Pliable's picks at BBC Prommers' World


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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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Outsourcing is the new normal

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In coverage of the current furore at the BBC  there is surprisingly little mention that the Panorama programme at the heart of the controversy was made by independent production company October Films . Although described on the company's website as "one of the most dynamic, imaginative and respected brands in the documentary sector" their show reel is entertainment oriented - Netflix Channel 5, etc. Similarly, another controversial BBC programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was made by an independent production company,  Hoyo Films . Outsourcing is the new normal, not just in the broadcast sector but across the whole world of commerce : the global business process outsourcing market was valued at $261.9 billion in 2022. When I joined the BBC from university many, many years ago content was king, with the added value - in the BBC's case audience numbers - coming from content creation. A similar focus on adding value from content creation was found in t...
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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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This LP is dedicated to Richard Wagner

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Composer Klaus Schulze has said 'I still love my Richard Wagner, who influenced me heavily. The way Wagner’s music introduced me to the use of dynamics, subtlety, drama, and the possible magnitudes of music in general remains unparalleled to me. There can’t be any doubt about it'. Schulze's 1975 release Timewind seen above* carries the message 'This LP is dedicated to Richard Wagner', and the two tracks of truly Wagnerian proportions on the original vinyl release were titled Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried . So why doesn't the name Klaus Schulze mean anything to the vast majority of classical listeners? The answer is because Klaus Schulze, who also uses the the alias Richard Wahnfried, is a creative maverick who was a leading figure in the development of the kosmische musik  known popularly as Krautrock, which he then morphed into the proto-ambient Berlin School of electronica, and is today best known as the Godfather of Techno and the Pope of Electronic...
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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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Classical music has many Buddhist tendencies

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With 376 million followers Buddhism is the fourth largest belief system in the world. Its core teachings of compassion and non-violence are well-known; but the wider cultural impact of those in the creative community exhibiting what the composer Jonathan Harvey described as "Buddhist tendencies" is underappreciated. Sri Lanka's state religion is Theravada - doctrine of the elders - Buddhism , and it may not be a coincidence that in 1960 elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike , the world's first woman prime minister. The island has been a center of Buddhist scholarship and practice since the introduction of Buddhism in the third century, and the country played a leading role in the preservation of the Pāli Canon of Buddhist teachings. I took the accompanying photos on a recent pilgrimage to Buddhist shrines in Sri Lanka, and to illustrate the influence of Buddhism on classical music I have juxtaposed them with cameos of music with Buddhist tendencies that provided the iPod so...
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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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Label me obsessed

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In Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby , one of the characters, Tom Buchanan, a rich man who's also a well-known polo player, says, "I've heard of making a garage out of a stable, but I'm the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage." Not to brag, but I'm doing the same thing. Whenever I find a quality LP recording of a piece I have on CD, I don't hesitiate to sell the CD and buy the LP. And when I find a better-quality recording, something closer to the original, I don't hesitate to trade in the old LP for a new one. It takes a lot of time to pursue this, not to mention a considerable investement of cash. Most people would, I am pretty sure, label me obsessed. The kindred spirit is Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami writing in his new memoir What I talk about when I talk about running . And talking of the same piece on LP and CD my photo shows three generations of a recording I couldn't possibly live without. The HMV LP of Sir John Bar...
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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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Classical music is about art not algorithms

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In his book Which Lie Did I Tell? the Hollywood script writer William Goldman explained the difference between entertainment and art. Entertainment either tells you lies or tells you comforting truisms that we know already. Whereas art tells you uncomfortable things that you perhaps don't want to hear, truths that you may not be comfortable hearing. My photos were taken a few weeks ago in the Moroccan oasis town of Skoura on the northern fringe of the Sahara. Listening to those local musicians playing under the stars and the next morning listening to Norman Del Mar's recording of Rubbra's Sixth and Eighth Symphonies highlighted for me again, if it needed highlighting, how right William Goldman was. There is growing concern about  the impact of algorithms  on the media we consume. But there is very little concern about the impact of algorithms on the arts. In fact algorithm driven art is the new poster child of contemporary culture. The prime example of this is BBC Ra...
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