On An Overgrown Path

There is too much COVID-19 click bait elsewhere on classical blogs. But I do think that image is worth sharing. It comes via the Bangkok Post and shows one of sixty student monks at the Buddhist Wat Molilokayaram in Thailand. It is a striking image in its own right, but it also allows me to point readers who are tired of Zoom bait down an overgrown path to some little-known but relevant music. I should have been in Thailand recently, but that trip was nuked by the pandemic. When I returned from another Buddhist nation Sri Lanka last year I wrote about classical music's many Buddhist connections . One composer missing from that overview was the Italian Giacinto Scelsi. He was one of a number of musicians attracted to Theosophy ; but after travels in the East he became a practising Zen Buddhist . Back in 2005 Alex Ross penned an excellent profile of Scelsi ; his music is anything but easy, with one writer describing it as György Ligeti on acid. So why not break the lockdown b...

Three sages in the Himalayas sit in silence, meditating. Ten years go by, and the first one tweets, "What a wonderful morning." Another ten years go by and the second one tweets, "It might rain". Another ten years go by, and the third one tweets, "When will the two of you ever get off Twitter". That is my contemporary paraphrase of a story told by Jiddu Krishnamurti and reported in The Beauty of the Mountain published by the Krishnamurti Foundation. I took the photo when crossing a high pass in the western Himalayas en route from Kalka on the edge of the Ganges plain to the alpine desert of Ladakh - see my photo essay about the journey . Krishnamurti, who taught that "Authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing.. leaders destroy the following and followers destroy the leaders" had no time for gurus. But books such as Apprenticed to a Himlayan Master by Sri M, and Living wit...

In the 17th century a movement developed in Japan to make esoteric wisdom available to a wider constituency. This movement was rooted in the Buddhist belief that the mission in life of an enlightened being is to bring enlightenment to as many other sentient beings as possible without - to use a 21st century expression - dumbing down the essence of the wisdom. The main drivers in the movement were Basho the haiku poet, the Zen teachers Bankei and Hakuin , and the Zen painter Sengai . Such was the success of the movement that the esoteric discipline of Zen - the art of nothingness - has become in the 21st century a mass market commodity. Just one example of that mass market reach is provided by Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance . This has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide; an audience that beleaguered classical music would die for. What is surprising is that the question is not 'what can classical music learn from Zen?', but rather...

...Philadeplphia would be shocked to see Mr Stokowski going shoeless into the meditation room. He played a lot of his trial records for us the other night and they were wonderful... That extract* comes from a letter written by Erma Williams, who was the sister of Jiddu Krishnamurti 's close associate and purported lover Rosalind Rajagopal . It dates from 1928 when Krishnamurti was still being promoted by the Theosophical Society as the 'vehicle' of the expected World Teacher, and it refers to Leopold Stokowski's attendance at the Theosophical Society's summer camp at Erde Castle in Holland. Theosophy has attracted many musicians including John Foulds , Cyril Scott , Ruth Crawford Seeger and Dane Rudhyar . Mary Lutyens , mother of the composer Elizabeth Lutyens , was a fervent disciple of Krishnamurti and also his editor and biographer, although her daughter developed a strong aversion to the spiritual movement. Another celebrated musician who embraced Theosophy w...

Richard Alpert was together with Timothy Leary the public face of the so-called Harvard psychedelic club in the early 1960s. As academics at Harvard, Leary and Alpert championed the enlightenment enhancing potential of LSD. Leary's career went into a tail spin when his tenure at Harvard was terminated for providing LSD to students and he was subsequently jailed. However Richard Alpert's later career was more auspicious; he travelled to India in 1967 and met his guru the Hindu mystic Neem Karoli Baba , who gave him the name Ram Dass . In 1971 Ram Dass wrote Be Here Now, a book that became one of the most influential counterculture texts and has sold more than one million copies. Hallucinogens have many connections with classical music, starting with Berlioz’s opium inspired Symphonie Fantastique . Aldous Huxley, whose circle included Igor Stravinsky, Christopher Isherwood, and Charlie Chaplin, told a colleague that ; "If you ever use mescaline or LSD in therapy, to tr...

Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Kaikhosru Sorabji and John Foulds may seem unlikely bedfellows. Elgar and Holst have achieved global recognition if not acclaim, Sorabji has a small but select cult following , but Foulds lingers in the twilight zone between cultism and global acclaim. However, as recounted in an earlier post , the four composers are brought together in Nalini Ghuman's recently published Resonances of the Raj: India in the English Musical Imagination,1897-1947 , because they share the cultural influence of colonial India. The accompanying photos capture the exotic and esoteric mysticism of a sacred tantric ritual in northern India, and the culture of pre-partition India permeated the English musical imagination via Theosophy, an esoteric philosophy that made this kind of exotic Eastern mysticism fashionable for Western dilettantes long before the Beatles visited Rishikesh. Among those attracted by Theosophy were John Foulds (1880-1939) and his wife the violinist Mau...

