A catholic selection on internet radio

I'm playing John Sheppard's beautiful Western Wind Mass in my Future Radio programme this Sunday, November 18. The CD was recorded by the Tallis Scholars in Salle Church here in Norfolk, and my header photo shows the interior of the magnificent Anglican church.

The music in this Sunday's programme is a catholic selection. Sheppard's Western Wind Mass was probably composed in the reign of Queen Mary who briefly returned England to Catholicism. Edmund Rubbra, whose Fifth Symphony is the second work in the programme, was a mid-life Catholic convert. Like Thomas Merton, he went to explore Buddhism, but unlike Merton he also became interested in Taoism.

My catholic selection is on Future Radio at 5.00pm this Sunday, November 18. And remember, you can help shape the future of internet radio later that evening.

* Listen via the audio stream on Sunday Nov 18 at 5.00pm UK time. Convert Overgrown Path radio on-air times to your local time zone using this link. 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. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Photograph (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

If you like Spem in alium try this …

Read next week's Proms picks by Pliable here.

Tuesday's late night BBC Prom by the Tallis Scholars includes a little known work by Alessandro Striggio. A search on Amazon.com for Thomas Tallis’ mighty forty part motet Spem in alium returns 43 results. But a search for Striggio’s motet for the same forces, Ecce beatam lucem, returns just 2 results. The popularity of Tallis’ masterpiece is perfectly understandable, but the neglect of its progenitor is something of a mystery.

Alessandro Striggio worked in Florence and Mantua in the 1550s, and developed a luxurious and opulent style of choral writing that culminated in a Sanctus for sixty voices that has sadly been lost over the intervening centuries. The motet Ecce beatam lucem was composed in 1561 as a celebration of Catholicism. It was written to mark the visit of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este to France where he was preaching against Protestantism, and uses forty voices organised in varying groupings through the course of the work.

In 1567 Striggio travelled to London where Ecco beatam lucem was received rapturously. It is thought that a request by Thomas Howard fourth Duke of Norfolk prompted Thomas Tallis to start composing Spem in alium in 1567 as a response to the popularity of Striggio’s motet. There are some striking similarities. They both use the same forces, share the key of G, and exploit the spine-chilling impact of forty-voice polyphony. Tallis however raised the game, Spem is more overtly sacred, and the technical writing and development is more accomplished.

But as they say on Amazon.com if you like Spem in alium you will also like Ecce beatam lucem. I have the first Huelgas Ensemble version directed by Paul van Nevel (photo below). This 1994 CD was recorded was made in the St Barbara Church, Gent, Belgium with the choir standing in their signature circle (photo above). The couplings are also well worth hearing, including some more little known Renaissance polyphony from Costanzo Porta, Josquin Desprez, Johannes Ockeghem, Pierre de Manchicourt and Giovanni Gabrielli, as well as Spem in Alium itself. The same forces have recently re-recorded Ecce beatem lucem for Harmonia Mundi in SACD surround sound. Despite these two fine versions by the Huelgas Ensemble there is still a real gap in the market for choral groups with forty top flight voices to fill, and some additional recordings of Ecce beatam lucem would make a real change instead of the 44th version of Spem.

* Now hear the similarities for yourself with this brief sample from the first Huelges Ensemble recording of Ecce beatam lucem, or listen online to both works complete for seven days after the concert.

If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Masses of early music on iPods
Image credits, Huelgas Ensemble Berliner Festpiele,
Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "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

Wonderful church - wonderful recording venue

This photo of the interior of Salle Church in Norfolk was taken this afternoon. The church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is in a rural area of the county and is uniquely all built in one style. The construction of the massive church took just thirty years and was completed in 1430, and since then there have been no alterations or additions to the structure.

Many readers will have recordings made in this wonderful building in their CD collections. For many years it was the chosen location for Tallis Scholar recordings due to its magnificent acoustics. Their CD of Manuel Cardoso's sublime Requiem was made there, and plays as I write.

But terrorism can even affect deepest rural Norfolk.
Photo 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

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

Is recorded classical music too cheap?

There has been a gratifyingly big response to my post Discovered - the online Arnold Schoenberg jukebox with its listing of more than sixty worldwide classical music stations broadcasting on the web (see right hand side bar). The eclectic mix of readers for that post surprised me. The visitor logs show this particular overgrown path has been trodden by the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (the UK body that enforces copyright protection on recorded music), Minnesota Public Radio, the Czech Academy of Science, the City of Berlin Arts Adminstrator's Office, a number of major US orchestras, and many, many more.

In a recent post I mentioned buying the inspirational Philippe Herreweghe recording of the Missa Solemnis for just £5 (US$9.10). And elsewhere I've written about Brilliant Classics (complete Haydn Piano Sonatas in excellent performances and recordings with 10 CD's for £23.99 - US$43.70), and the deep, deep discounts (and first-class service) available from Amazon.com Marketplace partners such as Caiman USA. All this set me thinking, is recorded music too cheap today?

Let me explain. The major record companies had a hissing fit about the impact of file sharing on pop music sales. In the classical music world it is not recorded music sales that are at threat, it is concert audiences. The ticket prices at the recent Norwich Festival were very reasonable by London standards, and certainly offered wonderful value for money. But the value of two average priced £15 (US$27.30) tickets for the Tallis Scholars doesn't look so good when compared with a discounted CD. After the concert I bought the wonderful Tallis Scholars CD of the Sheppard sacred choral works, including Media vita which was performed at the concert, for just £9.52 (US$17.30) including delivery from Caiman USA. (US readers will have spotted that CD prices are considerably higher in the UK. Which is why I buy Gimmel CD's of the Tallis Scholars recorded in Salle Church, just 25 miles from my home in Norfolk UK, from Florida. Great for my bank balance, but the 3500 mile air freight round trip for the CD can't do much to help global warming).

