Happy long tail to all my readers

Right at the end of 2007 the Observer ran a story that shames the whole classical music community, including this and other blogs. It was about the BBC's rejection of director Tony Palmer's Vaughan Williams film, a news story that was featured prominently by the Observer and several music blogs, including this one. It now appears that the rejection letter quoted in the coverage was a publicity-seeking hoax, although the identity of the hoaxer remains unclear - read the full account here.

This story neatly sums up a year in which relevance became the order of the day, and swapping the long tail of culture for the short head of the mass market became the number one priority. 2007 saw Norman Lebrecht's attempts to go mass market hit the buffers, while William Barrinton-Coupe's efforts on behalf of his late wife met a similar fate. It was also the year when the Royal Opera House went mass market with its advertising, BBC TV went mass market with its classical music programming, Deutsche Grammophon went mass market with its CD covers, John Foulds went mass market with his World Requiem, the BBC Proms went mass market with its crooners, and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra went mass market with its concert attire and politics.

'Relevance' is in and the long tail is out. But it doesn't always work as Dominic Sandbrook recounts in his excellent book White Heat, a History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties? 'Many Protestant churchmen, alarmed at their inability to reverse the long decline in church-going, concluded that 'relevance was the order of the day'. According to Grace Davie, the churches, besotted like so many other institutions by the 'desire to be modern', consequently 'looked to the secular world for a lead and borrowed, in some cases rather uncritically, both its ideas and forms of expression'. It was in this period, for example, that liberal churchmen first began wielding guitars, introducing handclapping into the Anglican rite and generally conducting themselves like frustrated pop singers, a tactic that failed to attract many new parishioners and often alienated those still loyal to the Church of England'


In 2008 On An Overgrown Path will stay focussed on the long tail, and now playing is Satori (1999) for solo harpsichord by John Palmer. A long way from the Anglican rite, Satori describes the spiritual awakening during Zen meditation. This penetrating work, with its long silences is influenced both by the composer's friendship with John Cage and by his deep involvement with Japanese culture. Adventurous and thought-provoking new music from the enterprising Sargasso label, which revels in promoting the long tail. Check out good length MP3 samples here.

The CD has excellent sleeve notes by Peter Burt, including this one for the title work - A koan, for instance, is that type of apparently nonsensical question by means of which students in the Rinzai school of Zen are trained to transcend the limitations of verbal reasoning, the most famous example perhaps being Hakuin's 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' (My own mischievous answer has always been that it is the audience reaction at the average new music concert).

Peter Burt neatly disposes of the long tail versus mass market conflict with these words - All this picturesque 'Japaneseness' might make it sound as though the listener to this CD is in for a comfortable session of 'New-age' easy listening. But be warned: someone who submits himself to the ascetic severities of Zen monastery life could hardly be expected to opt for facile and superficial artistic solutions, and the musical language of John Palmer's work is uncompromisingly Western and modernist. It demands of its listener, no less than of its creator, an attitude of disciplined seriousness. Deeply rewarding listening.

Which eloquently sums up the long tail listening experience.


* Celebrate the new year with some more long tail - my David Munrow on the record programme is being repeated on Future Radio by popular demand at 7.00pm on New Year's Day, click here for the audio stream.

Sand mandala header photo from my 2007 post about the Free Tibet campaign. And no apologies to all those who think politics, music and sport don't mix. With the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 it is a subject I'll doubtless be returning to. Sand mandalas are a motif in Martin Scorsese's film Kundun which also deals with the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and I featured Philip Glass' score for the film on internet radio in November. My middle photo is from Going Buddhist which featured the music of Lou Harrison, the footer image is from Zen and the art of new music about Jonathan Harvey's music, and there is another contemporary music Koan here from James Tenney. Lots of long tail links for the new year.
All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

I'm normally not at all a cynical person

says the assistant principal viola of the Oregon Symphony.
Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Songs of freedom

