On An Overgrown Path

“Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there" “Where are we going man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.” The cover of the Penguin Classic edition of On the Road uses a detail from 'The Athletes Dream' by Larry Rivers from the Smithsonian Institution , Washington, D.C. More Kerouac here , and support other music blogs here and 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

Many people think of Peter Maxwell Davies as a Scottish composer, but in fact he was born in Salford in Lancashire. And I'm adding to the confusion by featuring a CD of his music titled A Celebration of Scotland for the simple reason that it contains some of the most beautiful music ever captured on disc. The riches are too many to list. But for starters try the haunting Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby Ground for solo piano played by Max, the ravishing Lullabye for Lucy sung by the Choir of St. Mary's Music School, Edinburgh, and the extrovert An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise complete with George McIlwham playing the highland bagpipes. Originally released as a Unicorn-Kanchana vinyl LP in 1988, A Celebration of Scotland was captured in stunning sound in the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh by recording engineer Antony Howell. It, thankfully, remains available as a CD , snap it up while you can. And this post brings a neat symmetry to the path as we are off to Scotland (wher...

'The best composer of our times is Ernest Bloch' - Pablo Casals As the string quartets of John Cage , Steve Reich , Philip Glass and Elliott Carter enjoy critical attention one wonders whether Ernest Bloch's main stylistic error was to have been born in Switzerland. With some justification Casals can be criticised for ignoring modern music, and he once unashamedly said 'I have finally come to a definite conclusion: I will have nothing to do with what is called "contemporary music"'. But Casals' opinion of Bloch was shared by another great cellist, Colin Hampton, who, as a member of the famous Griller Quartet, was part of the classic 1954 recording of the Bloch Quartets seen above. Hampton unequivocally endorsed Casals' view writing that ' (Bloch's) string quartet No 1 is to me one of the great works in this world. It was a logical conclusion, as far as I am concerned, to the Beethoven quartets. I would put Bloch in front of Schubert and...

When I went in search of Pablo Casals last week I repeated Stravinsky's dismissive comment about the young wives of Casals and Zoltán Kodály . I am now indebted to the excellent Through These Ears for telling us that the ladies, in fact, had the last laugh. Marta Casals Istomin (seen above with her husband) went on to become President of Manhattan School of Music as well as holding many other distinguished posts before retiring in 2005, while Sarolta Kodály Péczely is a visiting professor of voice at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest , an institution whose faculty has also included Béla Bartók , Zoltán Kodály, Jenő Hubay , Ernő Dohnányi , Leó Weiner , Dávid Popper , Bence Szabolcsi , Sándor Végh , Imre Waldbauer and Ede Zathureczky . When will they ever learn? Photo with full acknowledgements from Joys and Sorrows, reflections by Pablo Casals edited by Alert E. Khan (Macdonld ISBN 356030482) - out of print but well worth buying from specialists . Any copyrighted...

Turn on the car radio after a glorious day on the beach at St-Hilaire-de-Riez . What is on France Musique ? Offenbach's Gaitée Parisienne or Bizet's L'Arlesienne ? No, it's the closing pages of The Dream of Gerontius and just a few bars tells me that it is Glorious John Barbirolli's radiant recording with his beloved Hallé and Janet Baker. The music hits me like a punch in the solar plexus and I have to pull the car over. Thank you for great music and for the serendipity of good radio . As Pope Pius XII said, 'My son, that is a sublime masterpiece' . + In memory of Brother Roger, founder of the Taizé Community, who was stabbed to death on 16 August, 2005 while at evening prayer in the Church of Reconciliation. Cardinal Kasper said of Brother Roger "Every form of injustice or neglect made him very sad". Visit the green hill called Taizé here and its music here. Sweet brother, if I do not sleep My eyes are flowers for your tomb; And if I cannot...

Bill Evans was born on 16 August, 1929. Read why he was more than a jazz pianist in Ligeti's Etudes fit the Bill . 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

Music grows old only if it is neglected – like a woman who is no longer loved. Take an interest in her, and she will become young again ~ Wanda Landowska Wanda Landowska (photo above) died on 16 August, 1959 in Lakeville CT. She was born in Warsaw in 1879 and studied in Warsaw and Berlin before taking up a teaching position at the Schola Cantorum in Paris at the age of just twenty-three. The harpsichord manufacturer Pleyel had exhibited an iron-framed instrument at the 1889 Paris Fair and, at her request, they manufactured a custom harpsichord for Landowska to use in large concert halls. With its massive cast-iron frame, numerous stops and sixteen-foot register the instrument’s only link to the classical harpsichord was its name. But Landowska’s highly inauthentic Pleyel is probably responsible for the popularity of the authentic harpsichord today. Landowska is remembered for her pioneering advocacy of Bach, and in 1933 she gave the first complete modern performance of the Goldberg ...

