Goodbye conductor - hallo composer

Overgrown Path's web logs over the past few days showed little uplift in traffic to my wide range of Herbert von Karajan articles. Most of the increase that happened came either from searches for the conductor's political and sexual predilections or from Japan, which has always had a special love affair with him. This analysis was mirrored in the mainstream media where, despite strong promotion from Deutsche Grammophon and EMI and some unashamed puffery from Simon Rattle, there was little interest in the Karajan anniversary other than tabloid-style trash from Norman Lebrecht and Ivan Hewett. The music industry loves an anniversary and two years ago we celebrated Shostakovich to death. So why did Herbert's birthday party fall so flat?

Many will say it was because of Karajan, but I disagree. Love him or hate him Karajan was a very high profile conductor who has never struggled in the past for column inches. Nobody came to the party this week-end because our love affair with the conductor is finished. The twentieth-century was the age of the maestro, and the big industry names held a baton - Walter, Toscanini, Furtwängler , Karajan, Boult, Beecham, Barbirolli, Klemperer and others. But as the millenium approached new names emerged, and they were holding a pen instead of a stick. The three 'Bs' of Britten, Bernstein and Boulez were on the cusp, and they have been followed by Stockhausen, Reich, Adams (header photo), Maxwell Davies, Adès and many more. Crucially, a number of these composers are, or were, fine conductors not just of their own music but also of composers as far back as Bach.


As we say goodbye conductor and hello composer major festivals such as the 1938 London Music Festival built around Toscanini (programme above) and the Salzburg Easter Festival created as a vehicle for Karajan have become things of the past. Their replacements are events like the South Bank Centre's Messiaen celebration (poster below), and try finding the conductors (one of who is Pierre Boulez) on that poster.

None of this means conductors will disappear. Orchestras need them just like they need concert masters. But how many readers can name the concert master of the Los Angeles Philharmonic? The celebrity conductor is a dying breed and it is interesting to speculate what that means. The record companies (again) stand to lose most as they depend on personalities to sell CDs. It is almost impossible to get composer/conductors such as Thomas Adès to work the press. Which explains the increasingly shrill attempts to promote increasingly young conductors who are only too willing to co-operate in photo opportunities. When they finally read the writing on the wall (which will probably take as long as it did for them to realise the impact of MP3s) will we see labels signing exclusive deals with composers instead of conductors? And before anyone tells me that contemporary composers don't sell I'd remind them that Naxos' second best selling album in 2007 was Philip Glass' Symphony No. 4 (23,000 units) and the fourth best seller was John Adams' Piano Music (14,000 units). Remember that it took four years for Glenn Gould's 1955 of the Goldberg Variations to sell 40,000 units.

Will we see back catalogue exploitation of neglected conductor/composers of the past such as Antal Dorati? Will we see Thomas Adès recording Mozart concertos directing from the keyboard, and Peter Maxwell Davies recording Mahler and John Adams Beethoven from the podium? Will more composers follow the example of Philip Glass (Orange Mountain Music) and Peter Maxwell Davies (MaxOpus) and establish their own record labels? Your guess is as good as mine. But it is definitely goodbye conductor and hallo composer. Watch this space.


Read more about an artist extraordinaire here.
Toscanini programme from my personal collection and (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. 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

Mahler with such human warmth and soul

'A greater triumph awaited (Sir John Barbirolli) in January 1963 when he conducted Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Mahler was not often played in Berlin, and the (Berlin Philharmonic) orchestra frankly confess that they did not particularly like his music - 'but,' said one of the principals, 'Sir John made us love it as much as he did himself and we played it as he wanted.' So well, indeed, that a leading Berlin critic wrote: 'Not since Furtwängler have we heard such human warmth and soul combined with superb musicianship.'

The orchestra themselves asked that Barbirolli should record the symphony with them, the first English conductor to record with the Berlin Philharmonic since Beecham in 1937. During the cold January of 1964 this famous recording was made in the Jesus-Christuskirche, in the suburb of Dahlem' - from Barbirolli, the Authorised Biography by Michael Kennedy.

Sir John Barbirolli's Mahler Nine is currently available in the EMI Great Recordings of the Century Series, and for once the record company hype is more than justified. That Berlin critic really said it all - such human warmth and soul combined with superb musicianship. Barbirolli's account ranks alongside Bruno Maderna's as one of the the greatest performances of the symphony committed to record, and easily overshadows Herbert von Karajan's two later versions with the Berlin orchestra.

It is forgotten today that Karajan's classic EMI recording of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, made in East Germany with the Staatskapelle Dresden, was originally planned for Barbirolli. But in 1968 Rafael Kubelik asked fellow musicians not to conduct in countries which supported the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. Barbirolli withdrew from the proposed recording, leaving the door open to the opportunist Karajan.

