On An Overgrown Path

Recycling is an essential part of the creative process. My photo above was taken last September and shows the West Portal of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard , which is generally considered be the most outstanding example of Provencal Romanesque architecture in southern France. Below is the magnificent portal recycled in the Carnegie Museum of Art , Pittsburgh. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie paid the town of Gard 2000 gold francs to allow plaster casts to be taken of the portal. The casts were shipped across the Atlantic in 195 packing cases and assembled in Pittsburgh for the 1907 opening of the museum's Hall of Architecture . The Abbey of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard is one of the staging posts on the most southerly of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago in Spain, which starts in nearby Arles. In 2005 composer Joby Talbot indulged in some creative recycling when he incorporated the hymn Dum Pater Familias and other pilgrim tunes into his choral work Path of Miracles which...

Youth is certainly a state of mind in Manchester where the Hallé Orchestra is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding. Last night there was a celebratory concert presented by Dame Janet Baker (age 75) which included Ralph Vaughan William's Towards the Unknown Region and Edward Elgar's In the South (Alassio) as well as a 1996 Hallé comission, Thomas Adès' These Premises are Alarmed . Well done the Hallé for defying current music fashion and recognising that Elgar and Vaughan Williams did more than linger "lovingly over musical depictions of pastoral hills and fields, implicitly resisting the march of progress." Hans Richter, Sir John Barbirolli and Mark Elder are the conductors usually associated with the Hallé. But my header photo shows Benjamin Britten rehearsing his Spring Symphony with them in Leeds in 1950. More on the Spring Symphony here . Image credit Leeds classical music . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "...

'Music industry finds the solution to its pirate troubles - give everything away' - screams a Guardian headline . Sorry folks, but the classical sector has been giving away music for years. Here from my current Visa bill are the prices I paid for CDs online recently including delivery: Messiaen Des canyons aux étoiles (2CDs) - £4.00, Dallapiccola choral works - £3.41, Stockhausen piano works - £4.22, Elgar Dream of Gerontius (2CDs) - £5.67. It actually gets worse in the stores. Just last week I bought 10CDs of Thomas Tallis' complete works in recordings made as recently as 2004 for £3 a CD, and that wasn't discounted. In HMV stores you can currently pick up 14CDs of the complete Mahler symphonies by classical music's premium brands, Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, for £1.79 a disc. That means a Mahler CD from our industry's most prestigous band now costs less than a cappuccino, and it's not expanding the market for classical music or filling c...

Francis Poulenc (above) died in Paris on January 30th, 1963. Read about his masterpiece, Dialogue of the Carmelites , 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

28 January - a legend - concert room 7.30 - a legend Paolo Pandolfo viola da gamba A legend. I've had members of the public weak at the knees over this gig. You won't have heard of him as you are music students but don't let that or good natured sarcasm stop you from coming. FREE FREE FREE for MUS students That's what the University of East Anglia School of Music internal flyer said, and for once the hyperbole was justified. Like his viol da gamba teacher Jordi Savall , Paolo Pandolfo is a legend. Pandolfo's concert last night, with its seamless transitions between the 17th and 21st centuries, confirmed his status. The evening was crowned by one of the pinnacles of classical musiuc, Bach's Fifth Cello Suite in a transcription for viol, after revelatory interpretations of music by Tobias Hume , Le Sieur de St. Colombe , Marin Marais and Pandolfo himself . The music students may not have heard of Pandolfo, but there was standing room only with the widest range...

Another link with a great musical past was severed on January 25th 2008 with the death of Evelyn Barbirolli, a day after her 97th birthday. Born Evelyn Rothwell she established a reputation as an outstanding oboist before marrying Sir John Barbirolli in 1939, the couple are seen in my header photo. She continued her career after her marriage using her maiden name and was a champion of contemporary music. She played in the first performance of Bohuslav Martinů's Oboe Concerto and had works composed for her by Elizabeth Maconchy , Edmund Rubbra , Arnold Cooke , Arthur Benjamin and Gordon Jacob , and Sir John arranged concertos for her arranged concertos for her from music by Corelli and Pergolesi. My header photo is from a facinating article on MV Daily. There is a full Guardian obituary here , read more about Glorious John in New York here . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, ...

