tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80606052024-03-19T09:53:01.361+00:00 On An Overgrown PathUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4634125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-5577232380774747522024-03-15T16:06:00.039+00:002024-03-16T13:06:12.635+00:00Crouching composer, hidden dragon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ9Z6eySPEAumIEyTOlnw7ai4tYOf3tkZ2JttQb-gM3fRb9EWX6Fp2zpl-0ISKtWzonzsQpkeAAbUfpflh0R7K4I59OyhUkt0YtiFJAVctXsdY8M6Hzvnx88y6vT7Zo_LbleBaYV3Jryx7fbGkkMtuSYBdqaKaKoWbgWyfwCla8YTPAjITo91pHQ/s798/Tan%20Dun%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="798" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ9Z6eySPEAumIEyTOlnw7ai4tYOf3tkZ2JttQb-gM3fRb9EWX6Fp2zpl-0ISKtWzonzsQpkeAAbUfpflh0R7K4I59OyhUkt0YtiFJAVctXsdY8M6Hzvnx88y6vT7Zo_LbleBaYV3Jryx7fbGkkMtuSYBdqaKaKoWbgWyfwCla8YTPAjITo91pHQ/w640-h426/Tan%20Dun%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: black;">My post describing how <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/03/classical-music-has-many-buddhist.html" target="_blank">classical music has many Buddhist tendencies</a> continues to reach a gratifyingly wide audience. So it is now time to confront the elephant in the shrine room - <a href="https://www.eif.co.uk/archive/the-opening-concert-buddha-passion" target="_blank">Tan Dun's <i>Buddha Passion</i></a>. Tan Dun is best-known for <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-original-motion-picture-soundtrack--mw0000107873" target="_blank">his soundtrack</a> for Ang Lee's movie <i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i>, which was recorded at the Shanghai Radio, Film And TV Bureau Technical Center in 1999. Born in 1957 in the central Chinese district of Hunan, the son of a military officer in the People's Liberation Army, Tan Dun studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 1986 he moved to New York City but retained strong links with China. His <i><a href="https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/tan-dun-symphony-1997" target="_blank">Symphony 1997</a> </i>was commissioned for the reunification of Hong Kong, he is <a href="https://www.eyeshenzhen.com/content/2023-01/05/content_25552615.htm" target="_blank">a regular guest conductor</a> in China, and in January 2024 the Buddha Passion was <a href="https://en.mgmchinaholdings.com/media-releases?item=527" target="_blank">performed under his direction in Macao</a> to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China <div><br /></div><div>The Buddha Passion was inspired by Tan Dun's visit to the ancient Mogao Caves, a major tourist attraction in north-west China. This <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/440/#:~:text=Carved%20into%20the%20cliffs%20above,Buddhist%20art%20in%20the%20world." target="_blank">UNESCO Heritage Site</a> is the largest, oldest , and most valuable reliquary of Buddhist art in the world. Unlike the<a href="https://www.shambhala.com/snowlion_articles/tibet_china_conflict/" target="_blank"> 6000 monasteries destroyed in Tibet</a>, the Mogao Caves escaped the People's Liberation Army purges of the 1960s. In typical gushing PR speak <a href="https://www.deccaclassics.com/en/artists/tan-dun/news/world-premiere-recording-of-tan-duns-monumental-buddha-passion-set-for-release-on-4-august-270375" target="_blank">Decca describe</a> the <i>Buddha Passion</i> as "an epic choral work... a captivating tale of wonder, truth and gentle but irresistible transformation... the first such ‘Passion’ on a Buddhist rather than Christian narrative". Released on CD in 2023, the <i>Buddha Passion</i> was recorded with the Orchestre National de Lyon, chorus and soloists conducted by the composer at the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre with the participation of <a href="https://uptimeinstitute.com/uptime-institute-awards/client/hunan-broadcasting-system/854" target="_blank">Hunan Broadcasting System</a>, China's second biggest state-owned broadcasting network. </div><div><br /></div><div>The irony of a 'Passion' on a Buddhist narrative with the full-on participation of China hardly needs reprising. Tan Dun's <i>Buddha Passion</i> purports to be "a captivating tale... of irresistible transformation" inspired by the Buddhist wisdom tradition. Yet more than a million Tibetans have died as a result of the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950. As well as the destruction of almost every monastery and the loss of irreplaceable art and manuscripts, Chinese exploitation of Tibet's natural resources has resulted in the deforestation of almost 50% of the region's natural resources. In turn this loss of habitats has devastated wildlife. Hardly what can be termed "irresistible