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Coverage of the billionaires' space race between Jeff Bezos Richard Branson and Elon Musk reminded me of this poem by Daniel Ladinsky which is loosely based on the verse of Kabir. I photographed the pre-dawn street scene in Varanasi, which is where it is thought Kabir was born at the end of the 14th century.

I don't think there is such a thing as
an intelligent mega-rich
person

For who with a fine mind can look
out upon this world and
hoard

what can nourish
a thousand souls.

On An Overgrown Path is no longer linked on social media. New posts are available via RSS/email by entering your email address in the right-hand sidebar. Photo via adressa.no. 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 problem is obvious - there is too much classical music

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In a glowing review in the Guardian Andrew Clements describes the Freiburg Opera's Parsifal at the Norwich Theatre Royal - see production shot above - as "a show that almost any British company would be happy to have in its repertory". Yet despite the production's obvious quality, the four performances by the Freiburg company of Parsifal and Tannhäuser attracted lamentably small audiences. A London based critic blamed low profile promotion by the Norwich theatre for the poor attendance, and given the limited budget of the provincial venue, which has charitable status and no material public funding , there is some truth in that explanation. But the glib analysis of poor publicity is typical of the blame culture that is so prevalent in classical music today - blame elitism, funding cuts, antiquated concert conventions, piracy, in fact blame anything other than the self-harming behaviour of the music industry itself. All the fashionable conspiracy theories miss ...
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Berlin Philharmonic's first Black conductor

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“At a concert this week in Berlin, Berlin's famed 65-year-old Philharmonic Orchestra was led by a U.S. war correspondent in battledress. Besides being a war correspondent, the guest conductor was a Negro, born in British Guiana. The 2,000 Berliners and the 500 Allied soldiers in the audience found it quite an experience. They applauded warmly when the conductor led the orchestra through Weber's familiar Oberon and Tchaikovsky's Pathétique. They broke into cheers, and called him back five times, when he gave them Berlin's first hearing of fellow-Negro William Grant Still's boisterous, bluesy Afro-American Symphony. Slender, serious Rudolph Dunbar is no musical freshman. He studied at Manhattan's Julliard School, has several times conducted the London Philharmonic. He was in Berlin as correspondent for the Associated Negro Press of Chicago. Shortly before the Berlin Philharmonic's Conductor Leo Borchard was accidentally killed by U.S. sentries, he had in...
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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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These photos were taken by me in 2008 at independent record retailer Prelude Records in Norwich. Jordi Savall's impromptu viol recital and signing session preceeded two performances at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One was a solo recital by Jordi in Peter Mancroft Church ; the other was an immensely moving performance of his visionary Jerusalem multicultural project at the Theatre Royal*. As reported here Prelude Records closed earlier this year; it was a victim of predatory online retailing, and today its premises stand empty awaiting occupation by a mobile phone or E-cigarette retailer. The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has been the victim of savage funding cuts , but continues in a more modest form due to the dedicated work of its small management team. A few days ago I wrote about a two-thirds empty Snape Maltings concert and proposed that classical music's heartland is facing a perfect storm caused by the convergence of the shifts in consumer tastes and the r...
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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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BBC Proms - summer in the city

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Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn't it a pity Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head Lyrics from Lovin' Spoonful's 1966 song Summer in the City On Friday, as my photos show, there didn't seem to be a shadow in the city as a sweltering London launched into the 112th season of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. The concerts are in the Royal Albert Hall , which is located west of the city centre in the university and museum district. The hall is located between two major roads out of London, and the traffic and parking are horrendous. The Albert Hall was opened by Queen Victoria in 1871, but only became the Proms venue in 1941 when the more central, and acoustically far superior, Queen's Hall was destroyed by German bombs. Unique is the only word to describe the Albert Hall; the Grade 1 listed building is oval in shape, and is...
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Early musician who could have become a great conductor

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A vintage year for blasphemy and heresy

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2010 was a vintage year for blasphemy and heresy. A post on Salvador Dali drew attention to his forgotten audiovisual opera-poem Être Dieu inspired by the Cathar heresy, Jonathan Harvey stirred things up on my Chance Music programme by saying "the future must bring things which are considered blasphemous like amplifying classical music", while yet another path took me to new heights of heresy. In fact the path reached 2400 feet, which, as the photo above shows, is a serious challenge for anyone who, like me, who has a vertigo problem. I took the photo from the fortress of Quéribus in Languedoc, France and the view is towards Mont Canigou, the holy mountain beloved of Pablo Casals and Thomas Merton . Quéribus castle was the last Cathar stronghold to surrender in 1255 and Jordi Savall's The Forgotten Kingdom had led me to Languedoc and Catharism and on to Gnosticism. The Cathar heresy has its roots in the "dualist" religions in the Indus basin which origina...
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Wagner, Mahler and Shostakovich all sound like film music

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Nada Brahma - Sound is God

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Travels beyond TripAdvisor

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