In his masterly book A Concise History of Western Music Paul Griffiths explains that “The past is not a path we and our predecessor's have travelled but a labyrinth, and a labyrinth forever in flux”. Concert planners usually view the musical past as a narrow path that must be followed closely, and as a result they produce predictable programmes that overlook the many riches hidden in the labyrinth of music history. So how wonderful to see the King of Hearts in Norwich departing from the familiar narrow path for its Autumn Festival, and challenging performers to explore the musical labyrinth. This Journey Across Time provided fascinating perspectives. Not only was it a rewarding musical experience, but it was also very enlightening to see how both audiences and performers responded to the challenge of musical diversity. The Festival started rather unpromisingly with a recital by violinist Catherine Macintosh and harpsichordist Maggie Cole . These performers are no strangers to co...

It's probably just me, but if I'm told that a piece of music is "uplifting" or "touches the core of what it is to be human", I run as fast as I can from it - comments Henry Holland on The composer without a shadow? Henry was writing in praise of Richard Strauss, and I wonder what he makes of the music of a contemporary and friend of Strauss', Edward Elgar ? This morning I attended a performance of Elgar's Piano Quintet led by pianist Ashley Wass , and, sorry Henry, but this is a work that is both uplifting and deeply human. Given the over-exposure of the Cello Concerto it is difficult to understand why Elgar's String Quartet and Piano Quintet aren't better known as all three works are from the same period. They were written when the composer was living in a cottage called Brinkwells at Fittleworth in Sussex between 1917 and 1919. Near Elgar's cottage was a clump of dead trees that had been struck by lightning. Their branches were di...

Ben.H has left a new comment on your post " A great American composer and artist besides ": While we're naming names, Gloria Coates is another composer and painter, whose CDs typically use her art for the cover designs. Ben, thanks for including the eternal feminine . 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

There was some healthy discussion on my recent article about pianist Angela Hewitt's Bach World Tour T-shirts. No discussion on my Future Radio programme this Sunday (Jan 27) at 5.00pm UK time, just 51 minutes 3 seconds of the perfect pianism of Angela Hewitt playing Messiaen and J.S. Bach, connected by less than 5 minutes of the usual low key links from me. The audio stream can be launched here , and is available in real time only. There is some interesting music coming up on my Future Radio webcasts in the next few months. It includes Elliott Carter's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord, Michael Tippett's Second Symphony (why aren't his symphonies performed more often?), and a new recording of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, all complete - no extracts . Through the year I will also be playing all the Vaughan Williams symphonies. Future Radio agreed to this following very positive listener responses to my broadcast of th...

"Way more than 50% of our output is live music ..." claims BBC Radio 3 controller Roger Wright in a revealing article about a new jazz radio station in today's Guardian . But Radio 3's definition of live is slightly different to yours and mine. As I reported here in February 2007 virtually all evening concerts on Radio 3, except the Proms, are pre-recorded. But the BBC counts these recordings as 'live' performances, and the text streamed with their FM broadcasts describes them as 'live concert recordings'. In a wonderful example of BBC corporate-crapola Radio 3 defines 'live' as any music recorded with an audience present. Which has important implications both for musicians who earn their living from live music making, as these recorded 'live' performances can be repeated, and for audiences, who may find real concerts with living breathing musicians disappearing. If Roger Wright turned up at a concert hall for a 'live concert'...

Email received - Bob, I found your post about artists who also paint fascinating. As you have pointed out, there are many more than we previously thought. Schoenberg comes to mind. I thought you would be interested in another. Nicolas Flagello was really something, one of the great American composers and an artist besides. I attach these CD covers not to attract publicity for myself, but because these are the only examples of his art in my possession. Though the cover pics are details, I've seen the large originals at Flagello's wife's residence, and they are remarkable. A day without OAOP wouldn't be a day at all. Best, JMW See Arnold Schoenberg's paintings and drawings here , and read about more eye-music 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 errors to - overgro...

