On An Overgrown Path

Good journalism changes the way people think. Bad journalism panders to the way people think to win readers. Yesterday the Guardian indulged in bad journalism by jumping on the we need more women conductors bandwagon . Of course we need more women in senior positions in classical music. On An Overgrown Path was one of the first to say that ten years ago. But as a commenter on the Guardian editorial astutely observes "the issue is much more complicated than a call of 'We need more women conductors!'” Quite wrongly a complex of historical factors and entrenched attitudes has prevented women taking senior roles. Thankfully that is now changing , but the cultural correction will take time. It can be argued quite convincingly that the correction should have been instigated earlier. But it wasn't and we can't change history. What makes the Guardian editorial particularly bad journalism is that it aims at the easy target of the unacceptable gender balance in clas...

Questioning 'fairly standard practices' is now well established in classical music, with the most recent example being Stephen Hough's questioning of concert duration and formal dress . But like many things in classical music, selectivity is the name of the game when it comes to asking questions. There is an open season on standard practices such as formal dress , the abolition of which results in nothing more than a cosmetic change. Questioning more sacred practices such as unamplified sound - as Jonathan Harvey did in an interview with me - offends the music thought police and, as a result, provokes little constructive debate . But there are some standard practices that you must never question if you want to continue working in classical music, and these are the practices hidden from view in the music supply chain. In a friendly Facebook discussion about the last minute appearance of cellist Alexey Stadler at last week's BBC Prom, Richard Bratby pointed out qui...

Shiva dances, creating the world and destroying it, his large rhythms conjure up vast aeons of time, and his movements have a relentless magical power of incantation. Our European allegories are banal and pointless by comparison with these profound works, devoid of the trappings of symbolism, concentrating on the essential, the plastic. Those words are from Jacob Epstein's Let there be sculpture . Purba Dhara (An Eastern Stream), which includes contemporary Carnatic music , takes place at 6:00pm today (Aug 29) in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. The fourth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā tells us in Sanskrit that Evam paramparā-prāptam , which translates as 'In this way, by handing from master to pupil, the knowledge is passed down'. It is then explained that sa kāleneha mahatā yogo nastah parantapa - 'However in the course of time this succession became broken'. In Vedānta a mantra is a vibrating sound with the potency to liberate the mind. This wide definition ...

Conceptually, we think that sound is sound and silence is silence. The two seem neatly separated and distinct - in fact opposite of each other. But this is only how we think, how we conceptualize. This is not how Reality is perceived, before we put everything into neat, nicely labeled (but deceptive) little packages. We think there only has to be sound for there to be sound. We overlook that there must also be silence for there to be sound. And because of sound, there is silence. Were there no sound, how could there be silence? Before you strike a bell, sound is already here . After you strike the bell, the sound is here . When the sound fades and dies away, the sound is still here . The sound is not just the sound but the silence, too. And the sound is the sound. This is what is actually perceived before we parse everything out into this and that, into "myself" and "what I hear". The sound of the bell is inseparable from everything that came before and that wil...

Congratulations to cellist Alexey Stadler - seen above - who gave a fine performance as a last minute replacement for an indisposed Truls Mørk in Thursday's BBC Prom . Exclusive inside information including the time of the flight that brought the - I quote - "little-known" Alexey Stadler in to Heathrow on the afternoon of the concert was provided by Norman Lebrecht. But another part of the backstory was missing from Slipped Disc, so I will provide it in the interest of completeness. The 'little-known' Alexey Stadler is managed by super agent HarrisonParrott who also manage some very well-known artists including the BBC Symphony Orchestra's principal conductor Sakari Oramo . And among the other artists they manage is the indisposed Truls Mørk . Alexey Stadler undoubtedly deserves his accolades. But it does help when you've got friends in the right places . As another 'unknown' musician found out eleven years ago . * Photo via Tchaikovsky ...

