New music - right on the ball


Email received On An Overgrown Path.

Dear Bob Shingleton. Thank you for your rapid response.

I had a quick log at your blog and you are right on the ball, I will certainly look at it from time to time now that I know it's there.

You are doing a valuable service.

All best wishes, Geoffrey Burgon (photo above)

Listen to MP3 downloads of Geoffrey Burgon's music here, and read about contemporary music and strong enthusiasms here.

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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Some music should be as boring as posible

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Éliane Radigue - seen above - has died at the age of 94. Writing in 2014 I explained how her Trilogie de la Mort is an intense exploration of the ragged edge of classical music that questions spatial conventions with its immersive sound, and which reaches beyond music into infrasound. At almost three hours duration and with extended periods of virtual stasis,  Trilogie de la Mort  challenges accepted concepts of musical development.  The huge influence of Éliane Radigue is shown by the breadth of the tributes, from DJ Mag , through the Guardian , to the usual lazy and accentless  Slipped Disc acknowledgement . Éliane Radigue's transcendent, unique and fearless music means a lot to me. So, as my tribute, I am republishing some of the Overgrown Path posts that over the years featured this fearless music innovator.                                     Some music should ...
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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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A vintage year for blasphemy and heresy

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2010 was a vintage year for blasphemy and heresy. A post on Salvador Dali drew attention to his forgotten audiovisual opera-poem Être Dieu inspired by the Cathar heresy, Jonathan Harvey stirred things up on my Chance Music programme by saying "the future must bring things which are considered blasphemous like amplifying classical music", while yet another path took me to new heights of heresy. In fact the path reached 2400 feet, which, as the photo above shows, is a serious challenge for anyone who, like me, who has a vertigo problem. I took the photo from the fortress of Quéribus in Languedoc, France and the view is towards Mont Canigou, the holy mountain beloved of Pablo Casals and Thomas Merton . Quéribus castle was the last Cathar stronghold to surrender in 1255 and Jordi Savall's The Forgotten Kingdom had led me to Languedoc and Catharism and on to Gnosticism. The Cathar heresy has its roots in the "dualist" religions in the Indus basin which origina...
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Those are my principles....

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Norman Lebrecht: Slipped Disc and   Lebrecht Weekly, 12/05/2023   "Why I cannot, in good conscience, review this record I cannot, in all conscience, give this recording a star rating, or even a detailed review. The soloist is Elisabeth Leonskaja, a legendary pianist whose introspections are perhaps the strongest living reminder of her late friend Sviatoslav Richter....Christian Thielemann, in the recent film ‘Music under the Swastika’, claimed that Wilhelm Furtwängler’s complicity in the Third Reich was justified by his legacy of extraordinary recordings.  Leonskaya’s presence in Putin’s Russia is not dissimilar. What are we to make of them?... The performances, per se, have nothing to do with the present situation. And yet, everything.I cannot review them". . ..and if you don't like my principles... well, I have others . Norman Lebrecht: Slipped Disc , 19/11/2025 "The Muziekgebouw in Eindhoven has cancelled a December 4 concert by the Russian-Georgian Jewish pia...
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Music for four accordions

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No big bearded imam was going to tell me music was haram

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David Munrow - more than early music

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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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Could LSD have saved Tchaikovsky?

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