Benjamin Britten slated


It is worth reading the review in Slate of Neil Powell's Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music, and not just because it links to and quotes from my related post.

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These photos were taken on my recent spirit quest in Morocco to the Sufi shrine of Sidi Chamharouch, which is seen above. A 75 minutes drive from Marrakech brought me to Imlil where the road ends and the mountains begin. The hamlet of Sidi Chamharouch - which is one of those blessed places which returns a blank in a Trip Advisor search - is at an altitude of 2350 metres and is reached by a tough and potentially dangerous two hour climb up a rocky path. Access is impossible for wheeled vehicles and supplies are brought in by the mules seen in my photos. Beyond Sidi Chamharouch is Jebel Toubkal, which at 4,167 metres is the highest mountain in North Africa. During my trek I was struck by the similarity between the High Atlas and Ladakh on the border of India and Tibet . Film director Martin Scorsese was also struck by the similarity. With Tibet a no-go zone he used this region for location shooting of his 1997 movie Kundun ; this depicts the Dalai Lama 's flight into exile fro...
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Classical music as ritual

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On the question of how to make classical music more accessible I remain a seeker. There are persuasive arguments from the modernists who see the need to cleanse concerts of what they see as silly conventions . But the classicists counter these with compelling explanations of how such conventions are an integral part of the concert experience. Recent posts here have favoured the modernists , but parallel reading has led me to see the arguments of the classicists in a different light. Zen Buddhism has had a considerable impact on Western classical music . But its more esoteric cousin Tibetan Buddhism remains elusive despite its embrace by Jonathan Harvey and other composers. Buddhism warns against dualism and the possibilities offered by the non-dualistic middle way are evidenced by Jonathan Harvey's questioning so-called silly concert conventions while composing music influenced by Tibetan Buddhist rituals and the highest yoga tantra . Central to the Vajrayana school of Tibetan ...
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