This land Is your land

'It has been my hard luck many times to choose between what I thought was the truth and a good pay cheque' ~ Woody Guthrie

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Classical music is a right-brainer

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Whichever way you look at it classical music is not in good health. Concert attendances are down, arts funding is drying up , classical venues are increasingly dark, recording release schedules get thinner and thinner, orchestras are being downsized or disbanded , and mainstream media coverage is disappearing. Yet the classical fraternity remains in denial of an irreversible cultural change that looks increasingly likely to leave the classical genre as no more than an anachronism . Why? In 1932 the German-born Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser identified that a change was taking place in Western consciousness, and that this change was impacting on science, art, literature, philosophy and other disciplines. His thesis was that human consciousness is in transition, and these transitions are abrupt but overlapping mutations, rather than smooth transitions, and these transitions involve cerebral and physical changes. Jean Geber's thesis is developed by Dr Iain McGilchrist with his theor...
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Things change but remain the same

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To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dish...
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This LP is dedicated to Richard Wagner

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Composer Klaus Schulze has said 'I still love my Richard Wagner, who influenced me heavily. The way Wagner’s music introduced me to the use of dynamics, subtlety, drama, and the possible magnitudes of music in general remains unparalleled to me. There can’t be any doubt about it'. Schulze's 1975 release Timewind seen above* carries the message 'This LP is dedicated to Richard Wagner', and the two tracks of truly Wagnerian proportions on the original vinyl release were titled Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried . So why doesn't the name Klaus Schulze mean anything to the vast majority of classical listeners? The answer is because Klaus Schulze, who also uses the the alias Richard Wahnfried, is a creative maverick who was a leading figure in the development of the kosmische musik  known popularly as Krautrock, which he then morphed into the proto-ambient Berlin School of electronica, and is today best known as the Godfather of Techno and the Pope of Electronic...
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David Munrow - more than early music

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'David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London transformed our view of medieval music. The impact of their performances far surparssed any that had gone before: by demonstrating how medieval music could sound normal, they created a niche for it in the concert hall and on record that it has never lost' ~ From Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's notes for Music of the Gothic era May 15 2007 is the thirty-first anniversary of the death of David Munrow. His contribution to the acceptance, understanding and performance of early music almost defies summary. He was born in 1942, and learnt the bassoon and recorder as a child. Between school and university he travelled and taught in South America , and started the collection of ethnic instruments that were to give him, and the world, a new perspective on early music making. He read English at Pembroke College , Cambridge, and was encouraged by Thurston Dart to take an active role in the music-making of that most musical of cities. ...
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Is classical music asking the right questions?

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What will have more impact on the future of classical music? Roberto Alagna’s latest “squeeze”, or our ability to organise, search and access digital music files? My view tends to the latter, which is why in a comment on a recent post I said “It has long puzzled me as to why the subject of metadata about music recordings is so neglected”. Now reader Mike has responded with the following comment which justifies a post of its own: Music metadata has been a small bugbear of mine ever since I started digitising music in the 90s. In particular the metadata databases used by Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Media Players are quite awful when you move out of pop/rock music to classical/jazz/world. I don't let either bit of software touch my collection, especially as you can't trust either to honour their metadata settings, and the penalty for them breaching the trust is the loss of hundreds of manhours of labelling. It's also sad that a great many digital downloads ...
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Soundtrack for a porn movie

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"No, you have not landed on Slipped Disc by mistake. Respected electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze tells the story himself.  The origins of " Body Love " are quite funny. I received a call from a movie producer named Manfred Menz and I wound up becoming his principal composer for a period of time. Amongst others, I composed the "Barracuda" soundtrack for him [1978, previously unreleased on album]. This led to a friendship which lasts till today. Menz now lives in Malibu, California where I visited him a couple of years ago. Anyway, this guy calls me and asks if I would compose the score to a porn movie. I said: "Porn? Nah, I don't do that kind of thing".  As it turned out, the director of the movie, Lasse Braun, had already shot it and had used my albums " Timewind " [1975] and " Moondawn " [1976] as a kind of "working soundtrack". This was obvious because the couples in the film were moving in time to my gro...
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Classical music must go on a diet to survive

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In a comment on my post about orchestras touring China and the United Arab Emirates longtime reader Joe Shelby argues: "Better an orchestra with occasional trips to places we'd rather they not go, then no orchestra at all". I don't want to take Joe's comment out of context, because he quite rightly advocates more activism by musicians. But the view that classical music has to turn to ethically challenged destinations and also to ethically challenged funding to survive needs challenging. During a much reported presentation in 2013, Universal Music ceo Max Hole told orchestras they must change or die. He was right up to that point, but he was woefully wrong when he went on to tell orchestras how to change. The dogma expounded by Max Hole and generally accepted across the classical music establishment is that 'change' involves tinkering with the cosmetics of concert presentation . To date there has been absolutely no recognition of the very obvious ...
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Outsourcing is the new normal

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In coverage of the current furore at the BBC  there is surprisingly little mention that the Panorama programme at the heart of the controversy was made by independent production company October Films . Although described on the company's website as "one of the most dynamic, imaginative and respected brands in the documentary sector" their show reel is entertainment oriented - Netflix Channel 5, etc. Similarly, another controversial BBC programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was made by an independent production company,  Hoyo Films . Outsourcing is the new normal, not just in the broadcast sector but across the whole world of commerce : the global business process outsourcing market was valued at $261.9 billion in 2022. When I joined the BBC from university many, many years ago content was king, with the added value - in the BBC's case audience numbers - coming from content creation. A similar focus on adding value from content creation was found in t...
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Third rate music on Naxos' American Classics?

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I'll be interested in American readers' reactions to the start of this review by the Guardian's Andrew Clements - ' Considering how much third-rate music has been included in Naxos's American Classics series, Elliott Carter has so far been poorly served by the budget-price label. But in the year of the composer's 100th birthday, this - the first of two discs that will include all five of Carter's string quartets - could be the start of a major addition to his discography.' Andrew Clements then goes on to write a glowing five-star review of Naxos' new CD of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos 1 and 5 performed by the Pacifica Quartet . I'll agree whole-heartedly with his verdict on the Carter Quartets, I bought them last week and they are superb performances of superb music. But I am not so sure about his other views. That judgement of 'third-rate music' raises the interesting point of should a critic focus primarily on the interpr...
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Classical music has many Buddhist tendencies

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With 376 million followers Buddhism is the fourth largest belief system in the world. Its core teachings of compassion and non-violence are well-known; but the wider cultural impact of those in the creative community exhibiting what the composer Jonathan Harvey described as "Buddhist tendencies" is underappreciated. Sri Lanka's state religion is Theravada - doctrine of the elders - Buddhism , and it may not be a coincidence that in 1960 elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike , the world's first woman prime minister. The island has been a center of Buddhist scholarship and practice since the introduction of Buddhism in the third century, and the country played a leading role in the preservation of the Pāli Canon of Buddhist teachings. I took the accompanying photos on a recent pilgrimage to Buddhist shrines in Sri Lanka, and to illustrate the influence of Buddhism on classical music I have juxtaposed them with cameos of music with Buddhist tendencies that provided the iPod so...
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