Can anyone explain why huge numbers of Americans are currently arriving on the path from searches for the term 'Maestro Dorati' ? I'd love to think there has suddenly been a revival of interest in this great musician . But I think it is something more prosaic such as a crossword clue. If so congratulations to the compiler on their excellent musical tastes. That's Antal Dorati above; by a weird coincidence he also featured in a quiz On An Overgrown Path back in 2005 . 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

Email received - ' You've probably seen this in today's Guardian, but in case you haven't Stockhausen's son (photo above) in Miles mode sounds interesting, especially considering his father's influence on On the Corner . By the way, greatly in your debt re: Raphaël Imbert's excellent Bach-Coltrane album ; jazz needs more records like this rather than the same, old, tired takes on hard-bop/post-bop/songbooks that were done better (and were much more sincere) 25-50 years ago. Speaking of jazz, have you ever checked out NYC's WKCR-FM 89.9 ? If you like Charlie Parker, Phill Schapp's Bird Flight program should not be missed: (And their classical department is quite good, too-- they play whole albums regularly!) Apologies if this is old news to you. Keep up the good work; thanks for sharing your sophisticated ears. Regards, Tim.' Thanks for that Tim. Markus Stockhausen also appeared on the path recently in some other interesting company. Any copyr...

Sorry, but I couldn't help repeating this post from the Australian Chamber Orchestra blog . Anyone that calls my stories 'beaut' is guaranteed a link. Good on ya digger ... 'A Cello Coda - The excellent 'On an Overgrown Path' blog has a beaut story about Pablo Casals. A good way to end the week in which we wrapped up the Intense Tour with Steven Isserlis (a big fan of Casals - photo above). Read it here. ' Photo of Steven Isserlis is from Australian Chamber Orchestra blog - where else? 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

Dance, mime, dramatic lighting, theatrical props and virtuoso musicianship all come together in Anders Hillborg's Clarinet Concerto which was given a scintillating performance by Martin Fröst (right above) and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel at last night's Snape Prom . Hillborg's Concerto is creating quite a stir on the current Gothenburg Orchestra tour, which is good news for contemporary music. But it is worthwhile remembering that the concerto was actually premiered by its dedicatee Martin Fröst with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra ten years ago . Aspects of Dudamel Inc still leave me uneasy. But the performance of Anders Hillborg's concerto under his baton was part of an evening of memorable music making. Some tightening of the almost thirty minute long concerto could give it more shape, while elsewhere in the programme Dudamel and his orchestra sometimes produced dynamics more appropriate to the Albert Hall, where they played a BBC...

~~ For me the existence of Pablo Casals is a source of joy. He is one of those artists who come to the rescue of humanity's honour ~~ Thomas Mann Commequiers is one of those villages that you only seem to find in France. It is in the Vendée region in the west of the country, a short distance from the Atlantic coast. Despite being close to the fashionable resort of Les Sables d'Olonne this is rural France that time seems to have passed by. The timeless houses huddle around a small square in the centre of Commequiers. There is a bar and boulangerie , and on one side of the square is L'eglise Saint-Pierre with its wonderful new reinterpretation of an organ of the classic French school seen to the left of my header photo. The Vendéee , with its history of political and religous activism, is a long way from Spain. But we made the journey there in search of a musician famous for expressing his beliefs through activism. Pablo Casals was born in El Vendrell in Catalonia, Spain ...

'A recording of overwhelming emotional power: the power of Bach combined with the great themes of Coltrane. The resulting sonorities are literally unheard-of: classical sound plus the mix of a pop album' - Raphaël Imbert's excellent Bach-Coltrane album which featured here recently hardly needs marketing-speak to promote it. But the promotional copy quoted above from the record label's website may be the tip of an iceberg. My header image shows how the Grateful Dead's 1974 Wall of Sound redefined louder music. Even before that Stockhausen wrote Stimmung for six amplified voices . Then in the 1980s Xenakis decided that amplification was the only way to balance a harpsichord against percussion in Komboï . In the twenty-first century Jordi Savall uses subtle amplification for instruments such as the santur in his concerts of medieval music . And the new English National Opera production of Bernstein's Candide, transplanted from the Théâtre du Châtelet in ...