Alex Ross turns to the Venezuela problem, and quotes Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer: "Art within the constraints of a system is political action in favor of that system, regardless of content." I can only agree and re-run this post:


The role of the artist in a society where human rights are denied is a recurring theme On An Overgrown Path. As I write Maria Farandouri sings To Yelasto Pedi from Mikis Theodorakis’ sound track for the 1969 film Z (poster above). This legendary film was a barely fictionalised account of the assassination in 1963 of the Greek socialist politician Gregoris Lambrakis MP, and the film and its soundtrack, became an international symbol of opposition to the Greek military junta. This dictatorship savagely suppressed human rights until its overthrow in 1974, and brought tanks onto the streets of Athens, as is shown below.


The junta was established in April 1967 when right wing army colonels led by George Papadopoulos seized power under the pretence of preventing a communist takeover. The dictatorship received the initial support of King Constantine II, although the King went into exile in December 1967 following the failure of a counter-coup. The King had failed to win support from the US who regarded the military junta as an ally against the nearby Eastern European Soviet bloc. With the Colonels firmly in power human rights were denied, political parties were outlawed, and opponents imprisoned, with Amnesty International estimating that more than 2000 prisoners were tortured. Symbols of western youth culture were banned including rock music, long-hair and atheism.

Mikis Theodorakis was no stranger to opposition and the political left. He had worked in the resistance against the occupying Italian and German forces in World War 2, and was exiled in the subsequent Greek Civil War. After these conflicts he studied music at the Athens Conservatoire, and in Paris with Olivier Messiaen. Following the military junta in 1967 Theodorakis (below) went underground, and his music was banned by military decree. He was imprisoned for five months until an international pressure group including Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, and Harry Belafonte achieved his release, and he went into exile in April 1970. Theodorakis continued his opposition in exile through concerts and by enlisting the support of international leaders, and his sound-track for Z became a rallying call for opponents of the military regime. The film, which was directed by Constantin Costa-Gravas, was hugely important in drawing attention to the junta’s denial of human rights, and I remember it as one of the cult films of my post-university years.

Following the suppression by tanks of a student uprising at Athens Polytechnic in November 1973 (seen in the photo above) popular opposition to the junta gathered momentum. Papadopoulos was overthrown by General Dimitrios Ioannides, who then unsuccessfully attempted to depose the President of Cyprus. This debacle triggered the collapse of the Greek military junta, and democracy was restored with elections in November 1974.

Greece lies on the edge of the Middle Eastern political fault line, and the cataclysmic upheavals in the region since 1974 mean that the dark days of the Colonel’s rule are now largely forgotten. The CBS LP of Theodorakis’ music played by John Williams and sung by Maria Farandouri, and including the Theme from Z, was part of the soundtrack of my life in the 1970s. Seven of the songs are settings of Greek translations of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, while the Theme from Z sets words from the verse-drama 'The Hostage' by the Irish writer Brendan Behan. Maria Farandouri left Greece in 1967 when the junta banned Theodorakis' music, and she sung in more than 300 protest concerts around the world.

The recording was made by legendary CBS staff producer Paul Myers, and my vinyl copy still sounds quite wonderful today. But by the time the LP catalogues were being transferred to CD in the late 1980s communism was collapsing and the Greek junta was ancient history, so Songs of Freedom didn’t make it onto CD in the major territories. But Theodorakis remains a folk hero in Greece. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, and opposed NATO’s involvement in Kosovo and the invasion of Iraq, and has been very critical of George W. Bush. More controversially he was also been critical of Israeli Government policies under Ariel Sharon, and this led to accusations of anti-Semitism.

Mikis Theodorakis’ continuing high profile in Greece thankfully means that Songs of Freedom remains in the Sony catalogue in that country, albeit sadly without the original beautiful sleeve art which is reproduced above. But in a chilling timewarp the original English sleeve notes are retained for the CD version, so they read as though the Colonels are still in power! It is available online from the splendid Studio52 in Thessalonika; my copy arrived speedily and cost €12.50 plus shipping.