The ghastly sleeve design in the header image is my original 1989 CD copy. Ominously the sound was digitally 're-engineered' in 2002. I haven't heard the result, but I cannot see how the original CD mastering could be improved on, or indeed why it needed 're-engineering'. The recording in Jesus-Christuskirche, Berlin was produced by Ronald Kinloch Anderson, and the sound engineer was Ernst Rothe from the local German EMI company. Glorious sound on my copy, glorious playing, and a glorious interpretation.

Today, Mahler recordings are just another box to be ticked as conductors progress towards superstardom. It was very different in 1964. And there is not much human warmth and soul in EMI these days as new private equity owner Guy Hands prepares to cut up to a third of EMI's 5500 staff. Much has been made in the press of the concerns of EMI's rock artists, but there has been no mention of the priceless classical back-catalogue that is now in the hands of the asset strippers. Snap up Barbirolli's Mahler while you can, and also the new release of Thomas Adès' Violin Concerto before somebody gets their Hands on it.

Too many dead Europeans? Try Glorious John in New York.
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Musical stocking fillers from Overgrown Paths

* Walter Braunfels' Te Deum from Furtwängler and the forgotten new music. A major successs in the lifetime of this now forgotten composer, Braunfels' Wagner influenced Te Deum is a response to the horrors of the First World War - on CD from Orfeo.
* Philippe Boesmans Julie from New music from the old world. Video release of the opera's 1995 premiere production at the Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels - on DVD from BelAir.
* Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus from The Well-Tempered Concert. This video captures the Stuttgart production of Hartmann's only opera. Written in 1935 it uses the Thirty Years' War as a metaphor for Nazi oppression - on DVD from Arthaus Musik.
* Francisco Guerrero's Missa Super flumina from Size does matter. Rising early music star Michael Noone and his Ensemble Plus Ultra presents the premiere recording of a Guerrero Mass - on CD from Glossa.

More simple gifts for Christmas here.
DVD replay standards differ between continents, make sure you buy the right version. 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 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.
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Berlin Philharmonic investigates its Nazi past

One of the world’s most renowned orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, said Tuesday it plans an investigation into its role during the Nazi era. "We’ve never really come to terms with the history of the Philharmonic Orchestra under National Socialism," general manager Pamela Rosenberg said.

A book is to be published this year by Mischa Aster with the cooperation of the 125-year-old orchestra on the period between 1933 and 1945 and above all on the complex relationship that legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler (photo above) had with top Nazis. An exhibition and a film for public television are also planned.

Furtwaengler was the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1922 until 1945 and again from 1952 until his death in 1954. During the Nazi years, he was able to retain his position with an often deferential attitude toward the regime, which used him as a propaganda tool, while still working to protect his Jewish musicians.

Hungarian director Istvan Szabo adapted the play "Taking Sides" about Fuertwaengler’s denazification trial into a film in 2002 starring Harvey Keitel as a US military officer who interrogates him about his relationship with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. The conductor was cleared on all charges but his reputation remained tainted by his proximity to the regime.

From today's European Jewish Press. Now read about the Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour, the story of Furtwangler and the forgotten new music, and the mystery of the orchestra's first black conductor.
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I don’t care what they say about Stokowski

“I know there are other things in music that are more important,” he said in his eighties, “but after all, sound is what we’re selling. I hate nasty tone. Even the timpani should sing. I remember the cymbals in the Bruckner Seventh when Furtwängler did it with the Berlin Philharmonic – a shower of stars. Not a bang or a clap, which is what you seem to get these days. I don’t care what they say about Stokowski. He was good. He could achieve a lovely sound. I learned something from that.”

Another great conductor, Reginald Goodall, talks about Leopold Stokowski who was born on April 18th 1882. Quote from Reggie, the Life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas, John Murray ISBN 1856810518

For Stokowski downloads take this path, to read about Fantasia click here.
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I am a camera in East Berlin

"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed." (from Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, 1939)

The remarkable photo above was developed, carefully printed, and fixed in the 1970s, but has never before been published. It shows two of the feared East German Vopos (Volkspolizei) whose job it was to guard the Berlin Wall. The photograph was taken across death-strip from the West side of the Wall using a powerful telephoto lens. The original print was passed to me recently, and I scanned it to create the image above. The photographer tells me it has never been seen in public before.

For long periods both sides in the Cold War stand-off exchanged nothing more than shots from cameras across the Wall. But for short periods the shots came from guns. Estimates vary as to how many died trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989. The official figure from the German Federal Prosecutor's office is 86 dead at the hands of the Vopos and others. The German Government supported website Chronik der Mauer puts the figure at 125. An even higher figure of 227 is given by Arbeitsgemeinschaft 13, an organisation linked to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie museum, and known for its strongly anti-communist stance.

Fortunately Berlin is no longer divided, and for pictures of the city today see I am a camera - Berlin re-unified. A united Germany, including the former East Germany, is now one of the member states of the fast-growing European Union. This weekend the EU is marking its 50th anniversary with a celebration of its many achievements. These include creating the political climate that allows democracy to flourish in 27 member countries. Among these are Spain, Portugal, Greece and ten former Communist countries, none of which were truly free in the decades following the Second World War.

