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No comment from me about that extract from Overgrown Path's traffic logs. Except to say that if enlightened of Bromley had tried the correct spelling of Petroc Trelawny even more dreadful things would have been returned.

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Pliable said…
Can things get worse at the BBC? -

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-crisis-over-fake-sweatshop-scene-in-primark-documentary-2298764.html
4:15 pm
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All aboard the Martinu bandwagon

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Depressing, but predictable, to see the mainstream media scrambling aboard the Bohuslav Martinů bandwagon as soon as BBC Radio 3 announces a cycle of his superb symphonies . Equally depressing, but a sign of the times, to see the Independent publishing an appreciation of the composer's symphonies by a writer who confesses elsewhere to never having heard a single note of them. As Norman Lebrecht famously wrote in the Evening Standard back in 2006: ‘... until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town’. Sadly the hard facts now show that Norman is no longer at the Evening Standard , and, as from next Monday, the Evening Standard will no longer be a paid for newspaper . But you can find pre-bandwagon appreciations of Martinů 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
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Whatever happened to the long tail of composers?

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Reader Antoine Leboyer writes to point out that the New York Philharmonic has made its programme archive available online and that the archive shows how past programmes were far more varied than those played today. Here are just some of the composers that Antoine highlights from past concerts by the orchestra: Siniaglia, Busoni, Bosi, Chadwick, Stanford, Loeffler, McDowell, Hadley, Goldmark, Pfitzner, Enesco, Vieuxtemps and Grétry. Antoine also remarks on how Webern's music has virtually disappeared from New York concerts in recent years. One of the many confidence tricks of the digital era is how a long tail of cultural riches was promised , but a short head immaculately coiffed by audience whoring celebrities was actually delivered. I suggest that one of the key search criteria for the New York Philharmonic's new music director should be a passion for giving audiences permission to like unfamiliar music . Graphic is grabbed from the New York Philarmonic archive lan
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Programme note for orchestra touring China

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The worst thing for any victim is not the pain that one has undergone, but the knowledge that the culprit is still roaming free, and worse if the victim has to stand in silence while the culprit goes about in the crowd with a show of power. To be in a free country and allowing Chinese leaders to go unchallenged, allowing them to carry on their business as if everything is fine back in China and Tibet, is a DUTY not performed. We protest not because we hate Chinese , but because we want to speak to their conscience or their wrongdoing, and tell them we have not forgotten and that we still protest this, and also to tell the world of the injustice we are suffering at the hands of the brute and the bully, thereby seeking their support.  That extract comes from the essay Protest As Celebration Of Difference by Tenzin Tsundue . After graduating from Madras, South India, Tenzin Tsundue crossed the Himalayas on foot and entered Tibet. He wanted to see the situation in his occupied country
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Master musician who experienced the pain of genius

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Who are the real classical role models?

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Great music has no independent existence

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Listening to the Amsterdam Sinfonietta's exemplary performance on CD of the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony reminded me  once again  that I cannot hear that Adagietto without recalling the closing scene of Visconti's Death in Venice . In his autobiographical The Way of the White Clouds Lama Govinda explains how....  Sometimes a glance, a few casual words, fragments of a melody floating through the quiet air of a summer evening, a book that accidentally comes into our hands, a poem, or a memory laden fragrance may bring about the impulse which changes and determines our whole life.   In Mahayana Buddhism the entry point to a transcendent hidden land is known as a beyul . When I first saw Visconti's cinematic masterpiece in 1971 it took me through a beyul to the music of Mahler - which led on to the riches of Bruckner, Wagner and more - and on to an engaging  zeitgeist . For years classical music has struggled unsuccessfully with the challenge of attracting
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He was not an online kind of person

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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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