Songs of Freedom is a classic of the gramophone. It contains very moving performances by two very fine musicians. But more importantly, it is living proof that creative artists have an important role to play when human rights are denied.

Now read about Mikis Theodorakis' Requiem.
Image credits; That wonderful poster for Z from Filmpostersdownunder.com, tank on Athens street from Wikipedia. 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 conductor who hated compromise

"Futile to await your letter my decision is final. I have only one way of thinking and acting. I hate compromise. I walk and I shall always walk on the straight path that I have traced for myself in life. Cordial greetings." - Cable from Arturo Toscanini to Bruno Walter about Toscanini's refusal to conduct in Salzburg in 1938 because of the links between the German and Austrian Governments.

Photograph from Berlin 1932 is an interesting case study in compromise. Follow the links to find out how they stood the test. From left to right Bruno Walter, Arturo Toscanini, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer and Wilhelm Furtwängler.
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

Just Venezuelan youths waving national flags

Patrick J. Smith writes - 'Pliable's On An Overgrown Path deserves the attention of almost any serious reader and lover of music, and it deserves whatever accolades can be given for his coverage of Hugo Chavez' "Bolivarian Revolution," especially as the musical world swoons over Gustavo Dudamel.

Perhaps my love of Wilhelm Furtwängler should be tempered for this reason, and - as I have said here - some recordings, like that 1943 Bayreuth Meistersinger, are problematic for me - maybe that's right; however, I cannot help but think that Dudamel is a servant of a state verging ever nearer to totalitarianism and repression. Supporting Dudamel, his youth orchestra, and other Venezuelan cultural products is akin to saying that we love the produce of a nascent dictatorship, even if we don't so much care for the dictator.


While Mr. Dudamel should not be made to suffer for being the product and superstar of the music-education program of Venezuela, we should not get in the business of supporting Chavez or the end-results of his projects until it becomes clear the Chavez is committed to democracy and human rights.'


Thank you Patrick for those wise words. The two photos show Venezuelan riot police facing university students during protests against Chavez’s decision to shut down opposition-aligned television station RCTV in May 2007. (Image credits FullosseousFlap). Perhaps DG will use them on the next Dudamel CD sleeve? Meanwhile, many readers have contacted me from Venezuela echoeing Patrick's words. For obvious reasons it is best if I don't give their names. This is typical of the messages though - 'Music will prevail... Chávez will eventually cease ... I hope sooner... We are working to see how...'

Good to see that the music is prevailing, and my article on Venezuelan music beyond the youth orchestras has attracted a lot of attention. One reader from Venezuela writes to point out my omission of Aldemaro Romero, and say 'all the rest have to learn from him'. Romero died on September 15 2007. As well as working in the classical field and founding the the Caracas Philarmonic Orchestra he was the creator of a new form of popular Venezuelan music, known as "New Wave" (Onda Nueva), derived from the joropo and influenced by Brazilian Bossa Nova. You can sample Romero's music on YouTube. The photo below shows happier Venzuelan music making, Aldemaro Romero with guitarist Saul Vera.


Strange how having an opinion is so unfashionable in some parts these days. It didn't use to be that way.
Aldemaro Romero image from Wikipedia.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

Venezuelan youth orchestrates political protest

Tens of thousands of students are expected to march through Caracas and other cities today in protest at Hugo Chávez's move to amend Venezuela's constitution, despite violence which has injured at least eight students.

Masked gunmen opened fire on a university campus in clashes between pro- and anti-Chávez groups in Caracas on Wednesday. The university said the government used thugs to intimidate protesters but Mr Chávez blamed the marchers. "They generally take the path of fascist violence and confront the laws and the people, and they are always looking to the Pentagon, high-ranking generals," he told a summit in Chile yesterday.

Campuses are the focus of opposition to Mr Chávez's referendum on December 2 to permit him to run indefinitely and accelerate what he terms a socialist revolution. Raul Isaias Baduel, a retired army commander and long-time Chávez ally, has joined the opposition to the draft constitution, saying it amounts to a coup.

