The meaning of music


The best possible response, however, to the question 'What are your songs about?' was vintage 60s Bob Dylan: 'Oh, some are about four minutes, some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve,' he replied.
Quote is from Karen O'Brien's biography of Joni Mitchell. Read about the birth of rock here.
Dylan photo from Mood Swing. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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Is classical music obsessed by existential angst?

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So I asked Elliott Carter "What if you don't feel existential angst? What if you want to write music that expresses joy or some other kind of emotion?" And he goes "Jeff, if you do that you'll never have a career in music." I find that electronic music has a real problem to it, because, at this point, there is no good way to get across the kind of energy and vitality that the performer brings to acoustic music. It has been a kind of meme of mine that the problem of classical music is that there just isn't enough bass, there isn't enough visceral quality to it. When the oil spill hit we decided that enough is enough. I am a little concerned about how America is being controlled by the corporations... We had always flirted with the idea of moving to France, we has been trying to do it since Reagan was elected in fact, and we just decided to do it. That is composer and new technology guru Jeff Harrington talking on the Chance Music programm
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Being particular is not important

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These photos are of my guide Rashid and cook/muleteer Mohammed on my recent trek in Morocco's High Atlas. My listening while in the mountains included Norman Del Mar's recording of Rubbra's Second and Eighth Symphonies for Lyrita and Vernon Handley's Bax Second and Fourth  for Chandos . Both those discs will be familiar to long time OAOP readers, but less familiar may be Einojuhani Rautavaara 's symphonies. Since the 1990s I had known and admired Rautavaara's  Second and Seventh - Angel of Light - Symphonies for Bis and Ondine respectively. But his other symphonies in Ondine's complete cycle were new and very rewarding territory for me. In his booklet essay for the Ondine box set Kimmo Korhonen quite accurately describes Rautavaara's eight symphonies as "one huge journey through life, a voyage of the soul..."  My reading also produced a strong recommendation for like-minded readers. David Darling is an English astronomer, freelance scie
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Closer to Vaughan Williams than Phil Spector

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