The music blogs go round and round


Nice to see On An Overgrown Path, and several other fine music blogs, mentioned in the Gramophone's November e-newsletter. This is written by the magazine's editor James Jolly, who is also a BBC Radio 3 presenter. A warm welcome to new readers arriving at this "provocative and informed" blog from the Gramophone. You can check today's top stories in the right side-bar.

See the rest of my header photo here, and take a look at the Chinese equivalent of the Gramophone here.
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Jay said…
wow congrats on the mention!
2:05 am
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My symphonies are sperm

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On paper Leif Segerstam's symphonies don't look promising. More than 300 in total, each lasting only around half an hour but needing only two pages of score, and some requiring no conductor. All underwritten by the philosophy that "My symphonies are sperm. There is strength in numbers. Some will survive to take evolution forward". (So my headline is a genuine pull quote, not Slipped Disc-style clickbait). Anyone acquainted with his authoritative Sibelius and Rautavaara will know that with Segerstam unconventional does not mean unacceptable. There is a method in what many will view as his madness. In the deliberate absence of a conductor the musicians are cued by certain specified signals given by different instruments in turn. The aim is to release the players' latent creativity which is normally suppressed by the highly prescriptive Western classical tradition.  Segerstam explained that "I wanted a performance to be a creative event, not a Prussian plou...
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Travels beyond TripAdvisor

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These photos were taken on my recent spirit quest in Morocco to the Sufi shrine of Sidi Chamharouch, which is seen above. A 75 minutes drive from Marrakech brought me to Imlil where the road ends and the mountains begin. The hamlet of Sidi Chamharouch - which is one of those blessed places which returns a blank in a Trip Advisor search - is at an altitude of 2350 metres and is reached by a tough and potentially dangerous two hour climb up a rocky path. Access is impossible for wheeled vehicles and supplies are brought in by the mules seen in my photos. Beyond Sidi Chamharouch is Jebel Toubkal, which at 4,167 metres is the highest mountain in North Africa. During my trek I was struck by the similarity between the High Atlas and Ladakh on the border of India and Tibet . Film director Martin Scorsese was also struck by the similarity. With Tibet a no-go zone he used this region for location shooting of his 1997 movie Kundun ; this depicts the Dalai Lama 's flight into exile fro...
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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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Wagner, Mahler and Shostakovich all sound like film music

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