Classic architecture - classic recordings

I am sure every reader will know the name of the recording ensemble featured on the LP sleeve above. But how many know the story of the building which they take their name from? Read the story of St Martin-in-the-Fields here, and read about the Academy here.
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Proud to be a music anorak

Nice to see classical vinyl generating excitement in today's Guardian, but not sure about the headline - 'A music anorak's treasure trove' which suggests classical music is some kind of nasty habit. Also it appears from the piece that the Guardian (and BBC's) Tom Service doesn't have a record deck. I'll let you into a secret. I don't have an iPod, but I do have a Thorens TD125, which I guess also makes me a turntable anorak.

Elsewhere in the Guardian a late tribute to Herbert von Karajan adds little original but is good for a laugh with my old EMI colleague Peter Alward describing Karajan as 'very shy, a simple man with simple tastes'. Which is the best description of a very large yacht and Falcon 10 executive jet I've ever come across.
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

So you thought classical music was dead?

davidderrick has left a new comment on your post "Music's unmerry widows" - Not 1981, surely? CDs only came in in March 83. This was around 89. Possibly for the genius's 80th birthday? 'Scuse pedantry ...

David, the Galleria series were originally released in LP format. I could not recall having bought any of the series. But age doesn't just make better conductors, it also plays tricks with memory. Which is why Sir John Barbirolli conducted from a score. After your comment arrived I went through my LPs and found this 1982 vinyl record, complete with Eliette von Karajan painting, which I have just photographed. The Deutsche Grammophon website confirms the dates.

Meanwhile the Karajan centenary bandwagon is really starting to roll. Tonight (Jan 23) BBC Radio 4 promises a 'reassessment' of Karajan (why not Radio 3 - not Classic FM enough for them?), while DG's centenary releases are here (but I can't see the excellent vinyl only Second Viennese School set). The Karajan industry is definitely hard currency - the Austrian Mint are to issue a 5 Euro commemorative coin in April. There are going to be books galore (but no Lauterwasser volume), re-releases of recordings, and more memorial concerts than there were for Princess Diana. If you thought classical music was dead check it all out here.

The current Karajan memorial European tour by the Berlin Philharmonic features Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony (but there are no T-shirts). By coincidence my first classical record was that symphony on DG conducted by Karajan. Read about it here.
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LPs were like the force of gravity

'Folksingers, jazz artists and classical musicians made LPs, long-playing records with heaps of songs in the grooves - they forged identities and tipped the scales, gave more of the big picture. LPs were like the force of gravity. They had covers front and back, that you could stare at for hours.' - Bob Dylan writes in his Chronicles Volume One.

'Hi, I wanted to let you know some exciting news today from Deutsche Grammophon (DG), a division of Universal Music Group, who will become the first major classical record label to make the majority of its huge catalogue available online for download with the launch of its new DG Web Shop. (http://www.dgwebshop.com/

As the world’s leading classical music recording company, Deutsche Grammophon will launch its DG Web Shop on Wednesday, November 28th, enabling consumers in 42 countries to download music at the highest technical and artistic standards. This global penetration includes markets where the major e-business retailers, such as iTunes, are not yet available: Southeast Asia including China, India, Latin America, South Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe including Russia. Almost 2,400 DG albums will be available for download in maximum MP3 quality.

Best, Kristina Weise at Cohn & Wolfe' - who are "a strategic marketing public relations firm dedicated to creating, building and protecting the world's most prolific brands."

Call me old fashioned. I like the tangible. You could certainly stare at the LP sleeve above. or the record label here, for hours. Which is more than can be said for the new DG Web Shop logo. The photographer of the Hanson LP sleeve is Christian Steiner, who has photographed many of the world's great musicians. Steiner is an accomplished performer himself as his biography recounts:

'Steiner, after graduating from the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik, won several national competitions in Germany and it was one of these awards which first brought him to New York to further his piano studies. He comes from a long line of musicians. His father was a member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and his brothers were members of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Steiner made piano recording with RCA-Reader’s Digest, and was a guest soloist with orchestras in Berlin and New York; more recent engagements at the keyboard include performances with the Berkeley Symphony under Kent Nagano, and with the National Symphony or Mexico. He also performed chamber music with members of the Berlin Philharmonic Octet and recitals with his late brother Peter in Europe and the USA.

Among the singers he has collaborated in recital are Jessye Norman and Carol Vaness. In addition, Steiner is the artistic director of The Tannery Pond Concerts, a summer chamber music festival in the Berkshires.'

