Classical music must put its house in order - 2


The blind leading the blind.

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The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

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Wilhelm Furtwängler was born on 25th January 1886. He was Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1923 to his death in 1954, and held this position for the twelve years that Hitler was in power. In January 1945 he was conducting in Vienna, and fled from there to Switzerland where he remained until the Battle of Berlin ended in the defeat of the Nazis. The musicians of his orchestra remained in Berlin during its darkest hour. Here is their story: On 28th March 1945 the Russian forces commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov were just twenty miles to the east of Berlin. A month previously Albert Speer had been replaced as Nazi armaments minister after trying to persuade Hitler that defeat was inevitable. Speer now turned his energies to preventing the musicians of his adored Berlin Philharmonic from perishing in the inevitable final battle. Reich Commisioner Dr Joseph Goebells, who was in charge of the defence of Berlin, had ordered the entire orchestra to be drafted into the Vol
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Towards infinite potential

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The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates that "atoms form a world of potentials and possibilities, rather than of things and facts". Following a parallel path Ajahn Sumedho , a teacher from the Thai Forest Buddhist tradition , has proposed that: We do not know the future. But we do not need to know. We can let the future be the mysterious unknown, the infinite potential - the possibility for pleasure, the possibility for pain, the possibility for peace. As we let go of the fear of the unknown, we find peace. My photo of a stormy sky over Colombo in Sri Lanka hints at that infinite potential. There are many ways to experience it, and music is one of them. For me two examples particularly relevant to this post are Claude Vivier's Siddhartha and Jonathan Harvey's Body Mandala . It is now time for me to defy my advancing years and travel into the mysterious unknown of the future. Which means On An Overgrown Path  will fall silent, When, or indeed i
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I have seen the future and it is cardboard

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This striking structure is the work of the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. It houses one of the electric powered tugs that worked on the Burgundy Canal until the 1930s, and is part of the Cap Canal museum at Pouilly-en-Auxois in France which we visited recently. By any criteria this is a remarkable work of art, but it becomes quite exceptional when it is explained that this is one of Shigeru Ban's famous paper tube structures. Shigeru Ban is famous for his innovative work using paper and cardboard tubing as a material for building construction, and he is particularly known for using recycled cardboard paper tubes to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims . His designs are influenced by the pioneering geodesic domes created by Buckminster Fuller, who made a guest appearance in Karlheinz Stockhausen - part of a dream . Free thinking chamber music ensemble Domus used a geodesic dome when they performed outside the comfort zone , while maverick architect Louis Kahn's
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When classical musicians fought against tuxedo fascism

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In the late 1960s artist Tom Philips was also known for his music activities. These included compositions performed by pianist John Tilbury , and he also played in the Portsmouth Sinfonia and Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra . The Portsmouth Sinfonia was inspired by Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. It was formed in 1970 by a mischievous  Gavin Bryars  from staff and students at Portsmouth College of Art as a one-off ensemble to participate in a talent competition. But the Sinfonia took on a life of its own as a reaction against what its members termed 'tuxedo fascism'.  Ability and experience were not a criteria for playing in the Portsmouth Sinfonia, however attendance at rehearsals was mandatory and intentionally bad playing was not allowed. Early repertoire comprised classical warhorses such as The Blue Danube and Also Sprach Zarathustra . The Sinfonia went on to play at the Purcell Room, Festival Hall, and Albert Hall, and was rewarded with a recording contract; y
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Fruitcakes do provide food for thought

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Timothy Leary was reputedly branded 'the most dangerous man in America' by Richard Nixon, although that attribution now seems apocryphal . Many will consider LSD guru Leary a fruitcake; but, like many brilliant mavericks, he provided much food for thought. During his time as a clinical psychologist at Harvard Leary proposed that behavourial change was not triggered by extended exposure to subliminal influences such as therapy, but to a single revelatory experience which he termed the 'vitalizing transaction'. It was the search for a consciousness-raising vitalizing transaction that led to Leary's love affair with LSD.  Past Overgrown Path posts have explained how my 50 year passion for classical music  was sparked by vitalizing transactions. These included 1950s performances by the  Bournemouth Symphony of the Pathetique and of  Holst's Planets  by a local amateur orchestra ,  Emerson, Lake and Palmer's heretical take on Pictures At An Exhibition , and
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New classical audiences need new music