...Philadeplphia would be shocked to see Mr Stokowski going shoeless into the meditation room. He played a lot of his trial records for us the other night and they were wonderful... That extract* comes from a letter written by Erma Williams, who was the sister of Jiddu Krishnamurti 's close associate and purported lover Rosalind Rajagopal . It dates from 1928 when Krishnamurti was still being promoted by the Theosophical Society as the 'vehicle' of the expected World Teacher, and it refers to Leopold Stokowski's attendance at the Theosophical Society's summer camp at Erde Castle in Holland. Theosophy has attracted many musicians including John Foulds , Cyril Scott , Ruth Crawford Seeger and Dane Rudhyar . Mary Lutyens , mother of the composer Elizabeth Lutyens , was a fervent disciple of Krishnamurti and also his editor and biographer, although her daughter developed a strong aversion to the spiritual movement. Another celebrated musician who embraced Theosophy w...

If classical music spends much more time debating what audiences want and don't want , it will disappear up its own rear orifice. For decades established religions have chased congregations by diluting their essential message. The hard facts give the lie to that strategy: in 2015 for the first time ever attendance at Church of England services dropped below one million . But radical religious groups have bucked the trend . In the States evangelical Christians have retained their share of the population, while mainline Protestants and Catholics lost 3.5 percent and 3 percent of their population share respectively between 2008 and 2015. What we need is classical music radicalism. Classical music is about making great, challenging and rewarding music. It is not about chasing audiences. If the audience comes, that is great. If it doesn't come and a financial crisis ensues, the current bloated celebrity-centric business model will have to go through a painful ( for some ) but m...

Quite soon I will be back in Crete . When I arrive there with my wife we go straight to Houdetsi to catch the last concert in Ross Daly and Kelly Thoma's Labyrinth Summer Workshop series. Then we travel to Agios Nikolaos to hook up with Panos from the Greek Music Shop who supplies me with CDs faster and cheaper than Amazon's UK operation. My most recent purchase from Panos is Osi Hara ‘houn Ta Poulia (Όση Χαρά ‘χουν Τα Πουλιά) on which Εvgenia Damavoliti-Toli sings Ross Daly's settings of Cretan contemporary poets and the great 16th century Cretan bard Vitsentzos Kornaros . A post here last year about the contemporary modal music movement led by Ross Daly lamented how Cretan music has been stereotyped. In the post I went on to explain how a rich mix ranging from Greek Orthodox Christianity to Zen Buddhism and Bektashi Sufism informs Cretan culture, and that compelling universalism pervades this outstanding new release. No comps involved in this post. Any cop...

The recondite  MusiCB3 blog about the music collections at Cambridge University has a contribution from Margaret Jones about the the University Library's resources documenting children’s responses to classical music. Unsurprisingly David Munrow features prominently in Margaret's article which includes the photo above of the Pied Piper with his wife Gill and their instrument collection*. Just before reading the article I had listened to the newly released CD Oregon Live in New Orleans , which is a transcription of an NPR broadcast of a gig Oregon played in February 1978. Readers will know of my admiration for the work of both David Munrow , and of the innovative ensemble Oregon and their predecessor Codona . David Munrow died in 1976 and two years later Oregon's visionary multi-percussionist and sitarist Collin Walcott - seen below - was killed in a car crash while the band was on tour in East Germany. Today David Munrow is remembered as a an early music specialist, ...

Following the Olympic success of British athletes, Judy Grahame - employer M&C Saatchi PLC , turnover £169.37 million and profits £17.2 million - and Richard Morrison - employer Rupert Murdoch's News Corp , turnover £1.64 billion, profits £146 million - and others among classical music's great and good want to talk about public funding. Yes, by all means let's do that; but we must not forget that talking about funding means more than just talking about increased funding for classical music. Because if you simply increase funding without making other changes, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. So let's talk about another aspect of pubic funding - transparency. Lack of public funding is not the only problem. Inequality of funding within classical music is also a serious but less newsworthy problem. As has been pointed out here before , the annual income of £26,000 to £37,000 for a rank and file London musician is in the public domain . However the s...

There are indeed disturbing inequalities between sports and arts funding in the UK. But before classical music's great and good serve up another round of sour grapes on the subject they should reflect on two points. The first is that a little more positive recognition of the truly remarkable achievements of our sportswomen and men at the Olympics would win classical music some badly needed friends beyond its own vocal mutual admiration society . The second thing to reflect on is the following vignette. I have been a committed supporter of classical music for fifty years and rarely watch sport. But the performances of Laura Trott and Jason Kenny - seen above - and many other athletes moved and inspired me far more than any performance I have seen by the current generation of lavishly remunerated celebrity classical musicians . Yes, we need to make the case for increased arts funding. But let's make it in a positive way. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted mater...

