On An Overgrown Path

Yesterday’s trenchant post about Michael Berkeley’s BBC Radio 3 programme prompted me to listen again to the magnificent sounding Lyrita CD of his father’s music seen above. In common with many other composers, Lennox Berkeley's music is neglected not because it lacks merit, but because the industry power brokers do not see him as a commercial opportunity. Today he is usually remembered for his relationship with Benjamin Britten , but there is much else worth noting. He was an influential teacher whose pupils included David Bedford , Richard Rodney Bennett , William Mathias , Nicholas Maw and John Tavener . Berkeley’s own teacher was Nadia Boulanger who was also instrumental in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. In turn Berkeley encouraged John Tavener to embrace the Roman rite, which started the long journey via the Orthodox Church which ultimately led Tavener to the perennialism of René Guénon . Although the Lyrita CD does not contain any music that is remotely 'sa...

Bob, you'll find a link in my latest post to a charming BBC Radio 3 documentary on Takemitsu which was broadcast a few years ago. In case you missed it then, I recommend it. It briefly restored my faith in Radio 3. That email was sent by David Derrick and the headline quote comes from Toru Takemitsu who appeared here recently in Remixing Japan . My header photo was taken in Les Jardins du Loriot, Venansault, France and featured in another post that mixes music and gardens . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2013.

News comes that composer and broadcaster Michael Berkeley has been made a peer in the House of Lords – that is him with his father Lennox on the Chandos CD above . I used to be a big fan of BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions programme which he presents, and in the past have written here in praise of it . But the programme has fallen victim to the BBC’s ‘dumb or die’ policy and now features Michael Berkeley indulging expendable media celebrities whose tastes in music are more Radio 2 than 3. Which means I - and probably a lot of other people - no longer listen to it. Is no one prepared to oppose dumbing-down ? Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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).

Finding the right balance between adoration and confrontation is not easy. So it was pleasing to see a recent tweet describing On An Overgrown Path as “agreeably vexed”. And watching last night’s BBC Four TV documentary smoothing its way through late-20th century music while camera-checking every possible media-friendly minor celebrity in the process, it struck me that classical music might reach that elusive new audience if it was rather more vexed. Portrait by Santiago Rusiñol shows Eric Satie who influenced 20th century music with his agreeable Vexations . Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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).

“people who don’t listen to classical music” doesn’t mean “stupid jungle camp watchers”. There is space between, filled with great people! That tweet came from Sven Helbig whose Pocket Symphonies sparked a recent post . Sven makes a very good point, but the currently fashionable condescending classics and TV reality shows will not enthuse those great people. There is a lot to learn from Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s film scores as captured on the 1972 LP above – music that is neither easy nor difficult . Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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).

For the first performance of John Tavener's The Cappermakers at Charleston Manor in 1964, students from the Royal Academy and the Royal College were bolstered by professionals. Tavener himself conducted, and Francis Steiner took the prominent piano part in the ensemble, which consisted otherwise of woodwind, horn, trumpet, harp and string quintet. The chorus was the St Christopher Singers, who also provided the male trio to sing the part of Christ. One solo tenor and one baritone shared the parts of Lazarus and the four Jews. In a volume of Stravinsky's conversations, Tavener had read the great composer's description of the part of Satan in his opera The Flood : 'a high, slightly pederastic tenor'. Having no idea what 'pederastic' meant, but assuming it was a musical term, and loving the sound of Satan on the recording of The Flood , John urged his soloists to sing more pederastically. One of them 'turned the colour of an orange', he remembers. Du...

Visiting Aldeburgh these days is rather like visiting the shrine of St Bernadette at Lourdes . Hopefully I do not need to restate my admiration for Britten the composer . But his elevation to sainthood is rather ridiculous and does contribute to the neglect of other less heavenly but nevertheless first-rate composers. Among them is Sir Malcolm Arnold , whose mortal sins - which included indulging in a dram or three and writing an Oscar-winning movie score - are more than offset by nine persuasive symphonies which share with Britten the influence of Mahler and Shostakovich. The impact of visionary composers such as Mahler, Shostakovich and Britten on music history is much discussed. But the influence of impresarios such as Walter Legge , William Glock and Britten – this time in his role as founder of the Aldeburgh Festival – receives little attention . There is little doubt that dumbing-sideways – impresarios exercising personal musical preference – did more good than harm when...

