Cambridge University research solves social media mystery


This BBC News story explains why so many people 'like' Facebook photos without bothering to read the text.

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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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I have seen the future and it is cardboard

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This striking structure is the work of the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. It houses one of the electric powered tugs that worked on the Burgundy Canal until the 1930s, and is part of the Cap Canal museum at Pouilly-en-Auxois in France which we visited recently. By any criteria this is a remarkable work of art, but it becomes quite exceptional when it is explained that this is one of Shigeru Ban's famous paper tube structures. Shigeru Ban is famous for his innovative work using paper and cardboard tubing as a material for building construction, and he is particularly known for using recycled cardboard paper tubes to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims . His designs are influenced by the pioneering geodesic domes created by Buckminster Fuller, who made a guest appearance in Karlheinz Stockhausen - part of a dream . Free thinking chamber music ensemble Domus used a geodesic dome when they performed outside the comfort zone , while maverick architect Louis Kahn's
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Towards infinite potential

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The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates that "atoms form a world of potentials and possibilities, rather than of things and facts". Following a parallel path Ajahn Sumedho , a teacher from the Thai Forest Buddhist tradition , has proposed that: We do not know the future. But we do not need to know. We can let the future be the mysterious unknown, the infinite potential - the possibility for pleasure, the possibility for pain, the possibility for peace. As we let go of the fear of the unknown, we find peace. My photo of a stormy sky over Colombo in Sri Lanka hints at that infinite potential. There are many ways to experience it, and music is one of them. For me two examples particularly relevant to this post are Claude Vivier's Siddhartha and Jonathan Harvey's Body Mandala . It is now time for me to defy my advancing years and travel into the mysterious unknown of the future. Which means On An Overgrown Path  will fall silent, When, or indeed i
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When classical musicians fought against tuxedo fascism

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In the late 1960s artist Tom Philips was also known for his music activities. These included compositions performed by pianist John Tilbury , and he also played in the Portsmouth Sinfonia and Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra . The Portsmouth Sinfonia was inspired by Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. It was formed in 1970 by a mischievous  Gavin Bryars  from staff and students at Portsmouth College of Art as a one-off ensemble to participate in a talent competition. But the Sinfonia took on a life of its own as a reaction against what its members termed 'tuxedo fascism'.  Ability and experience were not a criteria for playing in the Portsmouth Sinfonia, however attendance at rehearsals was mandatory and intentionally bad playing was not allowed. Early repertoire comprised classical warhorses such as The Blue Danube and Also Sprach Zarathustra . The Sinfonia went on to play at the Purcell Room, Festival Hall, and Albert Hall, and was rewarded with a recording contract; y
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New classical audiences need new music

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A reader's  perceptive comment  explained that to reach a new audience classical music must help listeners across the classical/non-classical divide.  Electronic Dance Music  (EDM) is the immensely popular staple fare of classical's elusive new young audience, and EDM lacks any narrative progression. Classical music can also be non-linear: one example is John Luther Adams' Become Desert , a seamless 40 minute sonic mirage which   abandons the horizontal narrative structures of works such as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony  with its 'Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside'.  Become Desert sits comfortably in the concert hall, yet it would not be out of place in a sunset session at Ibiza's Café Del Mar or a full moon trance party on Koh Pha Ngan . As John Luther Adams described in a New York Times essay ,  Become Desert  literally entrances its audience - "You find yourself listening in ways you never have before. The scale of yo
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Have all the really great musicians come and gone?

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Bernard Haitink's 2016 recording of Mahler's Third Symphony is arguably the greatest interpretation of that towering work committed to record. It is also one of the last testaments from a conductor who together with Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, Sir Adrian Boult, Colin Davis and others defined a golden age of classical music. In response to my post ' Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares ' reader David has posted a comment that starts by asking "...have all the really great performances, recordings indeed all the greatest musicians come and gone?" He then goes on to observe that  "I haven't heard anything in the last twenty or more years that compares with previous generations". The classical industry has spent much time agonising over its failed attempts to reach a new audience. But an even bigger problem has received little attention. Not only is the new young audience remaining elusive, but the older lon
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Fruitcakes do provide food for thought

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Timothy Leary was reputedly branded 'the most dangerous man in America' by Richard Nixon, although that attribution now seems apocryphal . Many will consider LSD guru Leary a fruitcake; but, like many brilliant mavericks, he provided much food for thought. During his time as a clinical psychologist at Harvard Leary proposed that behavourial change was not triggered by extended exposure to subliminal influences such as therapy, but to a single revelatory experience which he termed the 'vitalizing transaction'. It was the search for a consciousness-raising vitalizing transaction that led to Leary's love affair with LSD.  Past Overgrown Path posts have explained how my 50 year passion for classical music  was sparked by vitalizing transactions. These included 1950s performances by the  Bournemouth Symphony of the Pathetique and of  Holst's Planets  by a local amateur orchestra ,  Emerson, Lake and Palmer's heretical take on Pictures At An Exhibition , and
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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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Breaking the silence of Jarvenpaa

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The silence of Järvenpää was not absolute. Although Sibelius wrote no major works between 1927 and his death thirty years later, he did produce some music. One of the last creative tasks he completed was the 1948 orchestration for strings and harp of Ett Ensamt Skidspår (Lonely Ski-Trail) which was originally written for piano and narrator in 1924. Ett Ensamt Skidspår was first recorded in 1993 by the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Juha Kangas for the Finlandia label. My copy of the original CD, which was released in 1996, is seen above. The Finlandia release of Works for String Orchestra by Sibelius has now transferred to Warner's budget Apex label in different packaging , and it is quite a bargain. As well as Lonely Ski-Trail there is another Sibelius premiere recording on the disc, Grevinnans konterfej (The Countess's Portrait). The programme also includes Rakastava, Andante Festivo , and other more familiar works. The Finnish narrations on the two sh
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What do new young audiences want from classical music?

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Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco for pre-recorded eight-track tape was commissioned for IRCAM by the Centre Georges Pompidou. It was created by Jonathan Harvey at IRCAM in 1980 by digitally manipulating the sound of the great tenor bell of Winchester Cathedral and the singing voice of Jonathan's son Dominic, who was then a chorister at the Cathedral. Jonathan embraced digital sound shaping in many of his compositions, notably in Speakings composed in 2008 which uses an electronic transformation application developed at IRCAM to make an orchestra ‘speak’. (See my 2010 interview with Jonathan in which he introduces Speakings with a detailed description of that transformation process.)    Despite using none of the instruments found in a conventional Western classical orchestra,  Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco is Jonathan Harvey's best known work. The reason for this is suggested by a Google search for Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco . The first of the 20,800 results lists the streaming op
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