Buddhism was a matter of spiritual experience, and spiritual experience was something that could be put into words only to a very limited extent. The Buddha had, therefore, confined himself to showing his disciples how they might experience the Dharma for themselves. he had not laid down a system of philosophy, for this would have been to create a dogma and thus prevent individual development. No formulation of the Buddhas doctrine was final. He himself had been obliged to have recourse to the 'language' of his day, and had he lived later would doubtless have expressed himself different. To cling to outmoded forms of spiritual life and thoughts were disastrous. Spiritual things could not be 'fixed'. Where there was growth there was life, and spiritual growth depended upon our rediscovering spiritual truths for ourselves instead of trying simply to 'take over' the existing conceptual formulations of these truths. Through this process of spiritual growth the indiv...

A codicil to recent discussion about the benefits of simple microphone techniques is provided by the album above. After playing a gig at Hull University in 1967 folk guitarist Graham Davey paid a visit on a friend living in a university hall of residence. John Pilgrim, who was the friend, takes up the story in the sleeve essay: The immediate greetings out of the way tea was made - brewed not rolled - and Davey took out his guitar and started playing. After a few numbers I remembered I had a tape recorder of sorts and turned it on. One or two mildly inebriated students had followed Davey Graham into my room. A few more drifted in as the sound of Graham's guitar penetrated the room. The tape recorder of sorts was in fact a domestic mono Philips reel-to-reel machine. Fortunately the tape spool remained in John Pilgrim's possession and the recording was commercially released on CD as Davey Graham ‎– After Hours (At Hull University, 4th February 1967) in 1997 by Rollercoaster...

A comment on my post Should we change the way classical audiences listen? by MarkAMeldon extolling the virtues of pre-stereo recordings of Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch and Rafael Kubelik ends with the cryptic question of back to mono anyone? Which prompted me to listen again to the Griller Quartet's mono recording of Ernest Bloch's four string quartets which I first praised On An Overgrown Path eleven years ago . Pau Casals declared that "The best composer of our times is Ernest Bloch" and the Griller's interpretations provide strong support for that controversial claim. Seen above is one of the original LP releases, and below is the now deleted 2004 CD transfer . These 1954 Decca recordings were produced by the late Peter Andry who later became general manager of EMI's International Classical Division, where he was my boss in the late 1970s . Forget about the old technology used to make these recordings, because on a monitor qual...

Tomorrow the annual festival celebrating trance music and the role of women in the Sufi hadra tradition opens in Essaouira , Morocco. My recent photo essay explored how the workshops linked to this festival are banging the drum for oppressed women musicians . Much needed progress has been made towards giving women their rightful place in art music's celebrity culture . So it would be good if more attention was now paid to those women who make music in very difficult circumstances far beyond the reach of charmed viral circles . 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).

That is Rebecca Saunders in the photo. She is one of the foremost living British composers and I have been an admirer of her music since I broadcast her Rubricare for baroque string orchestra in 2007 on Future Radio . Now fellow composer Neil Tòmas Smith has drawn attention to the neglect of Rebecca Saunders' music at the BBC Proms - her works have received just one Proms performance and she has received no Proms commissions. This neglect in London may be because of her long-term residency in Berlin, which would be wrong if that is indeed the case. But I suspect there is a more insidious reason. She keeps a notably low media profile, which means a Google search for 'rebecca saunders composer' does not lead to a personal website or social media account. This reticence contrasts sharply with classical music's many viral circles in which members of self-interested cliques talk up each others work to mutual benefit. Musicians should be judged solely on their music. But...

The BBC spin machine works on the premise that anything sells classical music except the music itself. So after some transparently contrived brouhaha about applause between movements at the Proms we have BBC News reporting the pronuncement by Stephen Hough - he plays at the Proms next week - about shorter classical shows. (Did they mean concerts?) Shorter classical concerts are just another way of talking down to the audience - young and not so young. The first step towards consolidating the overlooked but vital existing classical audience and to attracting a new audience is to stop talking down to both groups . As Virgil Thomson told us: "Never underestimate the public's intelligence, baby, and never overestimate its information". 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).