In 2005 the European Union and its member states paid out more than €43bn in 2005 in aid to developing countries. This is 0.32 per cent of GNP of the 25 member states, and is approaching double the per capita aid level paid out by the United States, which currently spends 0.2 per cent of GNP. The expanded EU is developing common foreign and defence policies, and these are starting to provide a much needed counter-weight to the global power of the US and China.

Europe loves a party, and we also love music. Centrepiece of the EU anniversary celebrations are an all-night bash in a rejuvenated Berlin,and a birthday party in Brussels where Zucchero, Axelle Red, Simply Red, Hooverphonic, Carla Bruni, The Scorpions, Helmut Lotti, Kim Wilde, Las Ketchup, Nadiya (left), Lou Bega and many others come together for an evening of rock at the Atomium. Across town, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, while some of Europe's best jazzmen will be dotted around the city performing at ‘Jazz in Europe now!’. The Jacky Terrasson Trio, Aka Moon, the 18-year-old sensation Gabor Bolla and his quartet are just some of the top bands in Brussels.

In Portugal, more than 220 'bandas' will open their concerts throughout the country by playing the Europe Anthem all at the same time. In Germany, musicians from all 27 EU countries take to the road to play in 50 German cities. Were you born on 25 March? If so, you are invited to a special concert of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Luxembourg. The EU is not new to supporting musical events. The Brxl Bravo Festival (Brussels, 2-4 March) and the European Border Breakers Award (EBBA) are just two recent examples. Most of the financial support comes from Culture 2007.

* I Am a Camera is the title of the play by Christopher Isherwood that became the hugely successful musical and film Cabaret (right). The play was based on Isherwood's Berlin novels, Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). During his time in Berlin in the 1930s Isherwood lived in a tenement block in Schöneberg, which after the war was in the American Sector to the south of the Wall.

Now read about contemporary music from 1930s Berlin in Furtwängler and the forgotten new music.
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Furtwangler and the forgotten new music

When, in November 1943, Furtwängler returned to Berlin from a concert tour abroad, he was informed that the Philharmonie Hall had been bombed during an attack on the night of November 22-23. The facade had been badly damaged, and so had the front rooms in which the irreplaceable music library had been kept. Important letters, files, documents, orginal scores - everything had been destroyed.

The concert hall itself remained intact, but the windows had been blown out, and glass, at the time, was not available. Besides, concerts could no longer be given there because high piles of rubble cut off the hall from the outside world. And before it could be cleared away, more bombs fell on the Philharmonie Hall on January 30, 1944, when the Anhalter Station, near the hall, was the target. This time the Philharmonie was completely wrecked.
From Wilhelm Furtwängler a biography by Curt Riess, 1955

Following the destruction of the Philharmonie Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in nine more concerts before the Nazi forces surrendered. Six were in the Staatsoper, and when this was damaged by bombing the last three were held in the Admiralpalast. The last concerts under Nazi rule were held on 22nd and 23rd January with a programme of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflote' overture, Mozart Symphony no 40 (first two movements only for reasons not given), and Brahms First Symphony.

Those final two concerts took place just four months before the collapse of Berlin. Allied forces were closing in on the stricken city, and air raids continued night and day. Remember that Hitler was not a democratically elected leader, and many of those, musicians and others, trapped in the beleagured city were not rabid Nazis. Like those in the Twin Towers, New Orleans and the London Underground history dictated that many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The predicament faced by the performing arts in the 21st century palls into insignificance compared with the conditions that the inhabitants, and musicians, of Berlin faced in the final months of the war.

Yet not only did the music continue, but quite remarkably the final nine concerts in those last torrid months included the first performance of one new work (by Gerhart von Westerman, and played in two successive concerts), and one Berlin Philharmonic first performance (Kurt Hessenberg’s Second Symphony).

Today Wilhelm Furtwängler's name is irrevocably linked to the Nazis. It is not the purpose of this article to cover that ground again, too many apologies have already been written. The fact is he remained in Germany as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic through the darkest hours of the Nazis. But a lot of great music was performed in the years between 1922 and 1954 when Furtwangler led the orchestra. Although his political compromises were deplorable, they should not prevent study of the music that was an integral part of the culture during those turbulent years.

Furtwängler is remembered today as an important interpreter of the Austro-Germanic repertoire, from Mozart through Beethoven to Bruckner. He is also known as a composer; the very last work he conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic in concert was his own Second Symphony on 20th September 1954. He died just three months later in December 1954.

During his thirty-two years as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic a surprising amount of 20th century music was performed under his baton. (Don’t forget his tenure at the orchestra only covered the first half of the century). Some the new music has endured. There was much Schoenberg (including the first performance of the Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 2nd version in 1928), much Pfitzner and Hindemith (the Nazi banning of his opera Mathis del Maler provoked Furtwangler’s resignation from the Berlin Opera in 1934), plus Bartok, Prokofiev and more.