Today's Guardian reports it. I wonder how many music blogs will even mention it?

Now playing - Deutsche Grammophon's great recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This is what the Gramophone Good CD Guide said - It has become utterly impossible to keep track of all recordings of Beethoven's music ... So who would predict that anything new could possibly be added to what has so often been done, and done well? Thus we might have reasoned in the mid-1970s, but then the seemingly impossible came to pass. When Carlos Kleiber's recording of Beethoven's Fifth was issued in 1975 ... the great clock of Beethovenian interpretation struck the hour.

Carlos Kleiber's father, Erich, resigned his post as director of Berlin's Staatsoper in December 1934 in protest against the policies of the Nazis. He continued to work in Europe outside Germany, but the spread of Fascism forced him to leave the continent in 1939. Ironically it was to South America that Kleiber fled. He spent the years between 1939 and 1946 conducting less than world class orchestras in Argentina, Peru and Chile, and willingly accepted this as the price of his political beliefs.

In 1951 Erich Kleiber returned to Berlin and to the Staatsoper which was now in the communist sector of the city. The opera house itself had been destroyed in the last months of the war, and performances took place in the Admiralspalast, a former dance hall. Kleiber found post-war East Berlin politically brittle, and the working conditions in the still ruined city were extremely difficult. He resigned in March 1955 on principle after a dispute with the authorities over the removal of an inscription to Frederick the Great on the newly renovated Staatsoper building.

Carlos Kleiber was born in 1930 in pre-Nazi Berlin. In that year the highlights at the Staatsoper included its director, Erich Kleiber, conducting Darius Milhaud's new opera Christophe Colomb, Hans Pfitzner conducting his own Palestrina, and Richard Strauss conducting Intermezzo. So when Beethoven's Fifth finished on the CD player I switched to another DG disc, Christian Thielemann conducting the Orchester Der Deutsche Oper Berlin in three of the preludes from Palestrina and the prelude to Capriccio. Sadly the CD seems to be deleted, but recommended if you can find a copy.

Now read how the East Germans rewrote music history.
Do find a copy of Erich Kleiber, A Memoir by John Russell (Andé Deutsch 1957) if you can. 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

Cure for Gustavo Dudamel fatigue

Over in California Out West Arts reports that 'it was at this point that things got a little weird'.

For those who prefer their Moncayo et al less weird I recommend a superb new 8 CD box from Brilliant Classics titled Musica Mexicana. The 20th-century Mexican composers featured include Chávez, Revueltas, Ponce, Halffter, Moncayo, Jiménez, Herrera, and Dimas. Follow this link for a full listing.

The State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Enrique Batiz, who is an unfashionable sixty-five years old. Fancy dress is not required, and as Musica Mexicana is not on a major label and there are no press freebies, it's at a very affordable price. A German internet seller has the 8 CDs for 19.99€, which is £13.90 or $29. How weird is that?

Now read more about Carlos Chazéz, and about contemporary Venezuelan composers.
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

Youth - a time of life

There was only one small problem - the music.

Later. No sorry - make that two.

Now read about youth, a state of mind
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

They would be booed off the stage mercilessly

Drew80 has left a new comment on your post "A year of stories that had to be told":

Pliable, I could not agree with you more about the "volatile mix of musical vision, politics and commercialism" with which the Venezuelans are marketed, and I could not agree with you more about the presence of Venezuelan flags at an orchestral concert.

Goodness gracious! If Russian or German or American youth orchestras appeared in London wrapped in their countries' flags, they would be booed off the stage mercilessly, and deservedly so.

Posted by Drew80 to On An Overgrown Path at 4:20 PM
Photo credit Deceptively Simple. 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

Musicians setting a good example

Wonderful to see so much enthusiasm for the BBC Prom by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustvo Dudamel. But respect also to Alice O'Keefe in the Independent for mentioning the unmentionable.

