'Tis the gift to be free



Among the most read On An Overgrown Path posts in recent weeks has been the one seen above. It dates from the early days of the blog and was created by cutting and pasting the text of Aaron Copland's 1953 testimony to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's notorious Senate Permanent Subcommittee. There could be two reasons why it is attracting so many readers. One is that it now appears to be the only online version of this important document as the link to its source, a US State Congress document, is broken. Another reason could be its topical resonances. The full text of Aaron Copland's McCarthy hearing can be read via this link.

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If you like Spem in alium try this …

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Read next week's Proms picks by Pliable here. Tuesday's late night BBC Prom by the Tallis Scholars includes a little known work by Alessandro Striggio. A search on Amazon.com for Thomas Tallis’ mighty forty part motet Spem in alium returns 43 results. But a search for Striggio’s motet for the same forces, Ecce beatam lucem , returns just 2 results . The popularity of Tallis’ masterpiece is perfectly understandable, but the neglect of its progenitor is something of a mystery. Alessandro Striggio worked in Florence and Mantua in the 1550s, and developed a luxurious and opulent style of choral writing that culminated in a Sanctus for sixty voices that has sadly been lost over the intervening centuries. The motet Ecce beatam lucem was composed in 1561 as a celebration of Catholicism. It was written to mark the visit of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este to France where he was preaching against Protestantism, and uses forty voices organised in varying groupings through the course of t...
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Travels beyond TripAdvisor

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Reginald Goodall – the holy fool

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A treasure trove of Stokowski downloads

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Wagner, Mahler and Shostakovich all sound like film music

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Cleveland leave a bit of a Missa behind in London

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You say Mariinsky - I say Mravinsky

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