On An Overgrown Path

My personal overgrown path is leading back to the radio studio, and that has set me thinking recently about how to create programmes that are distinctive, inclusive and personal. Over in Holland the creator of Big Brother , Endemol , has its own formula for distinctive broadcasting, and this week launches De Grote Donorshow ( The Big Donor Show ) which gives three dialysis patients the chance to win a dying woman's kidney - or not. Back in 1969 Glenn Gould took a different approach to producing great broadcasting when he created his 'contrapuntal radio documentary' The Latecomers . The main subject was the new Canadian province of Newfoundland , but there was a second subject of solitude, isolation and non-conformity seen from a cultural perspective. The Latecomers , with its basso continuo of the ocean, is both a land-mark in twentieth-century broadcasting and a seriously neglected aspect of Gould's work. Now, thanks to reader Walt Santner, you can hear the whole...

Elgar was the first of the new. Since Purcell, England had not produced a composer for the European common market. Against -much against- the background of academicians who were destined to remain dilettanti , there emerged a self-taught amateur destined to become a master. At the time of Elgar's birth Brahms was 24, Dvorák was 16, and Wagner 44. When he died, Vaughan Williams was 62, Walton was 32, Britten was 20 and Schoenberg 60. Elgar's musical fathers were far away; many, almost all of them were of the Austo-German tradition, with Brahms, rather than Wagner, as the most powerful influence; and none of them English. In a penetrating article in the current issue of Music and Letters Donald Mitchell goes so far as to submit 'that to find Elgar today specifically English in flavour is to expose oneself as the victim of a type of collective hallucination.' Elgar's early success on the Continent, and with Continentals, was indeed striking. It needed a Continental ...

Rows at Glyndebourne are usually confined to polite disagreements over a picnic spot or the staging of The Magic Flute . But the organisers of the quintessential summer opera festival now find themselves at the centre of a planning dispute over a proposed wind turbine that would be higher than the face of Big Ben. Lewes District Council will determine the fate of a scheme that has divided opinion in East Sussex. Glyndebourne Opera House wants to build a 70m (230ft) turbine in its grounds in the South Downs, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Park designate. It claims that, by using the 850kw turbine to generate electricity, the opera house will cut its carbon emissions by 71 per cent. However a coalition of four environmental groups – the South Downs Society , the Council for National Parks , the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and the Ramblers’ Association – is determined to block the application, to Lewes District Council , which is expected to be heard on ...

Since I believe that there is in every man the spirit of God, I cannot destroy...human life...The whole of my life has been devoted to acts of creation (being by profession a composer) and I cannot take part in acts of destruction...I believe sincerely that I can help my fellow human beings best, by continuing...the creation or propagation of music. Statement sent to tribunal for the registration of Conscientous Objectors by Benjamin Britten in May 1942. Britten's War Requiem was first performed on May 30th 1962 in Coventry Cathedral. Now read how men will go content with what we spoiled and we shall overcome. Image credit from Prometheus , shows a rehearsal for the War Requiem in Coventry Cathedral. Britten to the right of the podium is talking to the principal conductor Meredith Davies . 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...

'A bit more Mann and a little less boy, please' demands the Guardian headline over its review of English National Opera's new production of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice . A line of thinking that reminds me that the opera was banned from being shown to schoolchildren in Kent, England in 1989 In that year Conservative councillors forced Glynebourne Touring Opera to cancel performances planned for a school's festival. At the time the chair of Kent school's sub-committee said the decision was made because: 'It was felt that the question of homosexuality was not appropriate for all the schoolchildren who would attend.' Elsewhere the ban was described as 'unbelievable', 'pernicious', and 'scandalous', and it was believed to be the first time any concern had been expressed about the opera since its 1973 premiere. Donald Mitchell of the Britten-Pears Foundation said the decision had been influenced by the controversial Secti...

While Lucretia was still on tour, Britten left for a brief visit to America - his first transatlantic journey by air - where Peter Grimes was at last to be staged at Koussevitzky's Berkshire Festival at Tanglewood , a vast event involving hundreds of music students, past and present. Three performances were given in early August by a young and enormous cast - enormous in every sense, for Eric Crozier , who had flown over to produce, recalls that in overfed America it was impossible to find a thin child to play the appentice. The 1946 US premiere of Britten's Peter Grimes recalled in Humphrey Carpenter's book Benjamin Britten, A Biography (Faber ISBN 0571143253). The conductor was the twenty-eight-year-old Leonard Bernstein , his assistant was another musician who has featured here recently, Peter Paul Fuchs . In 1945 Joan Cross had sung the role of Ellen Orford in the UK premiere of Peter Grimes conducted by Reginald Goodall , read more about Joan Cross here . In ...

