Wagner's sonic dream


ClariSonus, a website "dedicated to exploring, analyzing and documenting the effect of technology on the recording and reproduction of sound", has a nice link to On An Overgrown Path. Which provides yet more confirmation that there is life beyond the currently fashionable "Breaking - plastic pianist severs arm" approach to promoting classical music. And talking of the effect of technology on the recording and reproduction of sound, the new CD release of Jonathan Harvey's 'Bayreuth meets Buddhism' opera Wagner Dream comes with a sonic as well as musical and spiritual recommendation. No time at present to write in detail about this landmark of contemporary music, but hat tip to recording engineers Franck Rossi and David Poissonnier, and real-time electronic mixing team Jonathan Harvey and Gilbert Nouno, who captured Wagner Dream for Belgium label Cypres at Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam in 2007. Additional hat tip for the inspired CD artwork above, which is the work of the contemporary Tibetan/Nepalese artist Tsherin Sherpa. While, staying with the visual, it is ironic that the documentary of the Met's Ring non-resounding is titled Wagner's Dream. And talking of Tibet, Jonathan Harvey discusses the problem of being categorised as a "Buddhist composer" in my radio interview with him.

* In his ClariSonus post John Atwood raises the very good question as to why I blog using the name Pliable, so it is worth providing the backstory in brief. After my corporate days were passed I worked for the UK criminal justice agencies on communication projects in the areas of race and equality. To avoid any conflicts between my employment and blogging, the latter does touch on humanitarian issues, I adopted the name Pliable from the character in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. A lot of posts were uploaded using that identity and it seemed confusing to change identity mid-stream. But for several years I have been free of potential conflicts of interest, and there has been no attempt to conceal that this blog is written by Bob Shingleton.

Also on Facebook and Twitter. Wagner Dream was bought from Prelude Records. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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