A recent post suggested that classical music should stop reacting to pressure from the instant gratification lobby and instead focus more on 'just sitting' , and it is good to find at least one record company in agreement with that sentiment. Brilliant Classics has recently released a recording of the blind Spanish composer Antonio de Cabezòn’s (1510-1566) Obras de música . This celebrated collection of instrumental music comprises elaborations of liturgical texts, transcriptions of motets by composers such as Josquin, and Cabezòn’s own celebrated tientos . The performers are Harmonices Mundi directed by Claudio Astronio and this is the only complete recording; it fills seven CDs and cost me just £16.25 from an Amazon reseller . Ladies and gentlemen please take your seats... Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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 r...

News that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are producing Chateau Miraval wine on their estate in Provence topically compliments my current thread of music and place . The power couple reportedly bought the nineteenth-century Chateau Miraval - seen above - for $60 million, and a previous owner was Jacques Loussier. He owned the chateau from 1970 to 1992 and installed a recording studio there in 1977. Studio Miraval , which in its heyday offered state-of-the-art technology, a resident chef, three apartments and a swimming pool, was used by Loussier for his own recording projects and also hosted many famous guest artists. Part of the Pink Floyd’s seminal album The Wall was recorded there in 1979, and a Pink Floyd wine produced on the estate subsequently became a best seller. Jacques Loussier is best known for his Play Bach crossover albums. But in 1974 the pianist stopped touring with his Trio and six year later retreated to Miraval where he composed his Lumières: Messe Baroque du 21...

Given its affinity with his perennially popular American Quartet, it is surprising that Dvořák’s String Quintet is not better known. Both the American Quartet and the String Quintet were composed when the composer was staying in the small Czech settlement of Spillville, Ohio , and my header photo shows a mural in the town commemorating his visit . While Dvořák was in Spillville he attended a ritual performance by visiting North American Indians of the Kickapoo tribe . We can only speculate on how the Quintet was influenced by the music of the Kickapoo, who are survivors of a culture described by Andrew Harvey as ‘voices of the first world’. But if that portrayal of an inspired Dvořák in Spillville is accurate, his Quintet was almost certainly the product of what Buddhists call ‘fragrant learning’. This is the assimilation of wisdom by unintentional absorption; just as clothing absorbs the fragrance of temple incense, so humans are affected by the atmosphere of a place from simply ...

There is persuasive evidence that classical music’s big new ideas about how to attract new audiences are having little impact . But, despite this, the music industry remains locked in an unproductive circle which means that as one big new idea falls by the wayside – remember tweeting in concerts ? – another takes its place. The whole big new ideas movement – as exemplified by Max Hole’s recent ‘vision’ presentation – is based on the dogma that over the centuries classical music has become encumbered with a multitude of superfluous protocols that are a barrier to reaching new audiences. This dogma is misguided: just as protocols, in the form of rules and conventions, make communication between network computers possible, so classical music protocols, again in the form of rules and conventions, make communication between music, performers and listeners possible. Yes, some of the conventions need revising; but the the big new ideas gurus preach that protocols are synonymous with el...

Hi Bob, reading your Roberto Gerhard post immediately brought to mind a new release of the three piano concertos by Alberto Ginastera - seen above. Both composers underwent significant stylistic growth from somewhat populist roots to embracing cosmopolitan modernism. I completely agree with your assessment of Gerhard, though I haven't heard the quartets yet. One interesting feature of this Ginastera recording is the premiere of his early Concierto Argentino , which he suppressed and withdrew. His widow gave the (excellent) pianist permission to play and record it. It's delightful. The other two are strong and bracing. Terrific music. Best, John McLaughlin Williams Also on Facebook and Twitter . 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).