Back in 1972 I bought my first recording of music by Leoš Janáček, the gorgeous sounding and looking Decca LP conducted by the Belgian François Huybrechts seen above. Janáček died eighty years ago today on 12 August, 1928 and in commemoration Pierre Boulez conducts his music at the BBC Proms this Friday, 15 August . Janáček 's haunting solo piano work On An Overgrown Path (which is also translated as On The Overgrown Path ) provided the inspiration for this blog which shortly celebrates a much more modest anniversary; the first post was uploaded on 24 August 2004, since when almost 1700 posts have hit cyberspace. It is a sign of our weird and wired world that if you type 'On Overgrown Path' into Google the first eight hits are for this blog and the ninth is for Janáček's divine composition. If, perchance, you are among the weird and wired who don't know Janáček's piano cycle please rectify the situation immediately with Leif Ove Andsnes' interpretatio...

Number of recordings of John Cage's works in UK CD catalogue: In a Landscape (1948) - 12 Sonatas and Interludes (1948) - 11 Bacchanale (1940) - 8 Five (1988) - 8 The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942) - 7 Second and Third Construction in Metal (1940-1941) - 6 Four (1989) - 4 Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orcestra (1951) - 3 As John Cage would almost certainly have agreed, the numbers don't lie, and In a Landscape is surely his most accessible work. It was composed, together with his Suite for Toy Piano , at Black Mountain College, North Carolina in 1948. Cage was at the college to present a festival of music by Eric Satie , a composer whose influence can be heard in the meditative and hypnotic study for solo piano. Black Mountain College was recognised as one of the leading progressive schools in the States, and Cage taught there in 1948 and 1952. Lou Harrison was head of its music department in 1952 and he staged what is considered to be the first e...

Sometimes we forget that it's the music that really matters. To remind us here is a photo I took recently in L'Eglise Saint-Pierre in Commequiers in south-western France. The Ensemble Vocal de la Cathédrale de Nantes directed by Louis-Marie Burgevin with organist Nicolas Daviaud (check out details of that beautiful new French classical style organ here) were performing the exquisitely balanced programme below. But I was in deepest rural France for a specific reason, find out why later this week . Ave Maria - gregorian Ave Maria - Tomás Luis de Victoria Beata Virgo - William Byrd Ave Maris Stella - manuscript of Limoges Stabat Mater - Zoltán Kodály Tota Pulchra - Pau Casals Salve Montserratina - Pau Casals Magnificat - anonymous Concerto in E - Vivaldi/Walther (organ) Credo - Vivaldi Now read about a Bach chorale's secret French connection. Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co...

This photo was sent to me by a reader in New York. It was taken last week and apparently the ladies were rehearsing for a demonstration outside the Good Shepherd Church, New York, NY on December 5th. Remember - the individual is sovereign. Photo was taken in New York but is actually from Wikipedia . 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

Vibrato isn't the only thing to have been abandoned at this year's BBC Proms as this photo of Charles Hazlewood conducting this evening's concert shows. Even Sir Malcolm Arnold wore one. Picture credit BBC TV. 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

I'm all in favour of diverse programmes, and today's concert at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester certainly had something for everyone. Funny to think that the Ligeti was composed just twelve years after the Rodrigo . Pärt – Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten Ligeti – Concert românes Rodrigo – Concerto de Aranjuez Beethoven – Symphony No.7 CBSO Youth Orchestra Academy Michael Seal – Conductor Morgan Szymanski - Guitar Arvo Pärt - what exactly is a classic ? 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

Is it surprising that we keep hearing of the death and transfiguation of the music journalist ? Take the gushing profile above of Gustavo Dudamel by Guardian chief arts writer Charlotte Higgins which took up half a page in the paper's main news section on Friday. Where are the insights that could not be gleaned from reading a few press releases? Where are the opinions from anyone other than three hardly objective members of the UK culture club, all of whom have booked Dudamel to conduct? Where is the balance among the fawning endordements? Where is the information that the author of the profile went on a trip to Italy to hear Dudamel conduct that was funded by his record label ? Where is the information that the author of the glowing profile was also commissioned by the same record label to write the booklet notes for a recent Dudamel CD release ? Maybe the death of music journalism and its transfiguration into blogging has nothing to do with the often cited dominance of the in...

