Back in 2006 I received an email from Norman Lebrecht inviting me to share with him some inside stories from my time at EMI, and Norman also asked me to pass the message on to a very good friend who held a key position during EMI's 'Indian summer' of classical recording. At the time Norman was researching his controversial book, ' Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry ', and knowing this we decided not to take up his invitation. But some colleagues who had a part in the madness decided to tell all, while others, including my boss at EMI, Peter Andry, chose to publish their own versions of events. Peter Andry was educated in Australia before joining Decca in England in 1954. He moved to EMI as a producer in 1957 working for David Bicknell who ran HMV while Walter Legge was still managing the Columbia label. Following Legge's departure in 1964 Andry took over the management of all EMI's a...

Few musicians have generated such a mixture of respect and revulsion as Herbert von Karajan. It takes Richard Osborne 851 pages in his masterly biography to capture the essence of this extraordinary conductor, entrepreneur and opportunist, and it would be impertinent to even attempt to cover the same ground here. So instead, with the centenary of Karajan's birth falling on April 5, I offer this personal vignette from my time at EMI, which I hope in some small way illustrates the conundrum that was this extraordinary man. During the late 1970s the Machiavellian Karajan had carefully nurtured a deadly rivalry between EMI and his other contract company, Deutsche Grammophon. This meant that EMI had, at very considerable expense, outbid DG for the four act version of Verdi's Don Carlos with José Carreras and Mirella Freni , and Debussy's Pelléas et Méliande with Frederica von Stade and Richard Stilwell . Pélleas was a personal passion of Karajan, and because of this he ...

There are three ways of knowing a thing. Take for instance a flame. One can be told of the flame, one can see the flame with his own eyes, and finally one can reach out and be burned by it – Sufi scholar. Some of us are told of music, some of us can see music, but Mstislav Rostropovich, who died today age 80 , reached out and was burnt by it. I first met him after he conducted a wildly exuberant performance of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony with the Snape Maltings Training Orchestra in 1977. Rostropovich had a long-standing relationship with the Aldeburgh Festival, and with its founder Benjamin Britten , who had died the previous year. This relationship had produced the Cello Symphony , the Cello Suites , and a Cello Sonata , all of which Britten wrote for the Russian cellist. Back in the 1970s I was working for EMI, and Slava’s relationship with the company went back to 1956 when he recorded the Miaskovsky Cello Concerto . In 1974 Rostropovich and his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevska...

" One of the biggest phenomena in my time was Toscanini. England, for one, certainly went crazy for him - so much so that he was an absolute pest as far as I was concerned. First and foremost, I did not like his conducting. I have to give him credit for the fact that he got an incredible clarity out of the orchestra. But it was absolutely without humanity, even rigid. If Toscanini had been in one hall and Beecham in another I would have gone to see Beecham any day. Toscanini seemed to have a power over people and could do no wrong. On one occasion he snatched the camera from a journalist, threw it to the ground, and stamped on it! However it was more than ones' life was worth to criticize Toscanini or to say you didn't like him. You would have to defend yourself to a degree that I didn't feel like doing. One summer I was doing a summer school in Santa Barbara, California with Schoenberg. One day I gathered my courage and asked him, "Arnold, what do you think of ...