But with Venezuela fiercely polarised over the "Bolivarian revolution" spearheaded by President Hugo Chavez (above), Dudamel's de facto position as an ambassador for his country is far from easy. Since the government refused to renew the licence for RCTV, the opposition television station, earlier this year, there is increasing unease about restrictions on the freedom of expression.

Dudamel himself was criticised when he conducted the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra playing the national anthem at the launch of TVes, the state-controlled channel that replaced RCTV. One "open letter" circulated on many blogs compared him to Wilhelm Furtwängler, the conductor accused of being a Nazi supporter.

Dudamel is unapologetic. "The launch of TVes was an emotional moment for the country. But if you look at the 30 years of the orchestra, we have recorded thousands of anthems, for both state and private TV and radio channels. The image of the orchestra is made for everyone. ...People ask me what position I take. My position is that I make music, and I am Venezuelan. I want to promote the name of my country – not one political party or another, but my whole country."

Let's not forget that Furtwängler didn't have a monopoly on interesting views about the relationship between politics and music.

Tribunal - "What would you do if Britain were invaded?"

Britten - "I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example"

From transcript of Benjamin Britten's appearance before a tribunal for the registration of Conscientous Objectors, 28 May 1942.

Boulez saw benefits in the German occupation of Paris. "The theaters were crowded. People could not leave the cities and all of them jammed into concert halls. I went to a concert given by my own piano teacher and could hardly get into it. The Germans virtually brought high culture to France."

From Boulez - Composer, Conductor, Enigma by Joan Peyser (Schirmer ISBN 0028717007)

Now read how a strange mind can produce great new music.
Image credit Dowbrigade. 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

Gustavo Dudamel - in too much of a hurry

Not my words, but Geoff Brown's in the Times
Jetted to stardom in his mid-twenties, with a post as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the offing, Gustavo Dudamel doesn’t impress all the time. He’s best experienced live in concert, or at least on DVD. Even working with his amazing Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, as he is here, not all his passion and charisma carries over on to CD. Speeds can be reckless and his handling gauche, either through inexperience or lack of sympathy with his repertoire. Dudamel is a talent that needs careful handling.

So far, he’s not getting it. Deutsche Grammophon, his label, seems keen only on letting him fire the big guns, putting him in competition with history’s finest. His Beethoven release (Symphonies 5 and 7) had its disappointments; so, certainly, does this Mahler Five. This was the work that made Dudamel’s name internationally, when his conducting won him the 2004 Mahler Competition in Bamberg.

Yet as captured by the mikes in Caracas, this interpretation with his youth orchestra misses the bull’s eye. Though not at first. On the strength of the first two movements, Dudamel’s approach appears entirely plausible. Avoiding the “drama queen” style of Bernstein and others, he wrestles soberly with Mahler’s death and despair. The brass gleams; the strings surge with a uniform, slightly husky glow (a special feature of this recording). All good stuff — and, for young musicians with no Viennese traditions in their blood, the playing is quite idiomatic.

Trouble starts to overtake in the scherzo, which sits too heavily on the ears. The electricity isn’t switched on. Then comes the string adagietto, where neither musicians nor Dudamel seem sure how best to handle the music’s long ache or the portamento bowing. There are nervous lurches and heavy-handed dynamics. In the finale, virtues and vices maddeningly go hand in hand.

Only a heart of stone could be left unmoved by the strings’ swinging force in that fugal passage, early on. But the more the notes tumble out, the more dangerous Dudamel’s speeds appear. He doesn’t judge their relationships correctly, or, in the last pages, the music’s weight.

Mahler when he wrote this symphony was in his early forties, and already well knocked about by life. Dudamel conducts like a charmed young man in too much of a hurry.

My children do hate it when I say 'told you so', But youth really isn't a time of life, it is a state of mind.