But he also performed a large amount of 20th century music that has not stood the test of time. For research purposes I have taken a subjective definition of a ‘forgotten composer’ as one whose work is not performed with any regularity today. Using this definition, I researched every one of the four hundred and seventy-three concerts Furtwängler conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic. This identified forty-five 20th century works, from thirty composers who have subsequently slipped into varying degrees of obscurity.

The results of my research are given below (more details of the research are given as a footnote). The history of these composers varies. Many remained in Germany through the Nazi period and beyond. Some such as Ernst Toch (right) fled to the US when the Nazis came to power. There are very few non-Germans, but these include the Italian Alfredo Casella, who was a known Fascist sympathiser. Interestingly one fellow conductor-composer is included, the Polish-born Paul Kletzki. Some works remain in print, if not in performance. These include the two works performed in 1944 after the destruction of the Philharmonie; Gerhart von Westerman's Divertimento and Kurt Hessenberg's Second Symphony, op. 29.

Looking at frequency of performance, the name that jumps out is Max Trapp. Six of his compositions were given over a twenty-eight year period, three of these in first performances. His works were performed both during the Nazi period (1935 and 1939), and after the war in 1951. Trapp lived from 1887 to 1971, and taught in various positions in Berlin throughout his life. His works included seven symphonies, and chamber music. The only one known at all today is his Piano Concerto, and he is largely forgotten. Why?

There is no suggestion that a body of forty-five neglected masterpieces awaits discovery in Berlin archives. (But how many perished in the fall of Berlin?) But what was this music like? Furtwängler was a brilliant conductor and accomplished composer – does his programming of these composers bestow some merit on them? Or were many of them politically convenient commissions? (This argument falls on the fact that many of the performances were pre-1933). Is the comparative obscurity (I can find no information at all on two) of these composers simply typical of the casualty rate among new works? Have I misrepresented these artists who lived through such difficult times? Do any readers know more about these thirty forgotten composers?

More questions than answers, but an overgrown path that is well worth exploring. Please add further information and views using the comments (or email) feature at the foot of the article.

And here is my analysis of Furtwängler's forgotten modern music:

Max Trapp: Symphonie Nr. 11 in h-moll op. 15 (BPO first performance)
28/29 January 1923.
Symphonie Nr.IV in b-moll op. 24 (BPO first performance)
14/15 December 1930.
Sinfonische Suite op. 30 (BPO first performance)
3 & 4 December 1933.
Orchesterkonzert op. 32 (First performance)
29/30 September 1935.
Konzert Nr. II f. Orchester op. 36 (First performance)
3/5 December 1939.
Symphonie Nr. Vl op. 45 (First performance)
25/26 February 1951.
Walter Braunfels:
“Don Juan”, eine klassich-romantische Phantasmagorie op. 34 (BPO first performance)
16/17 Novembber 1924.
Vorspiel u. Prolog aus “Die Vogel.”
20/21 December 1925.
Georg Schumann: (photo right) Variationen und Gigue uber ein Thema von G. F. Handel op. 72 (BPO first performance)
22/23 February 1925.
Variationen uber “Gerstern abend war Vetter Michel “ da op. 74 (First performance)
2/3 February 1930.
Philipp Jarnach:
Morgenklangspiel op. 19 (First performance)
7/8 November 1926.
Musik mit Mozart. Symphonische Variaten f. Orch op. 25 (BPO first performance)
15/17 February 1942.
Ernst Toch:
Komodie f. Orchester op. 42 (BPO first performance)
13/14 November 1927.
Kleine Theatersuite op. 54 (BPO first performance)
8/9 February 1931.
Karl Marx:
Konzert f. 2 Violinen u. Orch. Op. 5 (BPO first performance)
30 Nov/1 December 1930.
Passacaglia ((First performance)
18/19 December 1932.
Heinrich Kaminsky:
Dorische Musik
25/26 November 1934.
Konzert f. Klavier u. Orch (BPO first performance, the composer conducted this work, Furtwangler conducted the balance of the programme )
28/29 November 1937.
Gottfried Muller:
Variationen u. Fugue uber ein deutsches Volkslied (“Morgenrot Morgenrot”) op. 2 (BPO first performance)
5/6 Feb 1933.
Konzert f. gr. Orchester op. 5 (BPO first performance)
17/19 December 1939.
Theodor Berger: (photo right)
Rondino giocoso (BPO first performance)
15/17 December 1940.
Ballade f. Orchester op. 10 (First performance)
2/4 November 1941.
Karl Holler:
Konzert f. Violincello u. Orch. Op. 26
16/18 October 1949.
Konzert f. Violincello u. Orchester op. 26 (First performance)
19/21 October 1941.
Heinz Schubert:
Praludium u. Toccata f. Streichorch (BPO first performance)
5/7 February 1939.
Hymnisces Konzert f. Orgel, Orch. Mit Sopran- und Tenor-solo (BPO first performance)
6/8 December 1942.
Bernhard Sekles: Gesichte. Fantastiche Miniaturen f. kl. Orch. Op. 29 (BPO first performance)
11/12 November 1923.
Alfredo Casella: Partita f. Klavier u. Orchester (BPO first performance)
19/20 December 1926.
Karol Rathaus: Ouverture fur grosses Orchester op. 22 (First performance)
4/5 March 1928.
Gunther Raphael: Thema, Variationen u. Rondo f. Orch. Op. 19 (BPO first performance)
24/25 March 1929.
Paul Kletzki: Orchestervariationen (BPO first performance)
19/20 January 1930.
Botho Sigwart: Melodram “Hektors Bestattung” op. 15
2/3 February 1930.
Wladimir Vogel: 2 Etuden f. Orchester (BPO first performance)
25/26 October 1931.
Paul Graener: Die Flote von Sanssouci. Suite f. Kammerorch. Op. 88 (BPO first performance)
20/21 December 1931.
Max Ettinger: Altenglische Suite op. 30 (BPO first performance)
3 & 4 April 1932.
Hugo Reichenberger: Zwei Mariensbilder
18/19 December 1932.
Max v. Schillings: Symphonischer Prolog zu “Konig Odipus” f. gr. Orch. Op. 11
15/16 October 1933.
Sigfrid Walther Muller: Heitere Musik op, 43 (BPO first performance)
14/15 January 1934.
Hans Brehme: Triptychon (BPO first performance)
26/28 November 1938.
Heinrich Zilcher (should this be Hermann Zilcher, a composer who lived from 1881 - 1948?) : Konzert f. Violine u Orch. In A-dur op. 92 (First performance)
2/4 February 1941.
Paul Hoffer: Symphonische Variatonen uber einen Bass von Bach op. 47 (BPO First performance)
1/3 March 1942.
Gerhard Frommel: Symphonie in E-dur op. 13 (First performance)
8/10 November 1942
Ernst Pepping: Symphonie Nr. II f. Orch. In f-moll (BPO first performance)
31 October/3 November 1943.
Gerhart v. Westerman: Divertimento f. gr. Orch. Op. 16 (First performance)
22/23 October 1944.
Kurt Hessenberg: (photo above) Symphonie Nr. Ll in A-dur op. 29 (BPO first performance) 11 December 1944.

