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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Travels beyond TripAdvisor

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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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Critical Mass

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My symphonies are sperm

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Nada Brahma - Sound is God

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Lizzie, I am sorry that this article didn’t appear last year as I had planned. 2006 was the centenary of your birth, but the year passed with scarcely a mention of your work, or a performance of your music. It was my plan to rectify that in a small way, and I wrote a very nicely turned appreciation. I am sure you would have approved of it - all about the myth of Elisabeth Lutyens, the mother of British serialism, ‘Twelve-tone Lizzie’ - the outspoken eccentric shunned by the musical establishment whose compositions were rejected by the BBC, and the composer who struggled for commissions and performances. The myth is perpetuated in your Wikipedia entry which says you 'worked in isolation and neglect, creating a personal style of serialism and eventually gaining some recognition for her ability to set text. Lutyens' work was exposed to the public at large through her scores for horror films.' In your autobiography the Goldfish Bowl you made much of the tensions with your ...
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David Hockney's creative genius embraces the performing, as well as the visual, arts. His first stage commission was for a production of Jarry's Ubu Roi at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1966. In 1974 he designed his first opera, the highly acclaimed Rake's Progress by Stravinsky for Glyndebourne. A second collaboration with Glyndebourne followed, on Mozart's Magic Flute (below) in 1978. I remember sitting in the audience that year wearing the de rigeur Glyndebourne uniform of dinner jacket, Hockney was in the row behind wearing a tee shirt and a non-matching pair of old trainers. Other notable stage commissions included triple bills of Satie , Poulenc and Ravel ( Parade, Les Mamelles de Tiresias and L'enfant et les sortilèges ) and Stravinsky ( Le Rossignol, Le Sacré du Printemps and Oedipus Rex ) in 1981 for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the Los Angeles Music Centre, Puccini's Turandot in San F...
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The composer without a shadow?

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If you want to start a fascinating thread write about Leonard Bernstein's Mass . Here are some comments from my most recent Mass post : Movie commented - It's not a dishonest piece and I think it still works today . I commented - But what are examples of dishonest pieces of music? Pentimento commented - I'd say much of Strauss's oeuvre is dishonest. I couldn't live without Metamorphosen , Capriccio or the wind concertos, and one of my most memorable, and disturbing, evenings in the opera house was Hildegard Behrens singing the title role in Salome with Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic at the 1977 Salzburg Festival . But, despite that, you may be right Pentimento. Which leaves me with only one possible back link - Herbert von Karajan Ein Heldenleben Sorry I cannot credit the lovely portrait of Richard Strauss (I do hope you meant Richard and not Johann, Pentimento), but I do not know who it is by. It comes from Ferdinand Von Galitzien's blog . Help with ...
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