transformation". </div><div><br /></div><div>Following Mao's death in 1976 and the appointment of the relatively liberal <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/04/15/his-death-years-ago-today-was-spark-tiananmen-square-protests/" target="_blank">Hu Yaobang</a> Bejiing's policy towards Tibet moderated. Which simply means <a href="https://bitterwinter.org/women-routinely-raped-in-tibetan-reeducation-camps-too/" target="_blank">torture, rape and killings</a> came off the agenda, and human genocide was replaced by cultural genocide. The main thrust of this strategy has been the enforced migration of Han Chinese into the Tibet Autonomous Region. As a result the population of Lhasa <a href="https://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/lhasa-invaded-again-by-han-chinese/" target="_blank">grew by more than 50%</a> between 2010 and 2020, with Han Chinese now comprising more than 20% of the city's population. In another example of "irresistible transformation", in 2021 <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/world/mcdonalds-opens-outlet-in-tibet-at-height-of-over-12000-feet-9899061.html" target="_blank">Tibet's first McDonalds opened</a> in a shopping centre opposite the Potala Palace, the Dalai Lama’s former residence. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Buddha Passion</i> is another example of the culture-washing that the classical industry and media <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2018/03/classical-music-cannot-gloss-over-its.html" target="_blank">so enthusiastically support</a>. Predictably reviews echoing Decca's PR-speak use headlines such as "Tan Dun’s message of love and compassion" - <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/aug/06/buddha-passion-review-tan-dun-rsno-usher-hall-edinburgh" target="_blank">Guardian</a></i>, "An immense work that straddles East and West" - <i><a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/music/tan-dun-s-buddha-passion-at-royal-festival-hall-review-ang-lee-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-b1054848.html" target="_blank">The Standard</a>, </i>and <i>"</i>An attractive work, instantly and uncomplicatedly gratifying" - <i><a href="https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/tan-dun-buddha-passion" target="_blank">Gramophone</a></i>. Leaving aside all the unfortunate political baggage, sadly the music of Tan Dun's <i>Buddha Passion</i> rarely rises above the level of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Among the few critics who did not toe the party line were <a href="https://operatoday.com/2023/01/tan-duns-buddha-passion-a-flawed-work-which-isnt-all-it-seems/" target="_blank">Marc Bridle at <i>Opera Now</i></a> who described it as "A flawed work which isn't all it seems" and <a href="https://bachtrack.com/review-tan-dun-buddha-passion-london-philharmonic-january-2023" target="_blank">Christopher Woodley at <i>Bachtrack</i></a> who reported "Tan Dun's <i>Buddha Passion</i> fails to provide enlightenment... Alas, the hype outdistanced the reality by very many leagues".</div><div><br /></div><div>Not one reviewer questioned the hidden Chinese dragon behind the <i>Buddha Passion</i>. Not one reviewer questioned Tan Dun's setting of the Heart Sutra in the penultimate act, a text held by the Dalai Lama <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Essence-of-the-Heart-Sutra/Dalai-Lama/9780861719808" target="_blank">to be one of the core teachings of Buddhism</a>. In 2021 <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/photos-04092021131635.html" target="_blank">Radio Free Asia reported</a> that Chinese authorities in Sichuan’s Kardze prefecture had launched a new drive against the display by Tibetans of photos of the Dalai Lama. Needless to say, despite his revered position as a Nobel Laureate and preeminent Buddhist, despite his espousal of the Heart Sutra and despite its setting by Tan Dun, neither the Dalai Lama's photo or name appear on any of the recording documentation or publicity material. Similarly, there is not a single image of a Buddha rūpa (statue) in any of the material, despite the work's alleged Buddhist narrative. Coincidentally the Central Communist Party has<a href="https://bitterwinter.org/outdoor-buddhist-statues-destroyed-in-temples-and-scenic-areas/" target="_blank"> a policy of eliminating Buddhist icons</a> across China. </div><div><br /></div><div>Decca's owner Universal Music Group is one of many Western music companies <a href="https://www.umusic.com.cn/index.php?c=category&id=23" target="_blank">operating in China</a>. The music streaming market in China is worth<a href="48 billion yuan" target="_blank"> more than 2 billion US dollars</a>. Which is far more important to today's classical music industry than "wonder", "truth" and one million dead Tibetans. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqV6G1fSWVNNT1HK6RZ1Xfwx-ygkc5wwD9UbbQsNiBbuTo3wMu9hFLjIcH9Q4jwciiN1YKVCrIDr2n0L5k5hhIM_4x6SwIBgf7WLm_X0trnpRHydqG810rAoJwxwk9tvSJOe0loKUhLtrYCe-7ASlp9afclM1R1FxEVjjcor5YBcrhBr76NYslUQ/s714/BP%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="714" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqV6G1fSWVNNT1HK6RZ1Xfwx-ygkc5wwD9UbbQsNiBbuTo3wMu9hFLjIcH9Q4jwciiN1YKVCrIDr2n0L5k5hhIM_4x6SwIBgf7WLm_X0trnpRHydqG810rAoJwxwk9tvSJOe0loKUhLtrYCe-7ASlp9afclM1R1FxEVjjcor5YBcrhBr76NYslUQ/w640-h454/BP%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-63479216479040959522024-03-04T10:05:00.009+00:002024-03-04T10:30:38.666+00:00There is no right reaction to great music<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNssNEEjaAi2dikk7jK8PKfH0LxiXzIUubDAezo4j_9ZHbx9pmKqROHC0LBBFYPC1wB05c5NTGYoJ3bnnK7Vz5wGb7M3pMOO5XIwGCbxy8dZJKF06O2OUN9URPMVMGZfk_2d1IxcAGXXrHztziGILIGQ754gkCZrwqMLLWQkoO5dWh1zBa_C3mLA/s1008/Ruins%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="1008" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNssNEEjaAi2dikk7jK8PKfH0LxiXzIUubDAezo4j_9ZHbx9pmKqROHC0LBBFYPC1wB05c5NTGYoJ3bnnK7Vz5wGb7M3pMOO5XIwGCbxy8dZJKF06O2OUN9URPMVMGZfk_2d1IxcAGXXrHztziGILIGQ754gkCZrwqMLLWQkoO5dWh1zBa_C3mLA/s600/Ruins%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">Quite justifiably the <a href="https://www.matangi.nl/pages/about-matangi" target="_blank">adventurous Matangi Quartet</a> from the Netherlands received acclaim for their recent <a href="https://www.matangi.nl/products/outcast" target="_blank">recording of quartets by Silvestrov, Schnittke, and Shostakovich</a>. But their <a href="https://ecmrecords.com/product/ruins-and-remains-wolfert-brederode-matangi-quartet-joost-lijbaart/" target="_blank">2022 ECM disc of<i> Ruins and Remains</i></a>, a suite for piano, string quartet and percussion composed by <a href="https://www.wolfertbrederode.com/about" target="_blank">Wolfert Breferode</a> slipped under the media radar, probably because in the meaningless ontology of music genres it is pigeonholed as 'jazz'. Composer Wolfert Breferode again defies those meaningless pigeonholes: he studied classical and jazz piano at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague before establishing a formidable reputation as a leading Dutch jazz pianist and recording four albums for ECM.<div><br /></div><div><i>Ruins and Remain</i>s was composed by Wolfert Breferode in 2018 in response to a commission to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Since the premiere however the work has evolved to embrace a wider perspective on human frailty, helped by the improvisatory experiments of the Matangi Quartet and percussionist <a href="https://joostlijbaart.com/" target="_blank">Joost Lijbaart</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://ecmrecords.com/product/ruins-and-remains-wolfert-brederode-matangi-quartet-joost-lijbaart/" target="_blank">ECM's promotional copy</a> describes how in <i>Ruins and Remains</i> "there is a vulnerable but resilient quality to the music, as it hovers over its emotional terrain, with moods both bleak and guardedly hopeful". Which means it<i> </i>lacks the conventional development and form which received wisdom demands as a feature of 'great' music. In turn this raises the question of whether development within a defined structure is a <i>sine qua non</i> of art music..</div><div><br /></div><div>A few years back <a href="https://schmud.de/pages/about.html" target="_blank">David Schmudde</a> responded <a href="https://schmud.de/posts/2020-04-26-ambient-church.html" target="_blank">on his blog <i>Beyond the Frame</i></a> to my musings as to why classical music <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2020/03/classical-music-must-break-through.html" target="_blank">resists electronic elements like amplification and the use of synthesizers</a>. David suggested that the answer partially lies in the way music is written. His thesis is that Western classical music has an easily recognised and repeatable structure defined by the convention of notation. He explains that "Notation provides formality for formal music... No standard for notating electro-acoustic instruments exist. Performances that include tape, electronic effects, and synthesizers are extremely difficult to notate... There is no equivalent across the myriad of 20th century musical inventions".