Listen to Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela in Sunday's (August 20) BBC Prom here. 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

Venezuelan music beyond the youth orchestras

Music from Venezuela is big news this week as the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venzuela hits the BBC Proms as part of their eight concert European tour. And later Gustavo Dudamel takes them on an autumn US tour, and then prepares to become music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Great news for classical music. But in the published programmes of the US and European tour by Dudamel and his Venezuelan youngsters there is not one work by Venezuelan composers, nor is there any music by living or female composers of any nationality, although their box office friendly BBC Prom does include music by the 20th century composers Silvestre Revueltas (1894-1940) from Mexico, Alberto Ginastera from Argentina (1916-1983), Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975).

Elsewhere on their European tour, and on their first two Deutsche Grammophon releases, Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra move even further back in history, with music from colonial Europe by Beethoven and Mahler. (Did I hear 'dead Europeans'?)

Here, for readers to extend and amend, are some suggestions for contemporary Venezuelan composers that Gustavo Dudamel might include in future tour programmes with his Venezuelan orchestra and Los Angeles orchestras. Although I have a feeling that Askonas Holt and Universal Music's Deutsche Grammophon may not be that keen.

Josefina Benedetti (b. 1953) - American born (New Haven, Conn.) Venezuelan composer, who studied piano both in Caracas and London. Extensive range of compositions including electronica, her compositions are frequently programmed in Venzuela and elsewhere. Founded her own record label Música y Tiempo.

Alvaro Cordero (b. 1954) - born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Has worked extensively in the US, and represented Venezuela at the International Rostrum Of Composers in Paris. His music has been performed by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. MP3 downloads available from website.

Alfonso Tenreiro (b. 1965) - born in Caracas. Studied in Venezuela and at Indiana University, Bloomington. Widely programmed in Venzuela and US, compositions include a symphony and guitar concerto. Numerous audio samples on composer's website.

Ricardo Lorenz Abreu (b. 1961) - composer and conductor now living in Chicago. His orchestral compositions have gained some acceptance in the US and elsewhere.

Sef Albertz (b. 1971) - best known for solo guitar music, including his suite Homenaje a Joan Miró. Also composes for orchestra, including a guitar concerto.

Federico Ruiz (b. 1948) - composes in genres including electronics. Has written successful opera Los Martirios de Colón (1981).

Beatriz Bilbao (b. 1951) - works with electronic mand acoustic forces. She has represented Venzuela at contemporary music conferences.

Follow this path for a directory of Venzuelan composers, and this one for listings of recordings. And this one for more on both Venezuela and 20th century Latin American composers.

Image (c) On An Overgrown Path. Venezuelan composers in my montage around Gustavo Dudamel are, from top left clockwise, Alfonso Tenreiro, Federico Ruiz, Alfonso Tenreiro, Frederico Ruiz and Josefina Benedetti. 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

BBC Proms and beyond

Here are Pliable's personal picks for the coming week's BBC Proms. All Proms are available for seven days online, detailed programmes and broadcast times for every concert are available from the BBC web site.

* August 13, 1.00pm Cadogan Hall, Philip Langridge sings Elizabeth Maconchy's Four Elizabethan Songs together with Britten and Schumann.
* August 13, 7.30pm - Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet Op. 25 is played by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony conduced by Paavo Järvi.
* August 15, 7.30pm - a rare performaance of Sibelius' complete incidental music for The Tempest in an authentically Finnish performance by the Lahti Symphony orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä.
* August 16, 10.15pm - a nice chewy programme of contemporary music by James MacMillan and ending with Harrison Birtwistle's Panic which was infamously premiered at the 1995 Last Night of the Prom. Martyn Brabbins conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. It's a sign of the times that under John Drummond Birtwistle was programmed in the most popular Prom of all, while under Nicholas Kenyon Birtwistle is marginalised to the bedtime slot.
* August 17, 7.30pm - More Schoenberg (the Five Orchestral Pieces) coupled with Stravinsky, Oliver Knussen's Violin Concerto and the UK premiere of Henze's Sebastian im Traum.
* August 18, 6.30pm - the Elgar anniversary is celebrated with his oratorio The Apostles. Outgoing City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra music director Sakari Oramo conducts. Let's hope there are no silly Guardian articles written by his spin doctors this time.
* August 19, 6.30pm - Gustavo Dudamel, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and the Deutsche Grammophon PR machine play Shostakovich, Bernstein, Revueltas and Ginastera between Edinburgh, Essen, Schleswig Holstein, Leipzig, Dresden, Bonn and Frankfurt.

