What I learned in 2014

I am less interested in Truth with a capital T and more interested in truths, plural.
That quote actually comes from Kevin Kelly (b. 1952), who was founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and an editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. It is taken from his contribution to How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? I took the photo of Ladakhi women at the Thiksey Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Ladakh during my trip to the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra teachings this summer; one of many highlights of a year during which I uncovered plural truths. Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2014. Any other copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for the purpose of critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter.

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Where has all the musical adventurousness gone?

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My enthusiasm for ensemble sans frontières  Oregon is shared by Trevor Hodgett who wrote the booklet essay for the newly released 1974 . This double CD captures a live set by the band recorded in exemplary sound by Radio Bremen in March 1974. Oregon were then at the top of their game, and remained there until master multi-instrumentalist Collin Walcott was killed in an East German tour bus crash. Here is Trevor Hodgett's assessment of Oregon:  'The late 60s/early 1970s was an era when musical adventurousness and eclecticism had become almost the norm and when musicians like Miles Davis, The Beatles and The Grateful Dead were redefining popular music and blending genres in previously unimaginable ways. But Oregon, who formed in 1970, may just have been the most dizzyingly original band of them all, with a clearly irrepressible determination to transcend conventions and pursue their own unique musical vision.'    In 1974 Kraftwerk released their seminal album Autobahn , Pa
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Why is the classical music industry anti-vax?

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Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc receives the unequivocal support of the classical music industry in the form of advertising, exclusive news and interviews, advertorial partnerships, and complimentary concert tickets and CDs. Yet  Slipped Disc  repeatedly publishes unmoderated misinformation about Covid vaccines - see just two examples above and below. Therefore the classical music industry is supporting potentially deadly anti-vax misinformation. (Follow this link for more on Dr. Luc Montagnier's alleged warning.) It pains me to hold Facebook up as an exemplar. But even that tainted social network banned misinformation about vaccines months ago: as the Guardian reported in February , Facebook "will remove posts with false claims and groups with repeated violations will be shut down". This is not about free speech. It is, like libel laws, about stopping irreversible damage by misinformation .  Slipped Disc , supported by the classical industry, regularly demonises
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What the composer found in his orgone box

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In his review of Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony's 1955 premiere of Alan Hovhaness' Mysterious Mountain the critic Hubert Roussel remarked that "The real mystery of Mysterious Mountain is that it should be so simply, sweetly, innocently lovely in an age that has tried so terribly hard to avoid those impressions in music". To that I would add it is also a mystery that music which is so accessible yet avoids all stylistic platitudes remains so neglected in 2021 when a continuing anti-Boulez backlash mediates concert programmes. Fritz Reiner conducting  Mysterious Mountain  with his Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the glories of recorded sound. Reiner was notorious for using his baton to whip orchestras - if you haven't heard his 1960 Scherezade you haven't lived - yet in the sublime opening of Mysterious Mountain his interpretation is patiently majestic. On the CD reissue , which couples the work with Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé S
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Classical music must woke up and smell the coffee

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As pointed out here previously Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc receives the unequivocal support of the classical music industry in the form of advertising, exclusive news and interviews, advertorial partnerships, and complimentary concert tickets and CDs. Yesterday Norman published an article headlined 'US orchestra: Conductor wanted. No whites need apply' which was sourced from the National Review .  This conservative publication has a certain notoriety, including being one of the few media outlets to publish material written by Jeffrey Epstein's publicist Christina Galbraith . The National Review also publishes contributions by Dinesh D'Souza who has tweeted "So Rosa Parks wouldn't sit in the back of the bus--that's all she did, so what's the big fuss?" and this year ran an article bylined 'The Editors' proposing that the Equality Act "represents is a cynical attempt to use the Civil Rights Act as a Trojan horse for radi
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Scott Ross and the paradox of genius

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On that sleeve for his 1985 recording of the Goldberg Variations , Scott Ross is seen standing in the grounds of Château d'Assas in Languedoc. It was here that many of his great recordings were made. Then, as today, the château dwelt in the twilight zone between grandeur and dereliction, and thirty years ago the recording sessions were regularly interrupted by the sound of rats scurrying across the floor. Scott Ross was born in Pittsburgh in 1951, and moved to France with his mother following the death of his father in 1964. He studied at the conservatoires in Nice and Paris, and first came to Château d'Assas in 1969 to give music lessons to the grandson of its owner Mme. Simone Demangel . When an early music academy was established at the château, the harpsichordist gave masterclasses and became a frequent visitor. At first he stayed in a room in one of the towers, but from 1983 he rented a small house across the road from the château. The photos below were taken by me on a
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How classical music slipped a disc

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Do you remember when streaming was classical music's next big thing? Do you remember when Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc declared   'There is only one classical future - and it's streaming'? Apple Music was recently acclaimed by a leading magazine as, together with Spotify, the Editors' Choice Pick for streaming music services. But did you see another Slipped Disc headline this week telling us that the absorption of Primephonics into Apple Music is not open, fair or classical friendly? Classical streaming may be a convenient short-term expedient for users. But it was a no-brainer to see that its long-term business model which shifts financial control from content producers (artists and record labels)  to content distributors  (artistically-sterile technology giants such as Apple) would hurt the music industry. The uncertain future for high quality streaming services such Primephonics is yet another example of the classical industry's self-inflict
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Music from Osho's free-love playlist

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Hearing is possible for everybody. Listening is only possible for those who are silent. That quotes comes from Osho Rajneesh who is currently the subject of a six-part Netflix documentary - see trailer below. The Guardian 's headline for a review of the miniseries sums up Osho's reputation: ' The free-love cult that terrorised America – and became Netflix’s latest must-watch '. But even though, as Krishnamurti told us , leaders destroy followers and followers destroy leaders, in common with many deviant gurus there are gems of truth in Osho's teachings. Most of those gems were pilfered from perennial wisdom, but, despite this, Osho's often astute observations should not be dismissed. He habitually referred to classical music in his teachings, usually meaning the Indian classical tradition, saying "The great classical music takes you higher , beyond your mind, to silences which can give you a taste of meditation, a taste of existence". Osho Rajneesh&
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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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As a Wagner conductor he has no equal

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The Guardian 's recent obituary of the great Wagnerian bass-baritone Norman Bailey linked to my 2007 post  'Reginald Goodall – the holy fool', which prompts me to revisit that article. My appreciation was written while YouTube was in its infancy, and in the intervening years some invaluable Reginald Goodall resources have been uploaded. These include an excellent full-length 1984 BBC Omnibus documentary ' The Quest for Reginald Goodall ', a complete English National Opera 1973 Siegfried , and a 1954 Die Walküre Act 1 . Also on YouTube is Act 3 of Parsifal from the 1987 Prom s; this was Reginald Goodall's last public concert and David Cairns' review of it is quoted at the start of my original post and provides my headline for this article. Did Reginald Goodall really deserve the sobriquet ' Holy Nazi conductor '? Of course some of his personal views were abhorrent. But so were those of other classical folk heroes including, of course
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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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