</div><div><br /></div><div>David Schmudde's theory can be expanded to provide a speculative explanation as to why Western classical music continues to<a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/07/classical-music-must-beware-of-new.html" target="_blank"> struggle to engage with a new young audience</a>. Notation provides formality for formal music, and it is this very formality of structure imposed by sonata form, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/09/classical-music-should-drop-its-silly.html" target="_blank">formality of etiquette conventions</a> and of emotional cues, that may be the insurmountable obstacle to <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/11/classical-music-is-not-connecting-with.html" target="_blank">a new younger rewired classical audience</a>. Whatever we think of it, electronic dance music is the<a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2020/01/how-can-beethoven-connect-with-wider.html" target="_blank"> music of choice of the great majority of young people</a>, an improvised genre that lacks both notation and fixed emotional cues. It is not insignificant that the prescient Matangi Quartet have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Yn3EV5QYE" target="_blank">performed with a dance music DJ</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>By contrast a Mahler symphony, widely seen as the silver bullet for the regeneration of classical music, is formally notated with clear emotional cues, as in the <i>Rondo finale</i> of the Fifth Symphony. This codifying of emotional reaction has reached its nadir in the cringe-inducing explanations of the 'meaning' of masterworks by the presenters on the' new improved' BBC Radio 3, and in dribbles of embarrassing applause between symphony movements. </div><div><br /></div><div>After its publication in 1966 John Fowles' novel <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jul/31/summer-readings-the-magus-john-fowles" target="_blank">The Magus</a></i> attracted a huge number of young adult readers. However it also attracted criticism from the cognoscenti for its lack of conventional structure and ending. In a later edition Fowles was prompted to add a Foreword. In this he wrote:</div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>...The foregoing will, I hope, excuse me from saying what the story 'means'. Novels, even more lucidly conceived and controlled ones than this, are not like crossword puzzles, with one unique set of correct answers behind the clues - an analogy ("Dear Mr Fowles, Please explain the real significance of...) I sometimes despair of ever extirpating from the contemporary from the contemporary student mind. If The Magus has any 'real significance', it is no more than that of a Rorschach test in psychology. Its meaning is what ever reaction it provokes in the reader, and so far as I am concerned there is no 'right' reaction. </i></b> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-69416476296461568682024-02-27T09:59:00.015+00:002024-02-27T11:23:28.871+00:00Classical music must not cease from exploration<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijseq55GyahwVClj3w7am7p3SqlEhS5Wg0iZL6Nd7F80wJvxY9uQJbmvJ1KEp-JqZlgc5iLea_7pZV4DGmrfSbXxKzwB5YU75hpxnY4oLpHsFnK8y9LZapfSIpOfLrkLf0QphIW8MPBKtBFCsqzfG3mrkUVNq3qjYR2UgeomNPWIzCF1gGMbEETg/s898/Silent%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="898" data-original-width="898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijseq55GyahwVClj3w7am7p3SqlEhS5Wg0iZL6Nd7F80wJvxY9uQJbmvJ1KEp-JqZlgc5iLea_7pZV4DGmrfSbXxKzwB5YU75hpxnY4oLpHsFnK8y9LZapfSIpOfLrkLf0QphIW8MPBKtBFCsqzfG3mrkUVNq3qjYR2UgeomNPWIzCF1gGMbEETg/s600/Silent%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">Today is a poignant personal anniversary, so I have been listening to Valentin Silvestrov's <i>Stille Lieder</i> (Silent Songs) in <a href="https://ecmrecords.com/product/valentin-silvestrov-silent-songs-sergey-yakovenko-ilya-scheps/" target="_blank">the 1986 ECM recording</a>. This morning that performance by baritone and <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/1813499-%D0%A1%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%B9-%D0%AF%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE" target="_blank">Sergej Jakowenko</a> accompanied by <a href="https://www.iljascheps.com/en/home/" target="_blank">Ilja Scheps</a> was, for me, the most sublimely appropriate masterpiece. But that is because of the personal conditions relating to today. Tomorrow, depending on the conditions, a Sibelius symphony, a Mozart string quartet, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2023/12/what-would-be-biggest-headline-ever.html" target="_blank">Iiro Rantala's jazz improvisations</a>, or <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/08/my-music-may-not-be-your-music.html" target="_blank">Steve Roach's electronica</a> will be sublimely appropriate. <div><br /></div><div> Masterpieces, like every human condition, are