Genius or genetic experiment?


It is rewarding to see my early advocacy of an overlooked woman musician 'Philippa Schuyler - genius or genetic experiment?' back up among Overgrown Path's most read stories - see sidebar - after seven years. That is Philippa above and the linked analysis with audio samples of her piano music by John McLaughlin Williams is also a must-read. Speaking of must-reads, did you see that story elsewhere 'Women in orchestras wash their hair, and the men?'

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All aboard the Martinu bandwagon

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Depressing, but predictable, to see the mainstream media scrambling aboard the Bohuslav Martinů bandwagon as soon as BBC Radio 3 announces a cycle of his superb symphonies . Equally depressing, but a sign of the times, to see the Independent publishing an appreciation of the composer's symphonies by a writer who confesses elsewhere to never having heard a single note of them. As Norman Lebrecht famously wrote in the Evening Standard back in 2006: ‘... until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town’. Sadly the hard facts now show that Norman is no longer at the Evening Standard , and, as from next Monday, the Evening Standard will no longer be a paid for newspaper . But you can find pre-bandwagon appreciations of Martinů here and here . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of
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Whatever happened to the long tail of composers?

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Programme note for orchestra touring China

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