Pity the poor BBC presenter

A novelty at this years' BBC Last Night of the Proms, conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek, is Fučík's Entrance of the Gladiators.

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The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

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Two contrasting responses from America to my post Third rate music on Naxos' American classics? Flinging merde - ' Granted some of the stuff that Naxos has packaged in that series has been less than distinguished but operating in a cultural establishment where critics treat every cow patty ever dropped by the likes of Alwyn (above) and Bax and Finzi and Michael Tippitt (sic) as if it were fois gras, Clements is hardly in a position to fling merde' - from Sequenza21 , and I'm sure Norman Lebrecht would approve of that misspelling of Tippett. The true beauty of the effort - ' Personally speaking I expect listener reaction to concert music is heavily dependent on emotional mood and cultural/historical context . The concept of "ratings" and "tiers" for composers is pretty much an over-rated specialization of critics, which serves the purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness. My father is the American composer George Frederick McKay (photo be...
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Young Mahler - encouragement worthwhile?

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A charming and previously unpublished reminiscence of an 11-year-old Gustav Mahler (photo above) comes to An Overgrown Path from Elissa Minet Fuchs former ballerina with the Ballet Russe and the Metropolitan Opera. Mrs. Fuchs (see photo below) is the widow of conductor and composer Peter Paul Fuchs who was the subject of two tributes here when he died last year. A reader drew Mrs. Fuchs' attention to my articles and she has very kindly supplied me with material, including previously unpublished photographs, on her husband for a full appreciation to be published here on the first anniversary of his death next week. Among the material was this memory of a young Gustav Mahler. Peter's grandfather on his mother's side, Alois Rusicka, was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia not far from the Austrian border. He was a law student - pursuing his degree and an amateur musician, a cellist. On one of his visits home, he was approached by a tavern keeper. He was asked to meet ...
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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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Third rate music on Naxos' American Classics?

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I'll be interested in American readers' reactions to the start of this review by the Guardian's Andrew Clements - ' Considering how much third-rate music has been included in Naxos's American Classics series, Elliott Carter has so far been poorly served by the budget-price label. But in the year of the composer's 100th birthday, this - the first of two discs that will include all five of Carter's string quartets - could be the start of a major addition to his discography.' Andrew Clements then goes on to write a glowing five-star review of Naxos' new CD of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos 1 and 5 performed by the Pacifica Quartet . I'll agree whole-heartedly with his verdict on the Carter Quartets, I bought them last week and they are superb performances of superb music. But I am not so sure about his other views. That judgement of 'third-rate music' raises the interesting point of should a critic focus primarily on the interpr...
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New music for old instruments

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Audiences need permission to like unfamiliar music

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Wagner, Mahler and Shostakovich all sound like film music

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In a typically thoughtful contribution to my post Why not play the premier league composers more often? Richard Bratby - who is professionally involved in classical music - mused "speaking solely from my own experience - there is a very noticeable falling-off in ticket sales when a symphony orchestra programmes pre-Beethoven repertoire, irrespective of the quality of the performance or the music, or the energy with which it is marketed. But why?" Now Kea has answered Richard's question with the following comment: Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc, all sound more or less like film music (or -- more accurately -- film music sounds more or less like recycled bits of Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc) and therefore don't require any intellectual involvement or serious effort to listen to. Understanding the music of Bach, Mozart or Haydn, etc (or for that matter Schumann, Brahms, Webern, Cage, etc) actually requires people to listen actively rather than being pulled alo...
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A vintage year for blasphemy and heresy

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Classical musician's brave journey from Mozart to Morisco

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In the 1950s a number of prominent jazz musicians converted to Islam, including - to use their adopted names - Ahmad Jamal , and Sahib Shihab , Yusef Lateef . One of the most notable converts was the drummer Art Blakey , while the very personal heterodox cosmology of the most celebrated jazz musician of that period John Coltrane was influenced by the beliefs of his first wife Naima, who was a Muslim convert . Many of the musicians who converted were African Americans endeavouring to escape from the shadow of Western colonialism ; they saw Islam as an attractive alternative to Christianity within the Abrahamic tradition, and jazz at that time was heavily influenced by music from cultures beyond the Judeo-Christian world. These circumstances were unique to the 1950s, and fewer jazz musicians have taken the path to Islam since. But those who have include the bass player Danny Thompson who converted in 1990; he has played with many great musicians, including Nick Drake on the legendary...
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