impermanent. They come and go, and return and return - Silvestrov's<i> Stille Lieder</i> first featured here <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/12/happy-new-year-to-all-my-readers.html" target="_blank">back in 2008</a>, many years before the Ukrainian tragedy gave their composer his 30 minutes of fame. (Newcomers to Silvestrov's music should know that <i>Stille Lieder</i> are the root from which his better known masterpieces, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/10/what-is-it-about-fifth-symphonies.html" target="_blank">the Fifth Symphony</a> and <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/04/his-works-revive-past-music.html" target="_blank"><i>Requiem for Larissa</i></a> grew.) </div><div><br /></div><div>For decades classical music <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2013/01/do-classical-musics-big-new-ideas-have.html" target="_blank">has been trying, without success,</a> to defend its cultural status by treating the music as a permanent fixture, and treating everything around it - audience, presentation style, venue, etc - as impermanent. The epitome of this foolishness is the graveyard of creative aspiration <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2024/02/wake-up-and-listen-to-music.html" target="_blank">that is now BBC Radio 3</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Everything connected with classical music is impermanent. The <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2018/07/music-as-wave-of-probability.html" target="_blank">music itself is impermanent</a> - a masterly performance has no permanence after the last reverberation in the hall has gone. Scores are impermanent as they depend on interpretation, while interpretation itself is impermanent and driven by fashion. Recordings are impermanent as <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/08/sound-is-what-matters-most-in-classical.html" target="_blank">they depend on the replay system</a>. Concert halls are impermanent - each year brings <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/01/no-such-thing-as-acoustically-perfect.html" target="_blank">a new, more expensive, even better, supposedly acoustic perfect bricks and mortar masterpiece</a>. As <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2012/08/talk-about-immortal-masterpieces-is.html" target="_blank">the very wise Kaikhosru Sorabji told us</a>, "Talk about immortal masterpieces is rather ridiculous": whatever happened to <a href="https://www.classicalsource.com/prom/the-world-premiere-of-john-taveners-20th-century-classic-the-protecting-veil/" target="_blank">John Tavener's <i>The Protecting Veil</i></a> and <a href="https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/operas/an-introduction-to-symphony-of-sorrowful-songs/" target="_blank">Henryk Górecki's <i>Symphony of Sorrowful Song</i>s</a>?</div><div><br /></div><div>Arts funding <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/24/simon-rattle-uk-classical-music-arts-council-england-bbc-cuts" target="_blank">is also impermanent</a>, a reality that the classical industry great and good refuse to acknowledge. The supply of classical music is also impermanent as again, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/12/why-you-should-never-believe-music.html" target="_blank">despite the denia</a>l of industry experts, ultimately <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/07/the-problem-is-obvious-there-is-too.html" target="_blank">supply must balance with demand</a>. And, very importantly, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/01/new-audiences-want-classical-music-up.html" target="_blank">the classical audience is impermanent</a> - the new young audience that classical music has been chasing for two decades <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/11/todays-audiences-hear-music-differently.html" target="_blank">is no longer a new young audience</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>To rejuvenate itself classical music needs to recognise this impermanence. The way forward is not the current strategy of the same old stuff presented in a more audience-friendly format by artists of different gender and ethnicity. Diversity <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2020/02/classical-music-needs-to-make-its.html" target="_blank">goes beyond gender and ethnicity</a>. True diversity is the exploration, embrace and celebration of every type of difference. That is not just difference in the human race, but difference in every facet of the great performing art that is classical music. And the classical industry needs to lose <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2020/03/classical-music-must-break-through.html" target="_blank">its current pathological fear</a> of the <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/02/audiences-need-permission-to-like.html" target="_blank">new, the different and the unknown</a>. Because, as T.S. Eliot explained<a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/what-ts-eliot-told-me-about-the-chain-rule/" target="_blank"> in <i>Little Gidding</i></a>: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/08/my-first-classical-record.html" target="_blank">know the place for the first time</a>".