If you read On An Overgrown Path you will be affected by news in the French press that Harmonia Mundi are to close half of their thirty stores in France. Their boutiques specialise in classical, world and jazz CDs, and have provided many of the serendipitous finds that have given this blog its distinctive personality over the years. My header photo shows the Harmonia Mundi store in Nantes, where my many discoveries have included Abed Azrié’s The Gospel of John that featured in Klinghoffer’s Syrian Connection and also Ali Reza Ghorbani's settings of Rumi , while only yesterday I featured a CD by lutenist José Miguel Moreno , a musician whose recordings I first discovered in the Harmonia Mundi boutique in Avignon many years ago. Last year I started a post by saying “Harmonia Mundi's retail stores in France are veritable Aladdin's Caves for hardcore CD collectors” and I went on to enthuse about Joel Frederiksen’s Requiem for a Pink Moon . I discovered that new release i...

We are an old people; we wander in search for everything in far off places when it is so close to us. Beauty is ever there, never here, truth is never in our homes but in some distant place. We go to the other side of the world to find the master, and we are not aware of the servant; we do not understand the common things of life, the everyday struggles and joys and yet we attempt to grasp the mysterious and the hidden. That cautionary teaching by Krishnamurti is relevant to classical music’s increasingly frantic search for truth in distant places where entertainment is master . My soundtrack is José Miguel Moreno’s recent recording of music for the eleven course lute by the German composer David Kellner, a little-known contemporary of J.S. Bach. Despite Kellner’s beguiling melodies coming tantalizingly close to instant gratification, it is unlikely that this album from Spanish independent label Glossa will be Sinfini CD of the week or win a Grammy. However, with average track tim...

Classical music’s big new ideas of alternative venues, etiquette-free concerts, informal dress, straight-talking websites and burgeoning portable media are now joined by pocket symphonies. On Feb 22 Deutsche Grammophon releases Sven Helbig’s Pocket Symphonies which, to quote the DG website, are “Short, catchy and yet with the immensity and depth of the great classic symphonies, they draw on centuries of power and glory. These pieces can of course be listened to on the journey between underground stations, as they provide an outstandingly high-quality soundtrack for everyday life”. Sven Helbig’s pedigree includes studying at the former Dresden Conservatory, and collaborating with the Pet Shop Boys , rapper Sido and German industrial metal band Rammstein . He has appeared at the digerati’s hot gig TEDx , and on this new album works with Kristjan Järvi , the MDR Symphony Orchestra and Fauré Quartett . Promotional material from Helbig’s management laments how 'classical music ha...

John McLaughlin Williams writes - There will be many tributes to the late James DePreist , and all will bear eloquent witness to the complete mastery and great humanity of a musician who touched many lives. Unfortunately, I had no personal acquaintance with Mr. DePreist, but he was frequently with me, whether from listening to his myriad recordings (that of Korngold's Symphony in F# stands out among many high points), or from recalling my first encounter with his conducting and musicianship. As a young violin student resident in Washington, D.C., I had the privilege of attending many concerts of the National Symphony Orchestra . On one occasion my mother took me to hear Bruckner's 4th Symphony performed by NSO and conducted by DePreist. It was my first encounter with both. Though I thought the music very long, I remember being mesmerized by what seemed endless paragraphs of sound, all marshaled seamlessly by the conductor. My mother made no special emphasis of the conducto...

..the most successful of all women announcers – her personality is a combination of dignity and friendliness. There had been female announcers on the Third from the very beginning – Marjorie Anderson , and also Joy Worth , who had a lovely, slightly ‘ginny’ voice. You’ve got to be a very special woman to have a good broadcasting voice – the male voice is, normally, much harder and clearer. I brought Patricia [Hughes] back after her maternity absence. Later I brought in Elaine Padmore and Susan Sharpe . Cormac Rigby , presentation editor of BBC Radio 3 from 1972 to 1985 remembers Patricia Hughes who has died age 90. That fulsome praise appears in Humphrey Carpenter’s The Envy of the World – Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3 , a book that also contains an anecdote relevant to the current dumbing-down debate : Rigby recalls that Stephen Hearst [controller Radio 3 1973-78] did not initially share his enthusiasm for Patricia Hughes: ‘He took me out to lunch, and we were t...