Leif Segerstam's 151st Symphony (eat your heart out Alan Hovhaness ) was premiered last week by the estimable BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with the composer conducting. The single movement symphony lasts for less than half an hour, and Segerstam's programme note cites the recent outbreaks of bird flu as one of the inspirations for the symphony. Leif Segerstam , seen in my header photo, is one of those musical mavericks who are a dying breed in today's world of 'Mahler cycle before you are 30' agent controlled music making. (And yes, I know he has recorded a Mahler cycle ). Segerstram's students include Susanna Mälkki , and he has used aleatoric techniques and has written for conductorless ensembles. He has championed music by contemporary composers including John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse , and fellow Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara . Rautavaara's music became fashionable in the mid-1990s, and I have several of his works in my CD collection dating fr...

'A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places' said the Scottish artist Paul Gardner , and it is the same with contemporary music. Back in November I thought I was broadcasting Alvin Curran's Inner Cities complete , but I was wrong. The epic 4 hour 24 minute cycle for solo piano had just stopped at an interesting place called Inner Cities 11 . Pianist Daan Vandewalle tells me that two new Inner Cities have been added to the cycle, and another is in the pipeline. This week he recorded IC12 in Paris, he has performed IC13 in Italy, and is finalising a commission for Alvin Curran for IC14. I wonder what would have happened if Daan had been around when Wagner was composing the Ring? My next project is a marathon broadcast of Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum for solo piano which also lasts for hour hours. Read about it here . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or cri...

Apologies to readers, who like me, tuned in vain to BBC Radio 4 at 7.15pm this evening to hear the 'reassessment' of Herbert von Karajan's life and work that I mentioned in one of today's post . I picked up information on the programme from today's Guardian radio listings which highlighted the Karajan programme. This information would have been supplied by the BBC publicity department. As programmes sometimes change I went to Radio 4's webpage . This clearly says: 19:15 Front Row 23 January 2008 Arts news and reviews with Mark Lawson, including a reassessment of the life and work of Herbert von Karajan as the centenary of the maestro's birth approaches. Just to make sure doubly-sure I googled 'BBC Radio 4 Karajan' and found another page on the BBC website which confirmed that the programme was being aired today at 7.15pm. So I linked to it . At 7.15 there was no Karajan feature, no explanation, and no apology. Like so many things the BBC does today, ...

A late night performance of Stimmung is one of the highlights of the 2008 Aldeburgh Summer Festival. It will be sung by London Voices as part of the Faster Than Sound experimental music festival within a festival. The evocative photo above was kindly provided by fellow blogger Richard Friedman . He took it at the October 1971 performance of Stimmung in the Théâtre de la Ville, Paris by the group that commissioned it, Collegium Vocale Köln. Richard is also a fellow webcaster, check out his Music From Other Minds on KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco. The footer photo was taken by me at the 2007 Faster Than Sound . Stockhausen's music is just one of many delights at the 2008 Aldeburgh Festival which runs from 13th to 29th June, here are some of the others: * World premiere of a new opera An Ocean of Rain by Yannis Kyriakides directed by Cathie Boyd . * Featured composer György Kurtág and his wife Marta in recital. * Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays The Art of Fugue and conducts the Brit...

davidderrick has left a new comment on your post " Music's unmerry widows " - Not 1981, surely? CDs only came in in March 83. This was around 89. Possibly for the genius's 80th birthday? 'Scuse pedantry ... David, the Galleria series were originally released in LP format. I could not recall having bought any of the series. But age doesn't just make better conductors , it also plays tricks with memory. Which is why Sir John Barbirolli conducted from a score. After your comment arrived I went through my LPs and found this 1982 vinyl record, complete with Eliette von Karajan painting, which I have just photographed. The Deutsche Grammophon website confirms the dates . Meanwhile the Karajan centenary bandwagon is really starting to roll. Tonight (Jan 23) BBC Radio 4 promises a 'reassessment' of Karajan (why not Radio 3 - not Classic FM enough for them?), while DG's centenary releases are here (but I can't see the excellent vinyl only Second V...