</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-83095608784133349582024-02-23T09:06:00.004+00:002024-02-23T09:21:58.567+00:00Soundtrack for a porn movie<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcZxGTNpFympGCCqtCPnruk2mGRYazcvA8eeRzv1bm89y7CS68hkob6Y81nr3DCVzs01_ewl49_SvqCKtiJcU4Sq3ZE4HdJr4nFQz28sefBBu9WpVgO5L586JH5mKF9DfdxQPBfGsFbf_VlYBAJCaTJX_Pklbztp0_C22g4AUX4fpFQN-bJ0V2A/s1159/Porn%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1159" data-original-width="1094" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcZxGTNpFympGCCqtCPnruk2mGRYazcvA8eeRzv1bm89y7CS68hkob6Y81nr3DCVzs01_ewl49_SvqCKtiJcU4Sq3ZE4HdJr4nFQz28sefBBu9WpVgO5L586JH5mKF9DfdxQPBfGsFbf_VlYBAJCaTJX_Pklbztp0_C22g4AUX4fpFQN-bJ0V2A/s600/Porn%201.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">"No, you have not landed on<i> Slipped Disc</i> by mistake. Respected electronic music pioneer <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2021/01/genres-converge-in-this-legendary-album.html" target="_blank">Klaus Schulze</a> tells the story himself. <div><br /></div><div><i><b>The origins of "<a href="https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=7639" target="_blank">Body Love</a>" are quite funny. I received a call from a movie producer named <a href="https://off2.de/dialog-uebersicht/marketing-film-founder-manfred-menz/" target="_blank">Manfred Menz</a> 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". </b></i></div><div><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>As it turned out, the director of the movie, Lasse Braun, had already shot it and had used my albums "<a href="https://www.klaus-schulze.com/disco/1752ti.htm" target="_blank">Timewind</a>" [1975] and "<a href="https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=7633" target="_blank">Moondawn</a>" [1976] as a kind of "working soundtrack". This was obvious because the couples in the film were moving in time to my grooves! They were almost done with the film, which was very expensive for a porno - 1 million German Marks, and they were now looking for the final music. First they tried it with normal pop music but that didn't work out. So Lasse said to Manfred "Let's simply ask Schulze to compose a soundtrack that's similar to "Moondawn"! </b></i></div><div><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>I drove down to Manfred's with my, then French girlfriend Blanche. We watched the movie and thought "Well, it's really not too bad!" Besides, there wasn't too much dialogue in it so you could let the music run through it all the way. Therefore I didn't need to write two minutes here, three minutes there until the next piece of dialogue or sound effect occurred. I had the opportunity of delivering a genuine composition. </b></i></div><div><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>Directeur <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0105808/" target="_blank">Lasse Braun</a> said: "Just give me the music, one or one and a half hours worth. I'll put the music to the movie and just fade it out in the parts where there shouldn't be any music." That fit in with me because that's my method of working anyway. I just had to keep an eye on the timing. It had to be in line with the timing for "Moondawn" because the couples in the film bobbed up and down accordingly.</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>An extract from Lasse Braun's Body Love is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DKWHW0p9dU" target="_blank">on YouTube</a>. But, sorry to disappoint, that clip does not live up to the promise of my clickbait - I'm learning from someone else - headline. Anyway, if Stravinsky could compose a <i>Circus Polka</i> <a href="https://dangerousminds.net/comments/circus_polka_stravinskys_ballet_for_elephants_1942" target="_blank">for the Barnum and Baily Circus</a> and <a href="https://pacificsymphony.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/screen-shot-2018-05-29-at-10-54-14-am.png" target="_blank">endorse Cartier watches</a>, why can't Klaus Schulze provide the soundtrack for a porn movie?