Critics 1 - Composers 0


'A British composer was told to go bankrupt yesterday after he unsuccessfully tried to sue the London Evening Standard for libel. Keith Burstein ran up legal costs of £67,000 defending a test-case libel action against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Standard, over a critical review of one of his operas' - reports today's Independent. But here's one that fooled the music critics.
Beckmesser image from apeth.org. 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

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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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Elgar's other enigma

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Like Pliable Elgar was a keen cyclist , here he is in Malvern with his much-used Sunbeam tourer. Jessica Duchen's classical music blog about Edward Elgar's birthplace at Broadheath, Worcestershire reminded of a link to him sitting on my bookshelf. The score of Elgar's Violin Conerto contains an enigmatic dedication in the form of a mysterious Italian phrase - "Acqui esta encerrada el alma de" - followed by five dots; meaning that the identity of the dedicatee of this perenially popular work is unknown. Some years ago I bought a second hand copy of the autobiography of Mrs Richard Powell, 'Dorabella' of the tenth of the Enigma Variations ('Edward Elgar - Memories of a Variation published by Methuen). Stuck into the book are hand written letters and postcards sent to the original owner by Mrs Powell who was then living in East Grinstead. A letter of 12th Feb 1950 from Mrs Powell in her own hand writing says the following ... "What a curious fac...
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What price the BBC Proms?

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I don't worry about status

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Most music is only meant for a certain group of people

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Our politicians face the music

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