Mstislav Rostropovich relaxes against Benjamin Britten's Alvis in Aldeburg . The photo is undated but was probably taken in summer 1961. Now take a drive through Britten's Aldeburgh, but be careful, the composer was a notoriously speedy driver. Which prompts the question - is classical music too fast ? Photo from Humphrey Carpenter's book Benjamin Britten, A Biography (Faber ISBN 0571143253). 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

A reader in Paris tells me that Valery Gergiev (left) failed to conduct a performance of Lohengrin at the Opéra National de Paris at the Bastille last night due to travel problems. Dresden born Michael Güttler deputised at the last minute and made a big impact. Güttler is a very talented young conductor who is making a career out of picking up the ball in Wagner after Gergiev has dropped it - he first came to prominence when he deputised for Gergiev in the Ring and Parsifal at the Marinsky in 2003. An apocryphal story tells how Herbert von Karajan gets into a waiting limousine in Vienna during his time with the State Opera there, and the driver asks him where he wants to go. "It does not matter", he responds, "I'm wanted everywhere." What a shame that forty years on maestros are still admired for the tempi of their travel arrangements rather than the tempi of their performances. There is now legal protection which gives passengers a refund when a plane...

Benjamin Britten , Aaron Copland and Peter Pears in upstate New York during the summer of 1939. Peter Pears (right) is obviously thinking 'tis the gift to be free. Photo from Humphrey Carpenter's excellent Benjamin Britten, A Biography (Faber ISBN 0571143253). 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

What are your musical equivalents of chocolate cake? - the performances you know you really shouldn't be enjoying, but do. Here is my menu of 'naughty but nice' music dishes: Uri Caine's Wagner E Venezia - yes, I know it is a serious taste crime to admit to enjoying the Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg played in the Piazza San Marco by an ensemble that includes accordion, piano and acoustic bass. But I do. Quite appropriately the recording was made live at the Gran Caffé Quadri , Piazza San Marco, Venice, and is complete with authentic background café sounds which provide a splendid counterpoint to the Tristan Liebestod. If you've never sampled this lovingly crafted, and packaged, chocolate torte from Uri Caine (photo above) I warmly recommend ordering a portion. Karl Münchinger's Art of Fugue and Musical Offering with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester reminds us of how Bach used to be performed before musical scholarship moved on. As one revie...

The BBC has suffered from lapses in impartiality in its coverage of business by seeking to popularise corporate stories and take the consumer's point of view, according to an independent report published yesterday. The Money Programme , Radio Five Live and the 10 O'Clock News are among the programmes singled out for criticism in the report on the impartiality of BBC business coverage. The study was commissioned by the BBC Trust from a panel chaired by the economist Sir Alan Budd . Critics have accused the BBC of "dumbing down" its business coverage and failing to represent the shareholders' and employees' perspective on corporate stories. The report said that if companies record large profits, stories tend to focus on the negative aspects, rather than "examining the benefits to staff and society of a British company doing well". "The need to attract and maintain an audience has led to some changes in the approach taken by business programmes ...

Today's Lebrecht-style attack by Sakari Oramo - or was it his orchestra's spin-doctor? - on Sir Adrian Boult cannot pass unremarked. In the Guardian Oramo writes about the 'stoic stodginess' of Boult's Elgar. This is a surprising comment from the current principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as Sir Adrian Boult was both chief conductor of the orchestra from 1924 to 1930 and an acclaimed interpreter of Elgar's music. After a 1920 performance of the Second Symphony conducted by Boult the composer wrote to him saying: 'I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands. It was a wonderful series of sounds. Bless you!' I have not had the pleasure of hearing Sakari Oramo's performances of Elgar, but I am sure they are very fine. But I can assure him that I heard many live performances of Elgar conducted by Boult and 'stoic stodginess' are the last words I would use to describe them. But then I don't t...

It's goodbye great music journalism and hallo 'advertorial'. For confirmation look no further than today's Guardian film and music supplement which devotes its front page and a full inside page to two Elgar stories. The main article is a reheating of the familiar story about Elgar not being appreciated outside England spiced-up with a few snide comments about authoritative Elgar interpreters. The byline of this page 3 lead story is Sakari Oramo , principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). But the copy, which plugs CBSO performances of the Dream of Gerontius and makes the case for a biennial Elgar festival (hosted by the CBSO perhaps?) is all too obviously written by the orchestra's PR department. At least the 'advertorial' source is transparent, the piece ends with the footer - The CBSO plays The Dream of Gerontius at Symphony Hall, Birmingham (0121-780 3333) on June 1 . Below the CBSO puff is yet another Elgar 'reappra...

