My silent piece came later


'To Whom It May Concern: the white paintings came first: my silent piece came later.' John Cage writes in Silence about Robert Rauschenberg who died on May 12, 2008. My photo of Rauschenberg in front of his White Paintings comes from an article about about the artist and Cage on Emvergeoning. Read more about cleaning the ears of the musically educated here.
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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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Musicians against indifference

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On his new ECM album  After the Last Sky  oudist  Anouar Brahem  is joined by jazz multi-instrumentalist  Django Bates  and bassist  Dave Holland . Plus, in a serendipitous link to that  ultimate opposer of musician's indifference Pau Casals, long-time ECM maverick cellist  Anja Lechner  plays with Brahem for the first time, In his 1986 book After the Last Sky , Edward Said evoked Palestinian history in musical terms, as a "counterpoint (if not cacophony) of multiple, almost desperate dramas, with "no central image (exodus, holocaust, long march)... Without a center. Atonal". In a thoughtful booklet essay  Adam Shatz explains that Brahem's " After the Last Sky is in no way a didactic work of art and still less an anthemic expression of protest" and goes on to point out that "Brahem is Tunisian, not Palestinian, but he is no stranger to the tragedy of the Palestinian people". Most tellingly Shatz recounts how we are all t...
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How Wagner redacted Parsifal's Muslim brother

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Third rate music on Naxos' American Classics?

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I'll be interested in American readers' reactions to the start of this review by the Guardian's Andrew Clements - ' Considering how much third-rate music has been included in Naxos's American Classics series, Elliott Carter has so far been poorly served by the budget-price label. But in the year of the composer's 100th birthday, this - the first of two discs that will include all five of Carter's string quartets - could be the start of a major addition to his discography.' Andrew Clements then goes on to write a glowing five-star review of Naxos' new CD of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos 1 and 5 performed by the Pacifica Quartet . I'll agree whole-heartedly with his verdict on the Carter Quartets, I bought them last week and they are superb performances of superb music. But I am not so sure about his other views. That judgement of 'third-rate music' raises the interesting point of should a critic focus primarily on the interpr...
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Mahler 8 - Symphony of a Thousand Mistakes?

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What stunning sound the BBC engineers achieved for their live broadcast of Valery Gergiev's Mahler 8 with the London Symphony Orchestra this evening. Yes, the close miking of the instruments necessitated by the very long resonance of the building was evident. But St Paul's Cathedral is one of the most difficult spaces in the world both to perform and record in, and the BBC Radio 3 technicians produced some of the best sound I have heard from my B & W Nautilus 803 loudspeakers for a long time. Valery Gergiev's operatic approach to symphonies is not usually to my taste, but it worked a treat with Mahler's flawed but exhilarating Eighth. Quite unmissable radio, catch it for the next seven days here. One of the talking heads introducing the performance recounted how the work fell out of favour after Mahler's death and how surprising it was that the work was considered for a time to be lacking the genius of the composer's other symphonies. Well that is a view t...
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Male American pioneers

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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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Great recordings without the spin

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This wonderful Christian Steiner portrait of Charles Gerhardt(1927-99) featured in my 2007 post LPs were like the force of gravity . Gerhardt's important contribution as a conductor, producer and champion of twentieth-century composers such as Howard Hanson , whose Second Symphony is the main work on the disc above, has never been fully recognised. So I was delighted when David Cavlovic sent me a link to a wonderful appreciation of Gerhardt's work . Reading Robert E. Benson's memories of Gerhardt prompted me to dig some of his great recordings out of my collection, and to write my own appreciation below. Charles Gerhardt was a champion of the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold , and collaborated with the composer's son George on recordings of his film music. One result was the 1972 LP seen above conducted by Charles Gerhardt and produced by George Korngold, which is a true sonic and musical delight. At one time it was available as a Chesky CD transfer, but I can find no...
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