On An Overgrown Path

An important new development for BBC Radio 3 is their move into online MP3 file downloads, as opposed to audio streaming. MP3 files of the Beethoven Symphonies played by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda are available from their web site for two days after broadcast as part of their Beethoven fest . Open this link to access the downloads , but hurry as the downloads are available for a limited period. These downloads are free. There is a fair amount of small print on the site about the files only being available for personal, non-commercial use. Radio 3 controller Roger Wright has said in a press release "We hope it will encourage audiences to explore online classical music." The motive of trying to reach more listeners for classical music is very laudable, and has taxed music bloggers for some time . But since the Beethoven MP3 files became available in early June the BBC has said that more than 700,000 listeners downloaded files of the first five symphonies. ...

Full marks to the ever innovative Sequenza21 for bringing Wiki technology into blogging . Wiki software allows mutiple authors to create and modify documents online. And the smart guys at Sequenza21 are using it to build a reader created community encyclopeadia of new music. This is exactly what Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web for - sharing information between multiple users. The online Wiki encyclopaedia has very successfully pioneered the development of free-content resources on the internet. It is fantastic to see Sequenza21 right in there using this innovative platform. Collabarative working is not without its hazards though. Last weeks a pioneering 'Wikitorial' about Iraq, and written by readers, was pulled at the LA Times due to online vandalism. But the music bloggers are a much better behaved bunch than the political activists, and I fully expect Sequenza21's Wiki project to be hugely successful, and followed by many others. It is worth reflecting th...

I've been away from the keyboard for three weeks, so I've watched at a distance (via an internet cafe in Avignon to be precise) the fascinating debate on my post Is recorded classical music too cheap? . This post generated a record number of comments including a very thoughtful one from Galen H.Brown over on Sequenza21's Composers Forum . The debate is still continuing with Tim Worstall picking it up on his excellent non-music blog . The thrust of Tim's argument (and he has some background as a jazz musician) is that recorded and live music are not completely interchangeable, so recordings will never be a complete substitute for live performance. All these viewpoints are valid, it is the debate that is most important. But I was interested to see this comment posted almost immediately (from Cambridge University no less) on Tim's blog... "For Jazz and Opera, I agree. For classical recitals and concerts, I'm much less sure - we just buy CDs of those now....

Spent a recent evening listening to the viol consort Phantasm's new CD Four Temperaments . It is a wonderful disc of music by William Byrd, Alfonso Ferrabosco, Robert Parsons and Thoma Tallis. At the core is an extraordinary performance of the Byrd Four Part Mass, with viols taking the voice parts. The five sections of the mass are divided by in nomine settings by other composers. (The recording was made, incidentally, by the innovative independent label Avie in St Mary's Church, South Creake, Norfolk , not many miles from where I am typing this post). In a recent interview on BBC Radio 3 the leader of Phantasm Laurence Dreyfusexplained how the playing of the consort was influenced by the style of the leading string quartets of the 1930's and 1940's. An interesting observation as the depth of string sonorities created by Phantasm had reminded me of the Griller Quartet sound in the Bloch Quartets mentioned in my post Brain Food 2. Is a Byrd Mass arranged for viols l...

After the Hyperion versus Sawkins case here is a tale of more skullduggery in the Early Music world. Back in December I bought the recording of the Morales Requiem performed by Musica Ficta on the Spanish Enchiriadis label. I find it a very good interpretation, and was researching on the internet to write a piece about it for On An Overgrown Path when I came across the following on the Cantus Records web site.................... Piracy against Cantus Last July 2002 the Provincial Court of Madrid dictated sentence (which cannot be appealed) in favour of Cantus in the lawsuit against the label Enchiriadis, who had committed an act of piracy against Cantus in December 2000. In that date, the pirate label released a recording that had been stolen in our offices by an ex partner of us. Then they published the recording, which more or less corresponds to our ref. C 9627 Morales: Requiem, performed by Musica Ficta and Raúl Mallavibarrena. They used a pre-editing of the final master, full of...

The big question I ask myself before each recital these days is 'will the soloist talk to us?' Mini-lectures from musicians is the big thing this year. At the recent Norwich Festival pianist Steven Osbourne talked like an angel (his Scottish accent helps), his playing was pretty good as well. Jaques Loussier improvised his nicely accented links almost as well as he improvised his Bach. Harpsichord virtuoso Carole Cerasi talked almost as good as she looked (and played), but violinist Alexander Balanescu's talking was a bit like his playing of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas, rather more circumference than circle. Harpsichordist Carole Cerasi , talks as well as she plays, as well as she looks.... The problem of talking musicians was well illustrated at a recent concert in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall . It was a tribute to the retiring Lindsays, but conductor Mark Elder's introductory words lasted almost as long as the piece he was introducing - Wagner's Siegfried...

On An Overgrown Path will always be 'work in progress.' I want to try new ideas and approaches. I want to keep it fresh, and I want you, the reader, to come back for more. To keep the format fluid I've decided to invite some guest contributors to post here over the holiday period. The idea is to give a platform to some of my regular readers who don't have blogs of their own. My first guest blogger is Carol Murchie from Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and here is her very interesting post. .............................................................................. I became involved with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra after meeting their new executive director at a classical music class I offered through an adult learning organization in 2000, and she asked me to consider being on the board. I had attended the symphony on occasion and had to admit that for a city its size, New Bedford had a very good musical organization, so I relished the opportunity to become more inv...