Miles Davis was a very talented artist a regular reader reminds me in connection with my music and art thread . That is one of his paintings above, and there are more here . His art was just one of the reasons why Miles Davis was chosen as one of the thirty-six most influential people of the hippie era . Image credit MilesDavis.com . 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

When it comes to sleeve artwork Herbert von Karajan's wife may have got it wrong . But Joni Mitchell got it right. The two images here are from her 2000 album Both Sides Now . Joni provided these superlative self-portraits for the sleeve, and she worked with Vince Mendoza , Herbie Hancock , Wayne Shorter , Peter Erskine and others to make an album which is a work of art in more ways than one. More on Joni Mitchell the painter here, and more proof that pictures are worth a thousand words 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Re. Mrs von Karajan - Didn't DG issue a Karajan series featuring Eliette's own artwork? Just how wealthy and influential is this woman? BTW. What ever happend to Herbert's brother, Wolfgang? Cheers David Cavlovic Ja wohl David. In 1981 Eliette's daubs decorated the sleeves for Deutsche Grammophon's "Karajan-Edition" in their "Galleria" series. 50 original paintings adorned as many record sleeves for music ranging from Vivaldi to Stravinsky. A sample is above, and more information and a better image is here. An estimate by Die Welt puts Eliette von Karajan's wealth at 250 million euro (£187m/$366mUS). Wolfgang von Karajan died in November 1987. He showed considerable promise in his early career as an electrical engineer, but never really capitalised on this and later tried to make a career in music. In 1984 HvK wanted EMI to record the Art of Fugue with his brother and himself, EMI declined. There was an uneasy relationship between the tw...

My prediction that marriage was the musical 'must have' for 2008 is proving to be uncannily accurate. January hasn't finished, and already we have 'marriage - the book' and 'marriage - the CDs'. Herbert von Karajan's widow is marking the centenary of the conductor's birth on April 5, 2008 with a book telling the story of their 31 year marriage. Revelations in the style of Cécile Sarkozy are not expected from Eliette von Karajan who is seen in my photo trying not to put the maestro's latest toy onto the rocks. Read about the book in German here , or in a fittingly excruciating Babel Fish translation here . And it gets worse. Deutsche Grammophon are redefining adventurous programming with a 2 CD tie in , see below. Now read a rather more interesting, and exclusive, story from Herbert von Karajan's past here. Eliette von Karajan: Mein Leben an seiner Seite . is published by Ullstein, Berlin. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included ...

If you want to start a fascinating thread write about Leonard Bernstein's Mass . Here are some comments from my most recent Mass post : Movie commented - It's not a dishonest piece and I think it still works today . I commented - But what are examples of dishonest pieces of music? Pentimento commented - I'd say much of Strauss's oeuvre is dishonest. I couldn't live without Metamorphosen , Capriccio or the wind concertos, and one of my most memorable, and disturbing, evenings in the opera house was Hildegard Behrens singing the title role in Salome with Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic at the 1977 Salzburg Festival . But, despite that, you may be right Pentimento. Which leaves me with only one possible back link - Herbert von Karajan Ein Heldenleben Sorry I cannot credit the lovely portrait of Richard Strauss (I do hope you meant Richard and not Johann, Pentimento), but I do not know who it is by. It comes from Ferdinand Von Galitzien's blog . Help with ...

'The global forest fire of revolution in 1968 needed no internet - if anything, it was the antithesis of the sedentary, logged-in, blogged-out world of today's deactivated youth. It was a time of direct communication, between countries and within them, so that throughout the Mexican summer mimeographs worked all night to produce 'wall newspapers' telling of prisoners, police brutality, and proposed further agitation. Slogans were spray-painted on buses, handbills thrown from tower blocks and leaflets placed inside brown bags alongside bread sold by bakeries' - Ed Vulliamy writes in today's Observer in one of a series of excellent articles about the year that rocked the world - 1968. Related logged-in and blogged-out resources here include: * Notes of a college revolutionary * Why aren't we marching in the streets? * They were demanding jazz and rock and roll * Karlheinz Sockhausen - part of a dream * The year is '72 * Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stock...