The Deutsche Grammophon LP of Karajan conducting Tchaikosky's Pathetique Symphony which was my first classical record cost me one pound ten shillings ($2.20) as a student in 1969. By my calculation graduate starting salaries in the UK have increased by a factor of around twenty since then. That would price the LP at £30 (US$54.60) in today's terms. A full price CD in the UK today is £15 (US$27.30), so real prices have halved before deep discounts and budget priced labels such as LSO Live are factored in. In orders of magnitude I reckon recorded music costs about one quarter of what it did thirty five years ago. Concert tickets have shown little or no price deflation in the same period. So the balance of pricing has swung massively in favour of recorded and internet streamed media, and against attending live performances.

On An Overgrown Path has commented before that performers like the Kamus and Sacconi Quartets seem to be getting younger, and their audiences seem to be getting older. Is it surprising when the absurdly low cost of great recorded music is giving the quite wrong impression that concert tickets are expensive? Naxos have done more than any other company to reduce the price that consumers expect to pay for recorded classical music. Recently I bought their highly recommendable CD of the Vivaldi Gloria and Bach Magnificat for £3.99 (US$7.30) in a Virgin Megastore - that is just stupidly cheap. And ironically the very people that stand to lose most, the orchestras, are fuelling the trend by pricing their own label recordings so low. Ask anyone in the retail trade what they think of the LSO Live CD's and they will say two things. Great performances, and too cheap at £4.99 (US$9.10). Ask any of the LSO players what they think of LSO Live after they have received their measly £400 (US$728) annual profit share from the label, and they will say one thing, too cheap.

One development that must surely further cheapen the perceived value of recorded classical music seems to have slipped under everyone's radar - Naxos Web Radio. This subscription service offers sixty channels of classical music plus jazz, blues, world, folk, and New Age. There is up to one hundred hours of unduplicated commercial-free music available per channel. The channels are pretty well targeted. Contemporary Classical offers Adams, Brusa, Balada, Glass and Norgard among others, while the Early Sacred Music programme includes Palestrina, Tallis, Lassus and Obrecht.The service uses Naxos and other label recordings, and offers the opportunity to buy the CD's via amazon.com. And my question is recorded classical music too cheap must surely be answered by the token annual subscription charge of just US$9.95 (£5.50) for Naxos Web Radio. With this pricing it is difficult to see what their business model is, other than world domination. Naxos, and others offering give away pricing on the internet, should ponder the first law of the cyber-economy. This says that the price of information will tend towards zero. Unless we stop treating recorded music as an information commodity the price, and perceived value, will continue to plummet, with an attendant disastrous knock-on effect on the size of audiences for live performances. Another factor to take into account is that web radio is the medium of choice for tecno-savvy youngsters (plus a few older early adopters). Most older folk don't have the technical confidence to use a computer for much else than email and e-Bay. So the vicious spiral of ageing concert audiences is accerlerated. If you want to find out what Naxos Web Radio is almost giving away to the internet literate just open this link for 15 minutes no-obligation listening.

Thankfully some people are trying to boost concert attendances, rather than undermine them. One particularly noteworthy example is fellow blogger Drew McManus' "Take a Friend to Orchestra" project. Recorded music, even via my wonderful B&W Nautilus 803 speakers, can never replace live performers. We are in danger of bringing up a generation who will never have heard the earthy texture of a baroque cello, the lightning fast attack of a harpsichord, or the true bass from a 32' organ pipe. But, I wonder, could the solution to declining concert audiences be economic rather than educational? I am certainly not suggesting lowering the price of concert admissions. But I am querying our wisdom in allowing the cost of recorded music to decline so sharply.

Live music making is sacred, and we must do everything possible to ensure not only its survival, but also its growth. In 1964 Benjamin Britten was awarded the first Aspen Award at Aspen, Colorado. Britten's acceptance speech was so thought provoking that Faber published it as a very slim volume. Here is part of Britten's speech which was made decades before the arrival of the CD and internet, but which with uncanny prescience identified the real danger of treating music as a commodity......

Anyone, anywhere, at any time can listen to the B minor Mass upon one condition only - that they possess a machine. No qualification is required of any sort - faith, virtue, education, experience, age. Music is now free for all. If I say the loudspeaker is the principal enemy of music, I don't mean that I am not grateful to it as a means of education or study, or as an evoker of memories. But it is not part of true musical experience. Regarded as such it is simply a substitute, and dangerous because deluding. Music demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape-machine or a transistor radio. It demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, saving up for a ticket, some homework on the programme perhaps, some clarification of the ears and sharpening of the instincts. It demands as much effort on the listener's part as the other two corners of the triangle, this holy triangle of composer, performer and listener.

If you enjoyed this post follow the overgrown path to A direct line to Britten

Note to regular readers of On An Overgrown Path. The next post will be uploaded on Saturday 11th June. Sorry about the pause; the overgrown path hasn't come to a dead end, but travel arrangements dictate the interruption. The posts will continue, including an interesting contribution about violinist Elmar Oliveira from a guest blogger in the US.....