There's also lots of great music making elsewhere.
* Delft Music Festival, Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft (The Netherlands), August 12, 2.15pm - chamber music by Dutilleux, Hindemith, D'Riviera and R. Schumann and the world premiere of Springs Eternal by Vanessa Lann.
* Edinburgh Usher Hall, August 13, 8.00pm - Thomas Adès conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Beethoven, Stravinsky, and his own Violin Concerto.
* Snape Maltings, Suffolk, August 14, 7.30pm - Mr McFall's Chamber mix classical, jazz, tango and rock, including a brand new piece by Gavin Bryars.

And now read Gavin Bryars on independent record labels.
Photograph On An Overgrown Path. 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

Why Simon Bolivar is important

The opera Simón Bolívar by Thea Musgrave was a joint commission by the Los Angeles Music Centre and Scottish Opera. Born in Scotland in 1928 Musgrave studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, knew Benjamin Britten, and has lived in the United States since 1974. For more on Thea Musgrave, and other women composers, follow this path.

Thea Musgrave's two act opera tells the story of the Venezuelan folk hero Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), who liberated six South American countries from Spanish colonial rule. Bolívar was a passionate idealist, and brilliantly successful freedom fighter (he is seen in the painting above finalising his campaign). But he failed to unite the liberated countries under one flag, and today they are the independent states of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia. In the 21st century Simón Bolívar is still revered for defeating the Spanish and liberating the region from colonial domination.

There is no commercial recording of the opera Simón Bolívar. But on Sunday (Aug 10) I will be playing Thea Musgrave's concerto for oboe and orchestra, Helios, in my Overgrown Path webcast on Future Radio, see below for webcast details. It is in another of my programmes of fine music that is rarely broadcast, yet alone heard in the concert hall. After last week's rare American symphonies, the music this week is all by British born composers. As well as Thea Musgrave's Helios there is Edmund Rubbra's Symphony No. 10 (see my post The Year is '72), and William Alwyn's Symphony No 5 'Hydriotaphia' (see my post Brain Music).

* Simón Bolívar, the opera by Thea Musgrave, was premiered by Virginia Opera (in the other Norfolk!) in January 1995. Stephen Guggenheim sung the title role, and the composer's husband, Peter Mark, conducted.
* Thea Musgrave's Two's Company is given its world premiere at the BBC Prom on August 31.
* The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, with their conductor Gustavo Dudamel, are at the BBC Proms on August 19 playing Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony.
* The 224th anniversary of the birth of Simón Bolívar was celebrated around the world on July 24 2007.
* On July 22 2007 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz said that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting the country will be expelled. In May 2007 Chavéz closed down an opposition run TV station.
* Now read about politician Hugo Chavéz and composer Carlos Carlos Chavéz in a tale of two Chavéz

My programme of Brain Music, including Thea Musgraves Helios, will be webcast between 5.00pm and 6.00pm British Summer Time, and is available on web radio. Convert on-air times to your local time zone using this link. Click here for the audio stream. Windows Media Player doesn't like the 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. If you happen to be in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM.

Painting of the meeting of San Martin(right)and Simon Bolívar(left)in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 26, 1822, at which was decided the campaign to liberate South America from Spanish control, from Aceros-de-espana. 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

Youth - not a time of life but a state of mind

If you are gay, black or female the good news is your chances of making it big in classical music are definitely improving. But the bad news is if you are the wrong side of 40 your chances of hitting the big time are not looking so good.