A post here a few years ago discussed how the legendary conductor Bruno Walter was a disciple of the Austrian philosopher, educationist and founding figure in the Theosophy movement Rudolf Steiner. Theosophy is a syncretic tradition, but the discovery on Amazon of the recording seen above was still a surprise. Bruno Walter was of course one of the great interpreters of Wagner ; which gives a whole new meaning to the question Are we ready for an Islamic interpretation of Wagner ? Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Kaikhosru Sorabji and John Foulds may seem unlikely bedfellows. Elgar and Holst have achieved global recognition if not acclaim, Sorabji has a small but select cult following , but Foulds lingers in the twilight zone between cultism and global acclaim. However, as recounted in an earlier post , the four composers are brought together in Nalini Ghuman's newly published Resonances of the Raj: India in the English Musical Imagination,1897-1947 , because they share the cultural influence of colonial India. The accompanying photos capture the exotic and esoteric mysticism of a sacred tantric ritual in northern India, and the culture of pre-partition India permeated the English musical imagination via Theosophy, an esoteric philosophy that made this kind of exotic Eastern mysticism fashionable for Western dilettantes long before the Beatles visited Rishikesh. Among those attracted by Theosophy were John Foulds (1880-1939) and his wife the violinist Maud M...

But here, as at other times in my life, I dare not purchase peace with a lie. An imperious necessity forces me to speak the truth, as I see it, whether the speech please or displease, whether it brings praise or blame. That one loyalty to Truth I must keep stainless, whatever friendships fail me or human ties be broken. She may lead me into the wilderness, yet I must follow her; she may strip me of all love, yet I must pursue her, though she slay me, yet will I trust in her; and I ask no other epitaph on my tomb but “She tried to follow truth”. Those are the words of social reformer and pioneer Theosophist Annie Besant . As yet another year slips away I dedicate them to the senior arts figure who in 2012 tried unsuccessfully to pressure me into amending one of my articles on sources of classical music funding , and to the well-connected person who made risible noises about litigation in connection with my posts about artists' fees . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Source of quot...

Combining ideas from Wagner and Schuré with his own doctrine, [Rudolf] Steiner produced the Mystery Plays , which were to become the focal point of activity at Dornach and have remained in the anthropological repertoire to this day. These plays, which trace the spiritual evolution of the same characters through four stages (a fifth was never written), combine the arts of speech, movement, colour and design in a Wagnerian synthesis which is given a new twist by Eurythmy. Steinerial Eurythmy (as distinct from Dalcrozian Eurhythmics ) is define as visible speech and song; it is based on the idea that we are affected not only by the sense of words but also by their sound. This sound is produced as invisible waves disturbing the air, and the waves can be translated into visible shapes, resembling the lines of force embodied in Steinerian painting and sculpture. But words also signify something, and the shapes can therefore be used simultaneously to articulate meaning. Yesterday’s question...

Classical music is becoming more and more like factory farming . An intensive and industrialised process financed by global corporations rears consumer friendly products in confined spaces with the sole intention of bringing the bland results to market as quickly as possible . But there are alternatives, such as Bruno Walter's deliciously tasty Mozart. I paid just 14 euros (18 US dollars) in FNAC in Avignon for the new 6CD Sony set seen above which re-issues recordings made in perfectly acceptable sound between 1954 and 1960. Current pricing on Amazon UK is £13.50 , which makes this almost free range Mozart . Thoroughly recommended despite the cost of the bargain price being no documentation at all other than recording venues and dates. Which means no mention that Bruno Walter was a disciple of the Austrian philosopher and educationist Rudolf Steiner . Steiner was a founding figure in the Theosophy movement who influenced a diverse group of musicians including Alexander Scr...

Sibelius' house at Järvenpää is a dark and forbidding place on a gloomy December morning. Ten years ago I was in Helsinki on business with a morning to spare and had decided on the spur of the moment to travel out of the city to visit the legendary Villa Ainola , where the photo of Sibelius above was taken in 1944. What I saw on the journey out of the city set the mood. Southern Finland does not have any of the snow-capped peaks mirrored in lakes that grace the covers of Sibelius CDs. It is low-lying glacial country, and December is not always freezing. While I was there in 2000 the few hours of daylight were mild, grey and damp. After a 45 minute drive through the ribbon developments on the outskirts of Helsinki the coach dropped me on the main road beyond Järvenpää, and I was left standing outside the locked gates of Ainola. I knew that the house would not be open as it was closed to the public during the long Finnish winter. But I had never visited Järvenpää and simply could not...

During the second half of the twentieth century the harpsichord made the remarkable transition from almost extinct historical curiosity to concert hall staple not just for early music but also for new music from composers including John Cage , Elliott Carter and Maurice Ohana . Wolfgang Zuckermann's $150 harpsichord kits, which were launched in 1959, were a major factor in the rehabilitation of the harpsichord, and Zuckermann supplied instruments to John Cage and many other musicians from his workshop in Greenwich Village, New York. The legendary 'Model T' harpsichord kit is Wolfgang Zuckermann's best known contribution to music history. But he had been making high quality finished instruments for a decade before entering the self-assembly market and his manufacturing business continues today under different ownership . In 1969 he published his influential book The Modern Harpsichord which advocated a return to authentic specifications for contemporary instruments and...

'Make the change by non-doing, not by doing' - Sir George Trevelyan Stonehenge is the setting for this photo of the exiled monks of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery blowing the Tibetan low horns known as tungchens . In his 2006 orchestral work Body Mandala Jonathan Harvey uses Western instruments to mimic the sound of tungchens . While composing Body Mandala Harvey, who is a Buddhist , travelled to Northern India and witnessed purification rites in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Although it could well be, the opening quote is not actually about Buddhism. Sir George Trevelyan (1906-1996), who was a leading figure in the movement for spiritual regeneration in Britain and a champion of the Findhorn Community , was not a Buddhist. He was, for a time, a disciple of F.M. Alexander , who developed the Alexander Technique , an alternative approach to physical stress management much favoured by musicians , and it is to the Alexander Technique that the quote refers. Somewhat surprisingly ...