Musicircus

Another blog that has appeared on the radar, and is definite worth visiting, is Musicircus.

Tasty morsels on offer there include news that Uri Caine (photo right) is coming to the London Jazz Festival in November. One feature I particularly applaud is a Book of the Month Club. This month it's Richard Powers' novel A Time of Singing. Music blogs, including mine, should give more space to literature and the other arts. My slightly random The bookless Mrs Beckham got a huge response.

Musicircus has some acts from outside the 'serious music' arena, it's worth visiting.

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David Munrow - more than early music

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'David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London transformed our view of medieval music. The impact of their performances far surparssed any that had gone before: by demonstrating how medieval music could sound normal, they created a niche for it in the concert hall and on record that it has never lost' ~ From Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's notes for Music of the Gothic era May 15 2007 is the thirty-first anniversary of the death of David Munrow. His contribution to the acceptance, understanding and performance of early music almost defies summary. He was born in 1942, and learnt the bassoon and recorder as a child. Between school and university he travelled and taught in South America , and started the collection of ethnic instruments that were to give him, and the world, a new perspective on early music making. He read English at Pembroke College , Cambridge, and was encouraged by Thurston Dart to take an active role in the music-making of that most musical of cities. ...
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Master musician who experienced the pain of genius

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On that sleeve for his 1985 recording of the Goldberg Variations , Scott Ross is seen standing in the grounds of Château d'Assas in Languedoc. It was here that many of the harpsichordist's great recordings were made. Then, as today, the château dwelt in the twilight zone between grandeur and dereliction, and thirty years ago the recording sessions were regularly interrupted by the sound of rats scurrying across the floor. Scott Ross was born in Pittsburgh in 1951, and moved to France with his mother following the death of his father in 1964. He studied at the conservatoires in Nice and Paris, and first came to Château d'Assas in 1969 to give music lessons to the grandson of its owner Mme. Simone Demangel . When an early music academy was established at the Château d'Assas, Scott Ross gave masterclasses and became a frequent visitor. At first he stayed in a room in one of the towers, but from 1983 he rented a small house across the road from the château. The photos b...
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Bach for a Buddhist

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Classical music has many Buddhist tendencies . In his  recently published memoir  Tibetan Buddhist monk, author and "the world's happiest man" Matthieu Ricard  attributes his love of Bach's music to hearing recordings by Helmut Walcha . The photo above shows Matthieu Ricard participating in a filmed Concert-méditation which included Preludes and Fugues from J.S. Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, and in an RTS podcast he included excerpts from recordings by Helmut Walcha of the English Suite no 2 and the French Suite no 2. Helmut Walcha (1907-1991), who lost his sight as a teenager, was a professor at the  Hochschule für Musik  in Frankfurt 1938 to 1972. His Bach inspired an older generation, just as more historically informed interpretations inspire a younger cohort today. Tastes and fashion have moved on and to contemporary ears the sound of Walcha's factory-made leather-quilled Ammer harpsichord with its piano action may sound anachronistic. But his abilit...
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It ended in tears

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Visitor logs for On An Overgrown Path show significant traffic from ChatGPT and other AI bots. This current obsession with all things AI reminds me of the Gnostic creation myth. In this the demiurge, or craftsman, employed by the "true God" to create the world, comes to believe that it is really in control, that it is the supreme deity, and enacts a coup d'état, with disastrous consequences. These musings were triggered by Ian McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary , Gary Lachman's The Secret Teachers of the Western World , and Jordi Savall's The Forgotten Kingdom . The latter is an epic musical depiction of the Catholic Albigensian Crusade against the Gnostic beliefs of the Cathars, which resulted in the massacre of 20,000 inhabitants of Béziers in Languedoc. A powerful example of a fashionable creation myth that ended in tears.
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Soundtrack for a porn movie

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"No, you have not landed on Slipped Disc by mistake. Respected electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze tells the story himself.  The origins of " Body Love " are quite funny. I received a call from a movie producer named Manfred Menz and I wound up becoming his principal composer for a period of time. Amongst others, I composed the "Barracuda" soundtrack for him [1978, previously unreleased on album]. This led to a friendship which lasts till today. Menz now lives in Malibu, California where I visited him a couple of years ago. Anyway, this guy calls me and asks if I would compose the score to a porn movie. I said: "Porn? Nah, I don't do that kind of thing".  As it turned out, the director of the movie, Lasse Braun, had already shot it and had used my albums " Timewind " [1975] and " Moondawn " [1976] as a kind of "working soundtrack". This was obvious because the couples in the film were moving in time to my gro...
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Classical music is about art not algorithms

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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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These photos were taken by me in 2008 at independent record retailer Prelude Records in Norwich. Jordi Savall's impromptu viol recital and signing session preceeded two performances at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One was a solo recital by Jordi in Peter Mancroft Church ; the other was an immensely moving performance of his visionary Jerusalem multicultural project at the Theatre Royal*. As reported here Prelude Records closed earlier this year; it was a victim of predatory online retailing, and today its premises stand empty awaiting occupation by a mobile phone or E-cigarette retailer. The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has been the victim of savage funding cuts , but continues in a more modest form due to the dedicated work of its small management team. A few days ago I wrote about a two-thirds empty Snape Maltings concert and proposed that classical music's heartland is facing a perfect storm caused by the convergence of the shifts in consumer tastes and the r...
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Great recordings without the spin

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This wonderful Christian Steiner portrait of Charles Gerhardt(1927-99) featured in my 2007 post LPs were like the force of gravity . Gerhardt's important contribution as a conductor, producer and champion of twentieth-century composers such as Howard Hanson , whose Second Symphony is the main work on the disc above, has never been fully recognised. So I was delighted when David Cavlovic sent me a link to a wonderful appreciation of Gerhardt's work . Reading Robert E. Benson's memories of Gerhardt prompted me to dig some of his great recordings out of my collection, and to write my own appreciation below. Charles Gerhardt was a champion of the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold , and collaborated with the composer's son George on recordings of his film music. One result was the 1972 LP seen above conducted by Charles Gerhardt and produced by George Korngold, which is a true sonic and musical delight. At one time it was available as a Chesky CD transfer, but I can find no...
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Male American pioneers

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Audiences need permission to like unfamiliar music

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That photo of Sir Malcolm Arnold and Julian Bream appears on the late composer's website . Ten years ago I was literally very close to Sir Malcolm's music. He spent his final years being tended by his carer Anthony Day in Attleborough just a few miles from where I live in Norfolk. I managed Sir Malcolm's website and one of my first posts  about his music dates from that time. Following Sir Malcolm's death in 2006 I never lost my appreciation of his music, but it featured less frequently in my listening. However, recently I have returned to his symphonies, and listening to them again has raised some important questions. His nine symphonies are the product of a master craftsman. They move forward from Mahler and Shostakovich, yet should be immediately accessible to contemporary audiences saturated in the music of those two composers. But, despite this, Sir Malcolm Arnold's symphonies remain unknown outside a small circle of admirers. Why? Let me make it clear ...
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