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A reader's  perceptive comment  explained that to reach a new audience classical music must help listeners across the classical/non-classical divide.  Electronic Dance Music  (EDM) is the immensely popular staple fare of classical's elusive new young audience, and EDM lacks any narrative progression. Classical music can also be non-linear: one example is John Luther Adams' Become Desert , a seamless 40 minute sonic mirage which   abandons the horizontal narrative structures of works such as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony  with its 'Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside'.  Become Desert sits comfortably in the concert hall, yet it would not be out of place in a sunset session at Ibiza's Café Del Mar or a full moon trance party on Koh Pha Ngan . As John Luther Adams described in a New York Times essay ,  Become Desert  literally entrances its audience - "You find yourself listening in ways you never have before. The scale of yo
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Mystery of politically incorrect London Philharmonic violinist

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My 2018 post profiled the Parsee violinist Homi Kanga who joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1950 and may have been the first non-white orchestral musician in the UK. My post related how Homi Kanga left the LPO in 1960 after he complained about the dismissal of a colleague for what he viewed as political reasons. In my post I speculated that Homi Kanga's departure was triggered by a dispute between the LPO management and its Anglo-Indian violinist John Mayer .  However a new comment on my 2018 post suggests Homi Kanga's departure resulted from the dismissal of another musician. An anonymous commenter has suggested that "It was over the sacking of Chumleigh Hind that Homi left the orchestra" but provides no more information. Chumleigh Hind was a scholarship holder at the Royal Manchester College of Music  from 1945-50 and went on to play in the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli and also performed as a soloist . But my research has uncovered no oth
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Breaking the silence of Jarvenpaa

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The silence of Järvenpää was not absolute. Although Sibelius wrote no major works between 1927 and his death thirty years later, he did produce some music. One of the last creative tasks he completed was the 1948 orchestration for strings and harp of Ett Ensamt Skidspår (Lonely Ski-Trail) which was originally written for piano and narrator in 1924. Ett Ensamt Skidspår was first recorded in 1993 by the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Juha Kangas for the Finlandia label. My copy of the original CD, which was released in 1996, is seen above. The Finlandia release of Works for String Orchestra by Sibelius has now transferred to Warner's budget Apex label in different packaging , and it is quite a bargain. As well as Lonely Ski-Trail there is another Sibelius premiere recording on the disc, Grevinnans konterfej (The Countess's Portrait). The programme also includes Rakastava, Andante Festivo , and other more familiar works. The Finnish narrations on the two sh
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Virtue signalling does not sell concert tickets

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This article is unique among the 4554 posts uploaded to On An Overgrown Path since August 2004. Because it agrees with a Slipped Disc post. Last week Norman uploaded a Slipped Disc reader's contribution headlined ' Why I won't be going back to concerts '. The thrust of the contribution was not the reader's fear of COVID, but how for him concerts had become "just a bit too often ordinary... a bit of a ritual". Which resonates with my recent post 'Where has all the musical adventurousness gone?'  lamenting the demise of musicians who is transcend conventions and pursue their own unique musical visions. David Munrow is talking to Peter Maxwell Davies in that photo. In the early 1970s David Munrow’s Pied Piper radio programme was broadcast four times a week for five years and introduced a new audience to early music. He presented a successful TV series, and wrote scores for the BBC TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elisabeth R , and
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...and the musicians were paid £800

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Back in 2008 I curated what was probably the first and only broadcast of a complete lilal  night healing ritual performed by the sub-Saharan musicians known as Gnawa. As a result of that broadcast, eight years later I was invited to a Gnawa trance ritual in Essaouira on Morocco's Atlantic coast. That  lilal was a private devotional event which I was privileged to attend with a Moroccan Sufi friend. But like all musicians, the Gnawa rely on commercial performances for their income. That source of income was abruptly terminated by the Covid pandemic. Which has left many Gnawa musicians facing extreme hardship in a country where fiscal safety-nets are much more fallible than in the West, and as a result  a priceless cultural tradition is at risk. Now there has been a heartwarming attempt to alleviate, at least in part, the musicians' hardship. A UNESCO intiative led to 75 gnawan master musicians gathering in Essaouira in December for the filming of a two hour TV special
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