Notes on the research:
1.The analysis was carried out specifically for this article using Wilhelm Furtwängler Die Programme Der Konzert Mit Dem Berliner Philharmonischen Orchester 1922-1954 published in 1965 by F.A. Brockhaus Wiesbaden.
2. I have not translated the composition titles from their original German. This is because many have never been translated, and I would prefer a more skilled linguist to undertke this important work.
3. I have added hyperlinks to web resources where available. Not surpisingly some of these are in German. Details of further resources will be gratefully received. I will be glad to share the contents of this fascinating inventory of every work Furtwangler performed with the Berlin Philharmonic with any interested researchers.
4. First performance means world premiere. BPO first performance is hopefully self-explanatory.
5. The Classical Composers Database is a very useful tool for researching the more obscure composers; but, like all of us, it is by no means infallible.

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
Now take an overgrown path to Musicians against nuclear weapons

* This article was originally published on October 5 18, 2005, and is reblogged here as part of On An Overgrown Path's second anniversary celebration of Music beyond borders. Follow this link to read the comments posted to the original article.

Britten's musical mind map

What a blog! A big hurdle to be overcome: music's use to further distinguish, even exalt, a given class distiction. Even in ancient Greece, there was 'elitist' music. Today, rap a genre of primarily non-eltitist society, occupies a powerful vantantage point for influence. Well funded and world wide, rap is turning music, eltism, and influence, on its head. But what is built on sand gets pumelled by the storm of time.

Posted by Sostenuto (sic) to my article Music and politics. Whenever a thoughtful comment like that is added I click through to the poster's own blog. Sostenuto describes himself as 'a violinist in his early stages as a composer. I consider my musical influences to be Bach, Messiaen, Monteverdi (early music in general,) Schoenberg, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Mozart, Glass and the like. I'm currently studying music performance with Mathias Tacke of the Vermeer Quartet along with compositional studies.' With those musical influences he'd probably qualify for a mention here anyway, but it was the name of Sostenuto's blog that caught my attention - A musical mind map.

That produced one of those blazing 'why didn't I think of that moments?' for me. I tried in one of my first ever posts, Serendipity and Collaborative Filtering, to articulate what On An Overgrown Path is about. For anyone that hasn't come across mind maps they are a form of non-linear radiant presentation that allows the fast exploration, and development, of an idea while simultaneouly maintaining clear focus on the central themes.

Interestingly, although mind maps have been around since at least the 1970s their topography approximates closely to the navigation map of a website, and as the illustration here shows a mind map has striking similarities to the architecture of some contemporary music. Now I've used mind maps extensively in my day job, and in fact my current project started from just one mind map. But I had never seen the blindingly obvious - On An Overgrown Path is a non-linear interlinked exploration of themes, just like Sostenuto's blog it is a musical mind map.

