Catching the wave


A recent post described my trekking adventure in Morocco's Atlas Mountains under the headline 'This is most definitely not health and safety territory'. Now via my Berber friend Hassan comes this most definitely not health and safety photo of improvising young surfers in Morocco. Soundtrack for this post is the lovingly remastered Dust to Digital edition of Paul Bowles' 1958 Moroccan field recordings; much of disc 1 was recorded in the Berber enclaves of Tiznit and Tafraout to the south of where the photo was taken.

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How to save the BBC Singers

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Classical twitterati have been busy retweeting Andrew Neil's tweet comparing Gary Lineker's £1.3 million salary with the £1.5 million needed to save the BBC Singers. But no-one has tweeted  the most recent figures  showing that the ten highest paid classical conductors earnt in one year a total of £13.8 million. This means that the average salary (before guest conducting, recording and other fees) of the top ten conductors is slightly higher than Gary Lineker's. Moreover a 10% top slice off those conductors' salaries would be almost enough to save the BBC Singers. Over to you twitterati. 
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Classical music has a salary envy problem

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Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies states that once Hitler is mentioned that discussion is ended, because the level of discourse has deteriorated so far further communication is pointless. Which means that whoever mentioned Hitler has lost the argument. I now propose a new rule based on Godwin's law: namely that once Gary Lineker is mentioned in a discussion about the BBC Singers, whoever mentioned Gary Lineker has lost the argument.  First a disclaimer. I am not a football fan and I believe disbanding the BBC Singers is a mistake. But I also live in the real world and see that classical music is doing an appalingly bad job at defending the BBC Singers. BBC TV's Match of the Day fronted by Gary Lineker has a weekly audience of around 2.5 million viewers, and Lineker's on-screen presence guarantees a massive license fee loyalty that helps fund the BBC's classical music activities. I deliberately use words 'help fund' as neither Lineker's salary nor the
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Audio porn

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That is my 1970s vintage Technics stylus pressure gauge being used today. This beautifully engineered strain gauge measures stylus pressure accurate to 0.1 grams. The Thorens TD 125 turntable with SME Series IIIS tone arm and Audio-Technica AT-F3 cartridge are also all more than 40 years old. I wonder how many of today's CD players, yet alone MP3 devices, will still be in daily use in 2057? Coming to that how many of today's music streaming services will still be in business ? And I wonder how many Malcolm Arnold symphonies will be performed at the BBC Proms in the next 40 years ? Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
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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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Watch Michel Petrucciani video online

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Back in January 2005 I wrote about legendary jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani (right), and that article remains high in my 'popular pages' listing after fifteen months. Since writing that piece Overgrown Path reader Andrew Nathan and I have been tracking down Petrucciani video footage, and just this week Andrew came up with an absolute gem that is available free on Google video. In my original article I wrote that Michel Petrucciani was a 'pianistic genius' , and it is no coincidence that he is buried in the Pierre Lachaise cemetery in Paris alongside Chopin. This 38 minute video with excellent sound (and a bonus guest appearance from the gorgeous Charlotte Rampling ) is not just essential viewing for jazz fans, it should be watched by all students of the piano - whatever their discipline. Just click here to view this important document. (The video is not hosted by On An Overgrown Path , this is a link to an external site). And to set the video into context here is m
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Classical music needs to build not burn bridges

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Nada Brahma - Sound is God

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In search of the lost link from non-classical to classical

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Never sit in the comfy chair

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Travelling round Northern France, I found myself listening to France Musique. Frank Bridge. Arnold Bax. And the incomparable performance of In a Summer Garden by Barbirolli . Presented in a way that suggested the presenter knew what he was saying.... Cf Petroc Trelawny That comment was added by a reader to a recent post . By coincidence it was awaiting moderation when I returned from driving from Cahors in the Limousin region of south-west France to the Channel port of Caen, during which drive I too found France Musique's output unusually satisfying. When I cleared the UK border control at Portsmouth and turned onto the M27 I tuned in to Martin Handley on BBC Radio 3 . In the past Martin Handley was one of the station's more erudite presenters, but I quickly switched back to the SDHC memory card in my car's audio system . Because Handley's presentation style has descended - or more probably has been forced to descend - into ' Jack and Jill radio' which treats
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BBC classical cuts - beware of the knee jerk reaction

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