That great musician and man of conscience Pablo Casals is seen above with his wife Marta meeting the Kennedys at a White House reception. There are two BBC Proms this evening and they both include music to celebrate the opening of the Beijing Olympics. The poetry of A.E. Housman was recited to some effect during the Prom on July 29 so I suggest the following words by Pablo Casals are read tonight before Chen Yi's Olympic Fire and Michael Torke's Javelin : 'An affront to human dignity is an affront to me; and to protest against injustice is a matter of conscience. Are human rights of less importance to an artist than to other men? Does being an artist exempt him from his obligations as a man? If anything, the artist has an even greater responsibility, because he has been granted special sensitivities and perceptions and because his voice may be heard when others may not. Who, indeed, should be more concerned than the artist about the defense of liberty and free inqu...

Many column inches (should that be pixels?) elsewhere about Roger Norrington's vibrato-less Elgar. But I'm not planning to add to the comment I made after hearing the concert - "it destroys the music". The whole 'controversy' smacks to me of a manipulative PR stunt by the BBC. Would Norrington and his Stuttgart Orchestra have been invited to 're-engineer' an Elgar symphony at the Proms if the same conductor had not been the star of the Last Night and a judge on the BBC's inexcrable Maestro TV reality show ? Would the Observer have devoted a major article to the 'controversy' if one of their group music journalists was not a Radio 3 Proms presenter ? I fully expect ( adult advisory ) a Zenra orchestra to be the highlight of the 2009 Proms. As Elgar said to a conductor who believed in good vibrations - "My reputation is safe in your hands" . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the pu...

Yesterdays story about Mozart's black lace bra is one of the more amusing results of what happens when a an artist doesn't have contractual approval over the graphics on his recordings. But things can go even more badly wrong when the artist does have control over the graphics. Herbert von Karajan led the way in the 1960s for all sorts of approvals to be written into artist's contracts, including album designs. Many young pretenders used Karajan as a role-model in the 1970's classical recording boom, and one of those was Riccardo Muti. When Riccardo recorded the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures From An Exhibition in 1978 I was responsible for album covers at EMI, and the conductor had contractual approval over cover designs. Trying to get Muti to approve an album cover was rather like asking Attila the Hun to release prisoners. I still carry the scars of the approval process, but we finally shipped the album with the cover above, which was photographed in Philadelphia...

'Whatever people's opinion of David Popper , I will play his music as long as I play the cello, for no other composer wrote better for the instrument' - Pablo Casals on the Bohemian composer and author of High School of Cello Playing David Popper (photo above) who died on August 7, 1913. Now read about a little known gem of a cello concerto written by a composer born in the year that David Popper died. Lone voices showcases music not featured in the 2008 BBC Proms, discover more lone voices 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

After I uploaded the Boult Planets cover a couple of weeks back Christopher Bishop, who was Sir Adrian's recording producer at EMI, emailed me this story. 'I once found a record of Mozart 40th and Eine Kleine, conducted by Boult, with a black lace bra on the cover (above). I showed it to him, and he said (delightfully missing the point) "Good heavens! What's that got to do with the G minor?"' Read about Christopher Bishop and David Munrow on the record and download the podcast 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

If any proof is needed that less is more it is Mexican director Francisco Vargas' 2005 debut film El Violin . The acting is superb and the direction very sensitive, but the showstopper is the high contrast black and white photography. Available on DVD and not to be missed. There is an excellent interview with Francisco Vargas on the Twitch film site . This is his description of how music is used as a metaphor in the film - ' There’s lots of music in the film expressed in lots of different genres; but—if there is a musical term to describe this film—it is a corrido. The musical genre of Mexican corridos , with regard to the revolution, was a way of actually communicating news about things that had happened from one place to another. It was also a way of keeping memory. But most of all it was a way of liberating the spirit of the people. This was the way that the spirit of the need for change among the people was safeguarded over the years. The film starts out with a corrido and ...

Back in the days when I lived in London and went to the BBC Proms regularly the promenaders used to perform chants in between works. They were rather silly but harmless and didn't get in the way of the music. These days the chants have disappeared and instead we have silly applause between movements which does get in the way of the music. Could the BBC please do a deal with the promenaders and trade the applause for the chants? Last night's Prom showed just how stupid the habit of applauding between movements at the Proms has become. A burst of applause after a particularly fine interpretation of a symphony movement is understandable. But the performance of Dvorak 6 by the Netherlands Philharmonic and Yakov Kreizberg , which was flogging the inevitable new CD release , was decidedly pedestrian. Yet still the prommers kept applauding between the movements. Hello Mum, I'm at the Proms and that's me clapping ... Header photo was taken by me at the last BBC Prom I attende...