This non-linear path leads me to yet another musical destination. Last night was one of those very rare moments when the musical and theatrical planets aligned to transcend what Wilhelm Furtwängler described as 'the hoar frost of routine'. Benjamin Britten's church parable Curlew River is an elusive work that is dauntingly difficult to pull off in a live performance. The role of the Madwoman will always prompt comparison with the singer it was written for, the incomparable Peter Pears. The modest scoring for just seven instruments, with its remorselessly exposed passages, makes extraordinary demands on the players, while the composition is so venue specific (see Britten – music does not exist in a vacuum) that it only works in an acoustic very similar to that of the East Anglian church of Orford where it was first performed. And an excellent recording, production photographs and living memories mean Britten's original presentation is always there for comparison, and my photograph above shows the original production with Pears as the madwoman prostrating himself at the foot of the cross.

Mahogany Opera are not a company to shirk challenges, and they chose a venue closely linked to Britten to premiere their new production of Curlew River. Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh is not only an architectural wonder in its own right, it is also a short distance from Aldeburgh and Orford, and it is a church Britten himself knew well as it was here that the 1969 Aldeburgh Festival was transferred to, including an aclaimed production of Idomeneo, after the original Snape Maltings concert hall was destroyed by fire - see Music will rise from the wreckage.

Of course Curlew River is a musical mind map par excellence, a non-linear exploration of plainsong, Japanese Noh theatre, medieval religous drama and 20th century musical vocabulary. Mahogany Opera's Director and Producer Frederic Wake-Walker grasped these disparate threads and welded them together to deliver one of the most memorable evenings of music drama that I have ever been priviliged to attend. From the moment the opening plainsong 'Te lucis ante terminum' drifted in from the churchyard and the performers processed in through the west door of the darkened 15th century church it was clear that this performance was going to be an 'out-of-body' experience, and the next 70 minutes did not disappoint.

This was Britten delivered by an inspired group of young performers who shared much with the original 1958 performers. Frederic Wake-Walker is just 25, he was brought up in Suffolk and sung as a treble in Britten operas at Snape. He recently graduated from Edinburgh University with a Masters in Philosophy and Systematic Theology, is now a staff director at Glyndebourne, and has worked in other opera houses with Franco Zeffirelli, John Cox, and David McVicar. Musical Director Nicholas Collon recently graduated from Clare College, Cambridge where he was the Organ Scholar reading music. His performers consistently maintained the high standards demanded by Britten's writing. John McMunn, the excellent Madwoman, is an alumnus of Harvard, and he has just graduated from King's College, Cambridge where he was a choral scholar.

Designer of the visually stunning production, from which the two production shots above are taken, is Mara Amats who was born in Latvia, was apprenticed to the monk and iconographer, Gregory Krug, at the monastery of Our Lady of Kazan near Fontainbleu in France, trained restoring icons and frescoes in Ethiopia, and spent many years working with craftsmen and artists in impoverished areas of Africa, India, Nepal, the Caribbean and Central Asia. The production poster by Maria Amats which I reproduce below uses reeds which grow in the rivers and marshes around Britten's Aldeburgh.

Mahogany Opera is a company to watch out for. They will be following Curlew River with Noye's Fludde in 2007, and their future plans include the UK premiere (plus a performance in Berlin) of Boris Blacher's Abstrakte Oper Nr 1, the world premiere of Capital Transfer by Kenneth Platts, a choreographed production of Schoenberg's Von Heute auf Morgan, and a new Greek opera by Evangeli Rigaki called The Last God with a libretto by the muti-talented Frederic Wake-Walker.

This new production of Curlew River is an important milestone from an exciting new professional company. Catch it if you can in the much bigger performing space of Southwark Cathedral, London on August 22, Holy Trinity, Melford, on August 24, and All Saint's, Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, August 26 & 27. For more details follow this link.

Thank you Mahogany Opera for a truly magical evening of music making, and thank you Sostenuto for sparking this particular musical mind map. And do return here tomorrow for an article on racial elitism in music.

Image credits: Noh mask from Austrian Theatre Museum, Lobkowitzplatz, Vienna, Curlew River from The Musical Times. Production shots Mahogany Opera. 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
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The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

Wilhelm Furtwängler was born on 25th January 1886. He was Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1923 to his death in 1954, and held this position for the twelve years that Hitler was in power. In January 1945 he was conducting in Vienna, and fled from there to Switzerland where he remained until the Battle of Berlin ended in the defeat of the Nazis. The musicians of his orchestra remained in Berlin during its darkest hour. Here is their story:


On 28th March 1945 the Russian forces commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov were just twenty miles to the east of Berlin. A month previously Albert Speer had been replaced as Nazi armaments minister after trying to persuade Hitler that defeat was inevitable. Speer now turned his energies to preventing the musicians of his adored Berlin Philharmonic from perishing in the inevitable final battle. Reich Commisioner Dr Joseph Goebells, who was in charge of the defence of Berlin, had ordered the entire orchestra to be drafted into the Volkssturm, the Home Guard responsible for the final desperate defence of the doomed city. To delay their drafting Speer sent his liaison officer to remove and destroy the musician's papers while he put in place a plan to save the orchestra. (The photograph above shows a Berlin street in May 1945).