Institutionalised age discrimination in classical music has been around for a long time. One of the most famous examples was the forced retirement of Sir Adrian Boult from the position of Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra when he reached the BBC's mandatory retirement age of 60 in 1949.

But more insidious is the underground age discrimination that is now starting to appear. To get a buzz going about new classical talent they must be under 40, sport an iPhone and be on Facebook, play uptown venues without seats, and have hip-hop remixes on YouTube.

The problem is all due to classical music's obsession with attracting younger audiences. (I wonder if rock musicians spend their time obsessing over how to attract older audiences?) The marketing men now say that unless the elusive youngsters can relate to the performers they won't come to the concert, or buy the CD. So, if there is a choice between a good young musician and a great older musician, the danger is the younger performer will get the nod.

This mindset appeared in a recent Newsweek interview with Christopher Roberts, chairman of Decca Label Group.

Newsweek - Have young, good-looking artists like pianist Lang Lang and opera singer Nicole Cabell helped create new audiences for classical?

Christopher Roberts - Younger artists like Nicole Cabell, Lang Lang and others move a consumer on the edges of classical music toward purchasing, especially given how easy it is to do online, with the close proximity of these artists to those from other, more traditionally mainstream genres.

We also see the mindset in statements like 'middle-aged wankers in dinner suits', in cartoon-style sleeve artwork that tries to give classical music a younger image, in young director's introducing telly talent shows into Wagner's operas, not to mention penises, and in the hyping of symphonies by 15 year olds.

When Alan Gilbert was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic there was more media coverage of his age than of his outstanding musical credentials. The Washington Post headline summed it all up - New York Philharmonic Picks Young New Leader. If they had appointed Kurt Masur to the post again would the headline have read - New York Philharmonic Picks Old New Leader?

Now there are many very good young musicians around, and they have featured regularly On An Overgrown Path over the years. But there are only two conductors today who I will travel a long way to hear in concert. One is Sir Colin Davis, age 79, and the other Bernard Haitink, age 80. My header photo shows another truly great conductor, Otto Klemperer, celebrating his 86th birthday in 1971. On Sunday we marked Mikis Theodorakis' 82nd birthday here, and on internet radio. Only yesterday I wrote about the superb recordings of his own works made by Igor Stravinsky when he was in his 80s. Pierre Boulez is now 82, and last year London welcomed the 97 year old Elliott Carter, and György Kurtág celebrated his 80th birthday.

Age is also a real asset in the jazz world. Back in 2005 I wrote a profile of jazz pianist Jack Reilly when he was a youthful 73. Two years later Jack has notched up his three-quarters of a century, and his music sounds even younger. Jack's forthcoming Bill Evans inspired double CD Innocence - Green Spring Suite is some of the best jazz piano I've heard from anyone, of any age, for a long time.

Meanwhile London is bracing itself for the tidal wave of hyperbole that Deutsche Grammophon and the BBC will unleash when the young Gustavo Dudamel, and the even younger Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venzuela, storm into town for their August Promenade Concert. I am one of the few people on the planet who didn't receive a free advance copy of their new Mahler 5 CD. But the underground buzz is that it's musical dynamite, and I'm delighted for the youngsters from Venezuela.

Personally, I have been getting a very satisfying buzz from two other Mahler recordings. Bruno Maderna's interpretation of Mahler's 9th Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra is also dynamite. But Maderna made two marketing mistakes. First, he was 51 when he made the recording. Secondly he died two years later. I bet that if Maestro Maderna was under contract to a major record company today, their marketing department would never allow him to make those two elementary mistakes.

While writing this post I listened, on vinyl LPs, to another Mahler recording that really celebrates the joy of age. Otto Klemperer's recording of Mahler's Second Symphony, made in the Kingsway Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra, is one of the classics of the gramophone. Klemperer was 78 when he made it, but it simply sweeps aside the rival recordings from young bloods such as Simon Rattle. (Rattle was 31 when he recorded Mahler 2, he is now well