A door to the Arab world


For a valuable resource on the Arab world go to http://www.al-bab.com/. The sections on arts and culture and music in particular are very useful. Also good music resources for individual countries, for instance check out Berber music. Al-bab is a private project by Brian Whitaker who is the Guardian's Middle East editor.

Now read about the secret life of an Arab record label.
Photo is detail of Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech, Morocco. The Koutoubia dates from the 13th century and its name derives from el-koutoubiyyin which is Arabic for booksellers, as a book market once filled the surrounding streets. More art of the mosque here. Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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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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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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These photos were taken by me in 2008 at independent record retailer Prelude Records in Norwich. Jordi Savall's impromptu viol recital and signing session preceeded two performances at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One was a solo recital by Jordi in Peter Mancroft Church ; the other was an immensely moving performance of his visionary Jerusalem multicultural project at the Theatre Royal*. As reported here Prelude Records closed earlier this year; it was a victim of predatory online retailing, and today its premises stand empty awaiting occupation by a mobile phone or E-cigarette retailer. The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has been the victim of savage funding cuts , but continues in a more modest form due to the dedicated work of its small management team. A few days ago I wrote about a two-thirds empty Snape Maltings concert and proposed that classical music's heartland is facing a perfect storm caused by the convergence of the shifts in consumer tastes and the r...
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Male American pioneers

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All you need is click bait

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Slipped Disc , the self-acclaimed "world's most-read cultural website" recently ran the story and image shown above. In a clumsy piece of ethnic stereotyping the photo was cropped, cut and pasted without attribution from the website of Angel Island Immigration Station . This notorious station of detention and exclusion for Asian immigrants in San Francisco Bay closed in 1940.  In the interests of shedding just a little light to counter Slipped Disc 's click bait heat, the following is extracted with full acknowledgement from the Angel island website :  Between 1870 and 1940, more than 25 million immigrants arrived in the United States, with a major peak in annual arrivals between 1900 and 1914, when nearly 900,000 persons came per year on average. Those arriving in San Francisco, especially Asian immigrants, encountered very different legal regimes and social circumstances than those passing through Ellis Island in New York. On the West Coast, immigration was medi...
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Which is the best is not important

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Many of the audience knew nothing about music

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A notably enterprising new release which stands out from the usual bland 'more of the same' fare is Jazz Raga from Cherry Red Records . This 3 CD set, which is sub-titled 'Spiritual explorations of the two greatest melodic creators on the planet' brings together classic John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar tracks. In  his biography of John Coltrane J.C. Thomas explains that:  'John Coltrane was more mystic than musician. This is the only logical explanation for the effects his music had on many of his audience: in fact, many of them knew nothing whatsoever about any kind of music, including jazz, yet they were mesmerised, entranced. There had to be something else besides music there; in reality there was a force beyond music that was communicating with Trane's audience on quite a different, higher level of meaning.' There is much here that the struggling classical community can learn. Coletrane's music is definitely not easy listening, and is way beyond es...
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While classical music debates nothing changes

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The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

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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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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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