</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-91714381149083944042024-02-18T12:27:00.001+00:002024-02-18T12:34:26.001+00:00Wake up and listen to the music<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1lGClth0eqdgD491x5X9BDd2Aq2Ysz-uiVniGBizsWGrILG2LgE6SJves0hAPRNiEOiZnHni6yUS2a54OufYlWMXzRgjRZ3XhWh8QEFZRNLiJ16OVJbsRye91OBTriyyMn7SGn-_oAXoGHe8ObPNxJazH2-C5HdqSFe571Bzvn_veTFCuSBa8Uw/s830/LH%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="830" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1lGClth0eqdgD491x5X9BDd2Aq2Ysz-uiVniGBizsWGrILG2LgE6SJves0hAPRNiEOiZnHni6yUS2a54OufYlWMXzRgjRZ3XhWh8QEFZRNLiJ16OVJbsRye91OBTriyyMn7SGn-_oAXoGHe8ObPNxJazH2-C5HdqSFe571Bzvn_veTFCuSBa8Uw/s600/LH%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">Elsewhere <a href="https://slippedisc.com/2024/02/bbc-radio-3-trials-an-easy-listening-channel/" target="_blank">much brouhaha</a> about the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2024/plans-digital-music-stations-extensions-bbc-radio-1-bbc-radio-2-bbc-radio-3#:~:text=The%20extension%20will%20include%20shows,Shipping%20Forecast%20and%20classical%20music" target="_blank">launch of a BBC Radio 3 extension</a>. This new online channel will offer "peaceful favourites.....ethereal choral music, soothing orchestral textures [<i>and</i>] mood-based repertoire [<i>including</i>] shows that lean into the mindfulness, wellbeing and sleep space... to create a consistent, calming listening experience". Personally this development does not worry me very much, as I have given up listening to Radio 3 completely since it became a deformed clone of Classic FM. But the hijacking of wisdom practices such as mindfulness to justify a desperate lunge for the Classic FM market does concern me. <div><br /></div><div> Mindfulness has been taken out of context and exploited <a href="https://www.luisazhou.com/blog/become-a-mindfulness-coach/#:~:text=Starting%20a%20mindfulness%20coaching%20business,while%20transforming%20your%20clients'%20lives." target="_blank">by many other misguided corporations</a> before the BBC saw it as silver bullet for the moribund Radio 3. Similarly yoga and other components of Eastern wisdom traditions have been <a href="https://startup.info/10-yoga-millionaires-the-entrepreneurs-who-won-the-yoga-game/" target="_blank">ruthlessly exploited for commercial gain</a>. In fact mindfulness is a key component of <a href="https://tricycle.org/magazine/vipassana-meditation/" target="_blank">Vipassana meditation</a> in the Buddhist Theravada ('Way of the Elders') tradition. Buddhism is a science of the mind that does not set out to sooth and explore sleep space - whatever that is. In fact it does quite the opposite: when asked if he was a god or wizard, <a href="https://college.uchicago.edu/news/student-stories/i-am-awake" target="_blank">Siddhartha Gautama simply replied</a>: "I am awake." Buddha means 'the awakened one', and how to awaken is all he taught.</div><div><br /></div><div>Buddhism and other wisdom traditions have no connection with peaceful favourites, ethereal choral music, soothing orchestral textures, and mood-based repertoire. The Vinaya codes <a href="https://buddhiststudies.stanford.edu/events/japanese-buddhism-lectures/fabio-rambelli-music-dharma-buddhist-philosophy-music-sutra#:~:text=Early%20Buddhism%20had%20a%20negative,still%20standard%20in%20Theravada%20Buddhism." target="_blank">explicitly prohibit</a> monks, nuns, and lay followers not only from performing, but also from listening or watching performances of music, and this stance is still standard in Theravada Buddhism. Those <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/07/peaks-and-lamas.html" target="_blank">who like me</a> have been privileged to attend a puja in a Tibetan Buddhist Mahāyāna monastery will confirm that there is nothing soothing or calming about the<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR1MtazP6Gw" target="_blank"> sound of the conch shells</a>, longhorns and percussion integral to that tradition. My header image shows a recording of Lou Harrison's masterwork <i><a href="https://www.fondsound.com/lou-harrison-la-koro-sutro-1988/" target="_blank">La Koro Sutro</a></i>, an Esperanto setting of the core Buddhist Heart Sutra. This forceful composition <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owIz0RiEux8" target="_blank">is guaranteed to blow the doors off</a> any sleep space.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many great classical composers have had Buddhist tendencies, and below I am reprising <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/03/classical-music-has-many-buddhist.html" target="_blank">my article from 2019</a> highlighting some of them. Unlike the snooze-fest of sonic blancmange that the BBC Radio 3 extension promises to be, all this music will, like properly practiced mindfulness, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/02/audiences-need-permission-to-like.html" target="_blank">challenge comfort zones</a> and wake up the listener to the reality of our strange, frustrating but ultimately beautiful world.