Towards the end of my time at EMI Sir Adrian Boult made his final, and valedictory, recording of Gustav Holst's The Planets with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was difficult to work up much press enthusiasm for this recording. Back in 1979 the classical music industry was much as it is today. Hype ruled . The bright young things like Riccardo Muti were hypable , but the venerable and musically impeccable Sir Adrian wasn't. Finally I managed to get a Canadian magazine which I won't name to agree to do an interview. The magazine sent along its London bureau reporter to the interview in Sir Adrian's North London mansion flat where the charming Lady Boult served tea. Sir Adrian was his usually urbane self, and for a ninety-year old was remarkable lucid. But he did lose his train of thought occasionally. He was telling the Canadian journalist how Holst invited him to conduct the first private performance of The Planets by the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra in 1918 saying...

There was a very intrusive wrong note at the otherwise excellent recent concert by the Tallis Scholars in Norwich Cathedral . And the wrong note didn't come from the Scholars , who sung like angels throughout the evening. The concert was sponsored by Grant Thornton whose web site (which I will refrain from linking to) tells us "is a leading financial and business adviser to mid-corporate businesses and their owners." The Norwich Festival organisers allowed them to put up several prominent promotional boards inside 12th century architectural miracle that is the interior of Norwich Cathedral , including one beside the pulpit in full view of the audience throughout the performance. The advertising boards were full of the mumbo-jumbo of the financial services sector.... "As independent, fee-based financial advisers, Grant Thornton UK LLP wants to help you meet your challenges and realise your plans for the future." The boards even included a picture of a calculato...

It is centenary year for Michael Tippett, and that means the programme makers are having something of a Tippett fest. With all that exposure, and with more A Child of Our Times than Messiahs around the country it would be easy to conclude that Tippett was now 'safe box office'. But the Norwich and Norfolk Festival found that this was very much not the case when they scheduled two concerts with acclaimed pianist Steven Osborne playing the four Tippett Piano Sonatas and contemporary works in a 'Tippett in context' series. The first of the two concerts in the John Innes Centre (which is out of the city centre, but offers superb chamber music acoustics) didn't just have some empty seats, it was two thirds empty. Here is the culprit programme: Tippett Piano Sonata No. 1 Gershwin 3 Preludes Ravel Sonatine interval Tippett Sonata No. 2 Ives Three-Page Sonata Bartok Excerpts from Mikrokosm0s, Book 6 And what a treat the absent concert-goers missed. It was a typically c...

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 ...

Hard on the heels of the 1984 debacle the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is involved in another major damage limitation exercise. One of their highest profile benefactors has been arrested and charged with allegedly stealing $5m (£2.7m) from a business client. In 1999 Cuban-born Alberto Vilar promised £10m (US$18.2) to the Royal Opera House to finance the building of a glass-skinned atrium in the centre of the opera house complex. Additional finance was promised for a very worthy young artist training scheme, and aircraft style video screens in 700 seat backs in the main auditorium for subtitles. To recognise these donations the completed atrium is known as Vilar Floral Hall (see photo to the right), and the development programme as the Vilar Young Artists Fund . Alberto Vilar left Cuba when Castro took power in 1959, and is reputed to have amassed a fortune of £520m (US$950m) from investment in hi-tec companies such as Microsoft and AOL. He has made large donations to other ar...

I slept badly last night. Nothing serious, but a cold seems to be developing and my body rythms simply wouldn't settle . It was one of those nights when you just know sleep isn't going to come (and they get more frequent the older you get). So at 6 o'clock I got up and went down to my study. It was a glorious late spring morning. Brilliant sunshine and cloudless deep blue sky. The dew sparkled on the lawn as though thousands of tiny pearls had been miraculously scattered on the grass overnight. I turned on BBC Radio 3 . At that time they broadcast a sequence of low cost and usually undistinguished recordings of live concerts culled from other broadcasters. But for today serendipity had arranged a broadcast of an orchestral sequence put together from Wagner's The Mastersingers . The Prelude to Act 3, followed by the Dance of the Apprentices and Entry of the Mastersingers, and finally the Act 1 Prelude. The orchestra was the Oslo Philharmonic conducted by Rafael Fruhbeck...

The Hyperion versus Sawkins saga gets more bizarre. On Hyperion Records' web site there is an appeal for recording funds from Director Simon Perry. He says - "The label has received hundreds of letters and e-mails from people asking what they can do to support Hyperion Records in its time of need. Some have already donated sums of money and we are eternally indebted to those people for their generosity but we would like to make it easier for others also to show their support if they so wish." The Hyperion online shop now allows CD purchasers to also make a donation to the appeal fund. Open this link for the full statement. Shame somebody didn't bang together the heads of the two parties involved before it got to this ludicrous position. If you enjoyed this link follow the overgrown path to MaxOpus

Infoshare , the excellent blog from the US Music Library Association pointed me in the direction of the Philadelphia Orchestra tour blog . It's a journal of the orchestra's current tour of Asia (photo to the right is cellists Alex Veltman and Udi Bar-David in Hong Kong). The blog is well worth visiting, and is a really good example of a blog working as a journal rather than a vehicle for personal rants. Mention of the Philadelphia Orchestra reminds me of my brief involvement with them some twenty five years ago. I was with EMI/Angel at that time, and one of my roles was artist promotion. Riccardo Muti was the cat's whiskers and had just been appointed to the Music Directorship in Philadelphia in succession to Ormandy, and this gave us the opportunity to record there. Although the quality of the Philadelphia Orchestra was superb there had always been a feeling of disappointment with the sound of the RCA recordings with Ormandy made in the acoustically rather dry hall of t...