After attending the Kalachakra teaching by the Dalai Lama in Ladakh , India two years ago I wrote somewhat cynically about the luxurious new Chamba Camp 'glamping' (glamour camping) site set up by the Tibetan Buddhist Thiksey Monastery . Last week the Dalai Lama delivered another teaching in Ladakh and while there he visited Chamba Camp Thiksey for a photo op - see above*. The website of the monastery endorsed tourist destination describes how guests relax in individually designed tents, with en-suite bathrooms, private decks, crisp linen, complete with the services of their very own butler. But this heavenly hedonism does not come cheap : three nights for two people in the cheapest 'tent suite' costs 175560 ruppees (£2034), or if you want the real deal three nights in a presidential tent suite - see photo below - will set you back 19751 rupees (£2289). To put this into perspective the average annual income in India is 242155 rupees (£2800). The Dalai Lama has ...

Does the sound matter anymore? Well it does seem to matter, if the large and mainly positive response to my recent critique of the BBC Proms broadcasts is anything to go by. One reader's response extended comment is being posted below because it provides a different and worthwhile perspective on the tension between broadcast/recorded sound and what a listener hears in the cheaper seats of a large concert hall. The main thrust of my post was that the non-immersive sound heard from those cheaper seats is an obstacle to engaging new audiences, whereas the reader using the pseudonym Iarful comes from the opposite direction and argues that the problem is the artificially immersive sound heard in today's broadcasts and recordings. It may be the same difference, but Iarful 's viewpoint is important. His/her reminder of the Quad high-end audio brand's strapline of "The closest approach to the original sound" raises the important question of what is the objecti...

Why are so many otherwise rational people spending so much time ranting about Donald Trump and other politicians on social media? Yes, of course Trump is a dangerous basket case. But ranting about him to your few hundred online friends and followers who already share your opinion is the same as peeing down your trouser leg when wearing a dark suit - it gives you a nice warm feeling but nobody notices. Beware of the trap that lured the British twittering classes into believing that if they made enough noise on social media about the benefits of remaining in the EU, the referendum result was a foregone conclusion. Instead of ranting about Trump, people should read Jarett Kobek's novel i hate the internet , and this passage in particular: One of the curious aspects of the Twenty-First Century was the great delusion amongst many people, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, that freedom of speech and freedom of expression were best exercised on technological platforms owned ...

East Anglian skyscapes have inspired composers including E.J. Moeran , William Alwyn , Elizabeth Maconchy , Ralph Vaughan Williams , Gustav Holst* and, of course, Benjamin Britten . That sunset was photographed by me recently while staying at Ling's Meadow eco campsite on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk. As we move deeper into Kali Yuga , international travel becomes less and less appealing. In response to this I have been experimenting with mini-retreats in my local region. As T.S. Eliot explains in Little Gidding (No. 4 of 'Four Quartets'): We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time * The Holst connection with East Anglia is less celebrated than that of other composers. Holst lived intermittently at Thaxted in Essex between 1914 and 1917, during which time the works he wrote included the Planets and The Hymn of Jesus , and the tune adapted for I Vow to Thee, My C...

Norman Lebrecht rants at certain classical musicians for buying their social media rankings from Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. He is quite right to point out the stupidity of paying social media mills in faraway countries. Because you can boost your ranking much more cheaply using home-grown click bait - see example above. 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).

A highlight of my recent listening was BBC Radio 3's broadcast of the superlative Haitink/LSO Mahler 3 Prom seen above. The BBC's Proms relays maintain a commendably high sound quality, but it is still worth auditioning them with a constructively critical ear. Listening to a Prom on a monitor quality audio system underlines the presence and impact of the sound. But that impact comes at a price: individual instruments and soloists are spotlit - e.g. the mezzo in Mahler's Sehr langsam Misterioso - and although the soundstage is wide the location of sections within the orchestra is ambiguous. These may be esoteric points, but they do lead down a path that raises important questions about how classical music can reach new audiences. A post here in 2012 touched on the up close and personal signature sound of Proms broadcasts, while a post a year later reflected on how placing multiple microphones close to the musicians has, of necessity, become standard recording pract...