During the day on 28th March a convoy of lorries left the besieged city to take many of the orchestra's scores, pianos, harps, Wagner tubas, and the musician's dress suits south to the relative safety of Plassenburg, near Bayreuth. In the evening the orchestra was to give a concert, conducted by Robert Heger, in the Beethoven Salle, which was miraculously still standing surrounded by ruins. The scheduled programme was Beethoven's Egmont Overture, the Brahms Double Concerto, and Strauss' Tod und Verklarung. But it had previously been agreed that a change to another programme would be the signal that this was the final concert, and that the musicians were to leave the city after the final work. They were then to travel by coach to the Bayreuth area which was about to be taken by American forces, leaving them at a safe distance from the dreaded Soviet Army. The new programme was appropriately the final scene from Die Götterdämmerung, the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Gerhard Taschner, and to conclude Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, 'the Romantic'.

The concert hall was packed for the 5.00 pm start, despite the danger from air-raids and the absence of any heating. The electricity in Berlin was normally cut off in the evenings, but Speer had arranged for it to remain connected. The hall was in darkness and illumination came only from the lights on the music stands. There was only one unexpected event in this final evening of music making. As the rapturous applause for the Bruckner symphony died away the orchestra did not leave for southern Germany as arranged. They had voted to remain in the city to face the dreadful final days with the other Berliners. Only Gerhard Taschner left in a car driven by Speer's chauffeur, taking with him his wife, two children, and the daughter of another musician.

The other brave musicians stayed to face their own Twilight of the Gods. As the audience left they were offered cyanide capsules (suicide pills) from baskets held by children wearing Hitler Youth uniforms. Of the 125,000 Berliners who died in the final battle for their city 6400 committed suicide. Many of the suicides were women and girls who had been raped by Soviet troops. Over 90,000 women visited doctors and clinics as a result of being raped.

Albert Speer was sentenced to twenty years in prison at the Nuremberg Trials. He had controversially avoided the death sentence passed down to many of his co-defendants. The prison sentence was said to be recognition of his remorse, and his deliberate disobedience of Hitler's orders in the last days of the war. At his trial the prosecution showed a photograph of Speer visiting the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he is clearly shown surrounded by emaciated prisoners. The prosecution claimed this proved Speer was well aware of the Holocaust. However, Speer held that he was only given a "V.I.P." tour of the concentration camp, meaning he never knew the camp's real purpose. Albert Speer was released from prison in 1966, and died in London in 1981. (The photo above shows Albert Speer with Hitler.)

Gerhard Taschner was only twenty-three in 1945. He had travelled to America before the war, and was said to have been encouraged to stay in Berlin by Furtwängler. After the war his career continued as soloist, teacher and chamber musician, although it was hampered by the absence of a major recording contract. He is particularly linked with

Wolfgang Fortner's Violin Concerto which he premiered in 1947, and went on to champion. Taschner died aged only fifty-four in 1976.

Robert Heger continued his career both as conductor and composer after the war. He died in Munich in 1978.

* Article prepared with acknowledgements to The Fall of Berlin by Anthony Read and David Fisher (Pimlico ISBN 0712657975) and Albert Speer, His Battle with the Truth by Gitta Sereny (Macmillan ISBN 0333645197). Additional material from Wikipedia article on Albert Speer.
* Image credits - Berlin 1945 - Globalsecurity.org
- Gerhard Taschner's recording of Wolfgang Fortner's Violin Concerto, with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwangler from Amazon.
- Albert Speer with Hitler from Museum of European Art, New York
* Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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The Winter's Tale

“Heck, I reckon you wouldn’t even be human beings if ya didn’t have some pretty strong feelings about nuclear combat.But I want ya to remember one thing, tha folks back home is a countin’ on ya, and by golly, we ain’t about to let ‘em down” Major Kong (Slim Pickens) to his B-52 aircrew when told to attack the Soviet Union. From the movie Doctor Strangelove.

In January 1968 the fears of a catastrophic nuclear accident that had haunted the scientists working on the wartime Manhattan Project were almost realised when an American B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear weapons with a reported combined yield of 4.4 megatons of TNT crashed in Greenland. The US Air Force base at Thule in Greenland was a strategically important early-warning station monitoring Soviet missile activity. Because of its importance and location the US government decided in the late '60s that the base was too vulnerable to Russian attack. So at least one US bomber armed with nuclear weapons was kept in the air all the time within radio range of the base. If Thule was attacked this bomber would be able to strike back against Russia, and the picture below shows one of the bombers, armed with nuclear weapons, at the base.