Less happy images here, from another celebrated photographer.
Again thanks to our son for the 'joiner' on the record sleeve. 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

The next uber cool music distribution platform

Move over Radiohead. Here is the next über cool music distribution platform. I took the photo of the window of my local Oxfam charity shop on Saturday (left click to enlarge the sleeves), and the Guardian jumped on the bandwagon yesterday .....

Banish all thoughts of scruffy students rifling through the rails for the perfect vintage shirt and eccentric aunts picking up next year's Christmas presents. Starting tonight some of the coolest names in music will descend on a charity shop in east London for four evenings of intimate live appearances and DJ sets.

Shelves of Mills and Boon romances and 1980s cassettes will make way for The Kooks, Jamelia and Hot Chip, who will play to select audiences of just 100 competition winners at Oxfam's books and music store in Dalston.

Jarvis Cocker, the doyen of charity shop chic, will be playing records he has bought in their bargain racks over the years, and the series, which launches the charity's month-long Oxjam festival of 3,000 events in different venues across Britain, will culminate in a set by Fatboy Slim, aka Norman Cook.

Charity shops are only the latest off-beat venue to be commandeered for "boutique gigs". In recent years chip shops, forests, tube trains and prisons have all played host to leading artists.

But On An Overgrown Path had the story first.
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Move over iPhone - here comes vinyl

"The format was supposed to have been badly wounded by the introduction of CDs and killed off completely by the ipod-generation that bought music online. But in a rare case of cheerful news for the record labels, the latest phenomenon in a notoriously fickle industry is one nobody dared predict: a vinyl revival. Latest figures show a big jump in vinyl sales in the first half of this year, confirming the anecdotal evidence from specialist shops throughout the UK.

"It comes as sales of CD singles continue to slide - and it is not being driven by technophobic middle-aged consumers. Teenagers and students are developing a taste for records and are turning away from the clinical method of downloading music on to an MP3 player.

"The data, released by the UK's industry group BPI, shows that 7in vinyl sales were up 13% in the first half, with the White Stripes' Icky Thump the best seller.Two-thirds of all singles in the UK now come out on in the 7in format, with sales topping 1m. Though still a far cry from vinyl's heyday in 1979, when Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes alone sold that number and the total vinyl singles market was 89m, the latest sales are still up more than fivefold in five years.

"For record stores, the resurgence has meant a move from racks of vintage Rolling Stones and Beatles releases to brand new singles and younger buyers. "The student population seem to be loving the 7in," says Stuart Smith, who runs Seismic Records in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. He sells 300-600 records a week and is preparing to launch an online store. "I'm still not sure about the MP3 generation. You can have a full hard drive and nothing to show for it. Record collections are very personal. You can view into a person's soul really," he says.

The extract above is from today's Guardian. And the header photo is a view into my soul. It was taken a few minutes ago and shows an LP from Deutsche Grammophon's 1973 Schoenberg, Berg and Webern orchestral set playing on my Thorens TD125. This Second Viennese School overview was played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and, to my knowledge, has never made it onto CD complete, although I have the 'highlights' CD that was compiled from it in 1999. (Listen to brief audio samples here)

Producer of the set for DG was Hans Weber with Tonmeister Günter Hermanns. The Berg Drei Orchesterstücke Op. 6 was recorded in Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin, all the other works were captured in the Philharmonie. The vinyl pressings are out of DG's top drawer. Mine are still pristine, and sound absolutely magnificent. For audiophiles the rest of my replay system is an Audio-Technica AT-F3/OCC moving coil phono cartridge, SME Series lllS tone arm, Arcam Alpha 10 integrated amplifier, Sennheiser HD 580 headphones, and B&W Nautilus 803 speakers.

The lavish booklet that came with the DG set can be seen in my photo. It includes a serious analysis of each work, wonderful full page photos of the composers, and a biography of Karajan that takes hagiography to an Olympic level. Special mention should me made of the cover design by Hartmut Pfeiffer. (Is that the same Hartmut Pfeiffer who is credited as one of the conductors on DG's Stravinsky overview?). The cover graphic becomes a work of art on the 12" by 12" LP box. When reduced to a 4.5" by 4.5" CD liner it becomes as disposable as an MP3 file.

Karajan's lush 1973 interpretations of these Second Viennese School classics, and DG's 'spot-lit' microphone technique, are completely out of step with today's minimalist zeitgeist. But these vinyl LPs provide a window into my musical soul, and they challenged, educated and inspired me when I bought them back in the early 1970s.

As I took the DG LP of Schoenberg's Orchestervariationen Op. 31 off the turntable I switched the Arcam amplifier over to the tuner and saw into the musical soul of BBC Radio 3. Rob Cowan was challenging, educating and inspiring listeners with an orchestral arrangement of April in Paris.

More riches from my Thorens TD125 here.
Photo copyright 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