Early music is more volatile than rock music. Hot new groups keep appearing, new personalities keep emerging, and early music has a dynamism that is noticeably absent from other parts of the classical music scene. One of the hot groups right now is Ensemble Plus Ultra under their director Michael Noone . Born in Sidney, Michael Noone studied at the University of Sydney and King's College, Cambridge , and specialises in Spanish Renaissance music. He is known especially for his work in the archives of El Escorial and the Cathedral of Toledo , and his CD Morales en Toledo featured here back in 2005 . Ensemble Plus Ultra record for the enterprising Spanish Glossa label who are one of the few companies still placing importance on the design and presentation of their CDs. I am playing music from their new disc (beautiful artwork above) of sacred choral music by the 16th century Venetian Gioseffo Zarlino in my Future Radio programme at 5.00pm UK time on Sunday 20th January. Zarlin...

Yesterday afternoon BBC Radio 3 had three clear hours to programme music Towards Judith Weir . They played Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique complete, they played the (inevitable) Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2 complete, and they played just the finale of Ligeti's Romanian Concerto. What is wrong with the other three movements of the Ligeti - do they bite listeners? That's György Ligeti in my photo, and you can read his Private Passions complete and unexpurgated 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

'A lengthy, pompous, bourgeois sort of thing; it reflects the complacency and stodginess of the era of the antimacassar and pork-pie bonnets; it is affected by the poor taste and the swollen orchestral manner of the post-romantics' - Olin Downes reviews John Barbirolli's performance of Elgar's Second Symphony with the New York Philharmonic on 23rd March, 1939. Music critics will always differ. George Bernard Shaw thought Elgar was carrying on Beethoven's business , and leading musicians had some interesting opinions about Elgar's music. Sorry about the sleeve. This is one of the first CD releases of Boult's last recording of Elgar's masterly E flat symphony. EMI simply took the original LP artwork and ruined it with that logo. James the joiner is prancing around in Italy so the LP sleeve didn't get scanned in. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only...

Youth was the musical 'must have' in 2007. Could marriage be the musical 'must have' in 2008? My favourite Christmas disc this year was Ton Koopman playing Christmas Carols on the baroque Van Peteghem organ in St. Martinuskerk, Haringe , Belgium. Wonderful music from Sweelink , Buxtehude , Bull and Bach , wonderful playing by Koopman on the 1778 organ, with wonderful sound from producer Tini Mathot, who just happens to be Mrs Koopman, and the CD really is a family affair as it is released on Koopman's own Antoine Marchand record label. Tini Mathot is a distinguished keyboard player in her own right, and she is seen above playing alongside her husband. I last heard them together several years ago playing the Art of Fugue on two harpsichords ago in the peerless acoustics of St George's Brandon Hill , Bristol. Tini Mathot and Ton Koopman are the latest in a distinguished line of couples who have worked together as performers and producers. There are Isabella d...

'A greater triumph awaited [Sir John Barbirolli] in January 1963 when he conducted Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Mahler was not often played in Berlin, and the [Berlin Philharmonic] orchestra frankly confess that they did not particularly like his music - 'but,' said one of the principals, 'Sir John made us love it as much as he did himself and we played it as he wanted.' So well, indeed, that a leading Berlin critic wrote: 'Not since Furtwängler have we heard such human warmth and soul combined with superb musicianship.' The orchestra themselves asked that Barbirolli should record the symphony with them, the first English conductor to record with the Berlin Philharmonic since Beecham in 1937. During the cold January of 1964 this famous recording was made in the Jesus-Christuskirche , in the suburb of Dahlem' - from Barbirolli, the Authorised Biography by Michael Kennedy. Sir John Barbirolli's Mahler Nine is currently available in the EMI Great ...