On 21st January 1968 a B-52 Stratofortress carrying seven crew members and four nuclear weapons was circling near Thule on such a mission when a fire started in the cabin heater. The captain tried to land the crippled bomber at the base, but the fire cut all power and the landing was abandoned. Six crew members baled out safely using their ejector seats, and the stricken bomber with one crew member on board (he could not escape as he did not have an ejector seat) flew over the base and crashed onto the sea ice seven miles west of the base. The bomber exploded on impact killing the remaining crew member, and the force of the explosion scattered the burning wreckage over a wide area. The crashing plane is reported to have severed the hot line telecommunications link from the base, triggering a false nuclear attack alert, and causing the Strategic Air Command to think for a short time that the Thule base had been attacked.

A complex sequence of actions was required to set off the nuclear bombs, and these safeguards thankfully meant that there was not a full nuclear explosion. But the deadly weapons are triggered by high explosives, and these did explode in all four bombs. The resulting explosion spread uranium, tritium and plutonium over a 700 meter radius. The heat from the burning plane caused the ice to melt, and debris, including the thermonuclear assembly from one of the bombs, fell through to the seabed.

The ensuing clean-up operation involved 3000 personnel, 38 naval ships, and the removal of 10,000 tons of snow and ice. But controversy continues as to how successful it was. A U.S. State Department document dated August 1968 said all the nuclear weapons had been ‘accounted for’, but failed to spell-out whether this actually meant they had been recovered. The Danish media claims that one of the thermonuclear weapons (picture right) was never recovered, and still lies on the seabed. A Pentagon spokesman is reputed to have made the following statement about the missing weapon, “I don’t know of any missing bomb, but we have not positively identified what I think you are looking for”.

A study in 1987 by a Danish medical institute showed that workers at the Thule base were 50% more likely to develop cancers than other Danish military personnel. 200 of the workers subsequently unsuccessfully sued the U.S. government, but the discovery process for the court case identified anomalies in health monitoring procedures.

Missing bomb, or no missing bomb, the Thule B-52 crash graphically confirmed the stanza from the Bhagavad Gita quoted by ‘Doctor Atomic’ Robert Oppenheimer before the very first atomic test, and quoted in my article about the Manhattan Project.

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds

Eighteen years after the Thule accident fears of a full nuclear disaster were realised at Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine). Important safety procedures were disregarded while testing one of the reactors in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant located 80 miles north of Kiev. In the early morning of 25th April 1986 the chain reaction in one reactor escalated out of control. The subsequent explosion blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid (right), releasing a fireball with 'the radiance of a thousand suns'. As well as those killed in the blast 28 people died within four months from radiation burns. 19 more died subsequently, and there have been a further nine deaths from thyroid cancer apparently due to the accident, bringing the total fatalities to 56. As a result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding area 135,00 people had to be evacuated

Nuclear energy is never far from the headlines. On the day I wrote this article Russia cut Ukraine's gas supplies, and triggered a knock-on gas shortage in other European countries. Concern over the stability of energy supplies triggered new calls for the development of further nuclear power stations. Among those who worked with the victims of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant were International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan international grouping of medical organisations dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons. They work with the long-term victims of nuclear explosions and accidents in locations ranging from Hiroshima to Chernobyl, and their work has been recognised with the 1984 UNESCO Peace Prize, and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. For the last 21 years IPPNW-Concerts has been working from its Berlin office with top musicians world-wide to raise funds for their work.

As well as being a fantastic cause there is some music well worth exploring available on IPPNW-Concerts' own CD label, and in co-productions with Swedish label BIS. These are all live recordings of concerts promoted by IPPNW over the years. There are forty-nine CDs in the catalogue with composers ranging from Monteverdi to Elliot Carter. The nuggets worth mining include Furtwängler's Te Deum (right) coupled with Brahms and Hindemith (CD40).

Wort und Musik - 60 Jahre nach Hiroshima is a live recording made at the March 2005 'Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project' which mixes readings in German from a range of authors including Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein and Sadako Kurihara with relevent music including the aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Shostakovich's String Quartet No 8 and Schubert’s Quartettsatz. On the lighter side there are also a number of jazz recordings worth exploring, including the Berlin Philharmonic Jazz Group playing live in 2004 in the Philharmonie in Berlin with the world-famous baritone Thomas Quasthoff.

IPPNW co-productions with BIS also contain some real gems. My own favourite is a live Missa Solemnis from the Philharmonie in Berlin with Antal Doráti conducting the European Symphony Orchestra, University of Maryland Chorus, and a distinguished group of soloists. Another BIS co-production recorded at the Philharmonie with the New Berlin Chamber Orchestra and members of the Czech Philharmonic and HdK-Chamber Choir conducted by Martin Fischer-Dieskau includes two of Doráti’s own compositions (his Pater Noster, Prayer for Mixed Choir and Jesus oder Barabbas? a melodrama after a story by Karinthy Frigyes for Speaker, Orchestra and Choir) alongside works from Bartok and Martinu. Finally among the BIS co-productions a live