One Sunday morning in December 1950, I wandered into a living-room-sized radio-studio, placed my services at the disposal of a single microphone belonging to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and proceeded to broadcast "live" - tape was already a fact of life in the recording industry but, in those days, radio broadcasting still observed the first-note-to-last-and-damn-the-consequences synodrome of the concert-hall - two sonatas, one by Mozart [K.281], one by Hindemith [No. 3]. It was my first network broadcast...a memorable one...that moment in my life when I first caught a vague impression of the direction it would take, when I realised that the collected wisdom of my peers and elders to the effect that technology represented a compromising, dehumanising intrusion into art was nonsense, when my love affair with the microphone began. Glenn Gould describes the start of his love affair with the microphone. My source is Kevin Bazzana's highly recommended Wondrous St...

BBC News reports ~ Photographs of Adolf Hitler - taken by a Nottinghamshire spy weeks before the start of World War II - have been made public for the first time. Charles Turner took the images at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany in July 1939. He was given unprecedented access to the Nazi leader, and toured the festival as part of his entourage. The photographs have been released by Mr Turner's son David, 64, after he began researching his family history. Mr Turner, of West Bridgford, told the Nottingham Evening Post that his father had chatted to the German leader and other members of the Third Reich - including Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess - as the party toured the festival. They assumed Mr Turner - a guest of a member of Hitler's inner circle - was merely a fellow music fan. Mr Turner said: "My father regarded these photos as an extraordinary souvenir of a remarkable and fortuitous event. "They are very, very important to me and my family and for all th...

Xfm , a UK alternative music station broadcasting in London, Scotland and Manchester to an audience of more than one million, is axing its daytime presenters in a radical move to a computerised playlist decided by listeners. The six-hour DJ-free "all music" daytime schedule is being marketed as "Radio to the Power of U", and will play songs programmed by listeners via text, phone and the Xfm website . Human presenters are the latest casualty of the inexorable rise of the computerised playlist, and it is a trend that is affecting classical broadcasting as well as rock. In the UK computerised playlists were pioneered for classical stations by Classic FM who use GSelector playlist software originally developed for rock stations, and seen in my header image. The working of this software was described in a 1988 copyright court action: "A detailed categorisation of each track of music in [Classic FM's] library fed as a data base into Selector enabled Selector ...

Prince Charles has commissioned a piano concerto in memory of the Queen Mother. It is a great time to commission new music in the UK with Mark-Anthony Turnage , Thomas Adès , Judith Weir , the Queen's own Master of the Music Peter Maxwell Davies and many other contemporary composers just waiting for the royal command. So who did our future king choose? Well .... Nigel Hess actually. Here, from his publisher's website , is an extract from Hess' resumé: He has worked extensively as a composer and conductor in television, theatre and film. His numerous credits include A Woman of Substance, Vanity Fair, Campion, Testament (Ivor Novello Award for Best TV Theme), Summer’s Lease (Television & Radio Industries Club Award for Best TV Theme), Maigret, Classic Adventure (‘Music from the Movies’ Award for Best BBC Theme), Dangerfield, Just William, Stick With Me Kid for Disney, Wycliffe for HTV (Royal Television Society Nomination for Best TV Theme and ‘Music from the Movies’ ...

'That Pope John Paul II took the trouble in his books to attack Buddhism suggests that there might be something valuable here. Why else would he see it as a dangerous rival belief system ? It offers hope to those of us who are hurt by the speed and aggression of the modern world, willing to look within to try to moderate our own aggressive pace and notice that we often run the gauntlet of purely imaginary dangers; or inhabit a fog of no-feeling' ~ from Going Buddhist by Peter J Conradi (Short Books ISBN 1904977014). I've just returned from a few days at the Padmaloka Buddhist retreat centre here in rural Norfolk. The accompanying photos were taken by me at Padmaloka, and, believe it or not, the shrine room below is a converted Norfolk barn! Now playing is Joanna MacGregor's recording of the piano concerto by a composer with a deep commitment to Buddhism. Lou Harrison was born ninety years ago, on May 14 1917, and died in 2003. Here is an interview with him by Dr G...