Back links to my post Are top musicians sharing the financial pain? continue to prompt hate mail from within the music industry. Elsewhere it is reported that Valery Gergiev has been ‘defrauded by aides’ of more than $8 million. Not a single soul has remarked on the irony of how in these financially challenged times a conductor can amass that amount of money in the first place. My headline is sung by Brünnhilde in the last act of Götterdämmerung and the header image is remixed from Wieland Wagner’s 1966 Bayreuth production of Das Rheingold . 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). This post is also available via Facebook and Twitter . V1.1

Rewarding to see a Twitter conversation about Dean Dixon sparked by a thrift shop discovery of him conducting Walter Piston’s Second Symphony on a vinyl LP. Snatches from the conversation include “Dean Dixon was one of the 20th century’s greatest conductors…Pure genius” – “I can’t think of a single inferior Dixon recording. And mediocre orchestras played divinely for him” – “He was outstanding in American music and classical period repertory (Haydn, Weber and Beethoven)”. “And mediocre orchestras played divinely for him”… how many of today’s lavishly rewarded maestros can that be said for? Coming to that would a thoroughly modern maestro’s management ever put him in front of anything other than an A list orchestra ? That is Dean Dixon in the photo above; more on the maestro who mediocre orchestras played divinely for in Dean Dixon – I owe him a huge debt . Header image comes via Sam's database of African American musicians . Any copyrighted material on these pages is includ...

Half full – Roberto Gerhard’s beautifully crafted and wonderfully bracing string quartets played by the incomparable Arditti Quartet have just been released on CD by French independent label æon – the lower case is theirs not mine. Gerhard was born in Catalonia in 1896, and the troubled recent history of that region divided its many great artists into those who like Pau Casals rejected Franco’s regime , and those like Xavier Montsalvatge who stayed to work under the Fascists . Roberto Gerhard , who studied with Schoenberg in Berlin and Vienna for four years in the 1920s, falls squarely into the former category: he publicly supported the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and when Barcelona fell to Franco’s forces settled in Cambridge where he lived and worked until his death in 1970. His two string quartets are late works - 1961 and 1950-55 – respectively and the new disc also contains his Chaconne for Solo Violin from 1959. Both the quartets show Schoenberg’s influence bu...

I have long championed the idea that for dialogue to exist there must be two different people. The fusion that effaces the characteristics of each participant seems to me as dangerous as the disappearance of biodiversity in the world today. The reduction of differences is, alas, widespread, on the pretext of making this music more accessible to all; but in reality when the micro-intervals of Ottoman music, its tempi and its relationship to time are not respected, the result is merely to make it more insipid. That is Denis Raisin Dadre , director of vocal group Doulce Mémoire , writing in the sleeve notes for the newly released CD La Porte Félicité . The project from the French independent Zig-Zag Territoires label is a collaboration between Doulcé Memoire and the Ensemble Kudsi Erguner whose eponymous founder and Sufi musician featured in a recent post . La Porte Félicité is a musical dialogue between the very different Ottoman and European cultures that co-existed in Constantinop...

In the notes for the CD of her violin concerto Exultet composer Edith Canat de Chizy explains that ”The idea of ‘sound matter’ is very important to me. I started to compose after having been involved in exploring acoustic materials. I first came into contact with this matter at the [Paris] Conservatoire with Ivo Malec . So the starting point of composition for me was when I began to work a block of matter. I start with the raw material. I sculpt it and it slowly takes form”. Classical music and acoustics are inseparable and there are also close links between music and architecture: Iannis Xenakis worked with Le Corbusier and John Cage worked with Ernő Goldfinger , Wagner specified a sound diffuser at Bayreuth to achieve the perfect remix for his operas, while Bruckner built cathedrals of sound as monuments to his “beloved God”. However the sonic architect par excellence was Bach, as a concert yesterday by the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr illustrated so graphica...