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Classical music has many Buddhist tendencies</span></b></div><div><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;">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 <a href="https://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/whats-thera.htm" target="_blank">Theravada - doctrine of the elders - Buddhism</a>, and it may not be a coincidence that in 1960 elected <a href="https://www.wikigender.org/wiki/sirimavo-bandaranaike/" target="_blank">Sirimavo Bandaranaike</a>, 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 <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2018/10/is-classical-music-personal-or-public.html" target="_blank">iPod soundtrack for my travels</a>.<br />
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First up is the music of Jonathan Harvey. <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/05/jonathan-harvey-on-record.html" target="_blank">He professed</a> to having Buddhist tendencies but did not want to be pigeon-holed as a Buddhist composer. However <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/04/a-composer-with-buddhist-tendencies.html" target="_blank">Buddhism is implicit</a> in many of his later compositions including <a href="http://www.fabermusic.com/repertoire/body-mandala-4868" target="_blank">Body Mandala</a>, <a href="http://www.fabermusic.com/repertoire/tranquil-abiding-3250" target="_blank">Tranquil Abiding</a> and the opera <a href="http://www.fabermusic.com/repertoire/wagner-dream-4656" target="_blank">Wagner Dream</a>. But arguably the work that connects most strongly with Buddhist teachings is his Fourth String Quartet. This uses electronic sound shaping to suggest Tantric Buddhism's higher meditation practices. In <a href="http://www.fabermusic.com/repertoire/string-quartet-no-4-3801" target="_blank">his programme note</a> Jonathan depicts how the quartet is divided into 'cycles' depicting <i>Samasara</i> - the endless cycle of death and rebirth. He explains "It is as if several lives are depicted, each dying and being reborn with traces of the previous ones. Repetition, transformation; architecture and narrative; construction, dissolution: these are the characteristics of both autonomous music and what it refers to outside itself".</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;">In 2005 His Holiness the <a href="http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=5,1723,0,0,1,0#.XIOu4yj7SUk" target="_blank">Dalai Lama attended a performance</a> of Lou Harrison's 'Peace Piece One' at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, with <a href="http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/music/faculty/patrick-gardner" target="_blank">Patrick Gardner</a> conducting the <a href="http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/music/ensembles/kirkpatrick-choir" target="_blank">Rutgers Kirkpatrick Choir</a>. Although not a practising Buddhist, Lou Harrison <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/05/going-buddhist-with-lou-harrison.html" target="_blank">participated in Buddhist rituals</a> in the 1960s and was attracted by the tradition's core teachings which probe the causes of human suffering. Probably his most overtly Buddhist work is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfPtL8EJT-s" target="_blank"><i>La Koro Sutro</i></a>; this is a setting in Esperanto of the revered Mahayanan Buddhist <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-heart-sutra-450023" target="_blank">Heart Sutra</a> which contains the celebrated affirmation that "Form is emptiness, emptiness is only form".</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/08/hints-of-penderecki-ligeti-and-stimmung.html" target="_blank">Smiles of the Buddha</a> (<i>Les sourires de Bouddha</i>) is a setting for chamber choir by the Vietnamese composer <a href="http://tonthattiet.com/biography/" target="_blank">Ton-That Tiêt</a> (b. 1933) of verses by the 8th century Chinese poet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wei-wang" target="_blank">Wang Wei</a>. Tôn-Thất Tiết studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire with <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2009/10/avoiding-hazard-of-reputation-inflation.html" target="_blank">André Jolivet</a> and followed his teacher's dictum that music should be “a means to express ideas and not an aim in itself”. Despite being an agnostic the Mahayana Buddhism of his native Vietnam is, along with Hinduism, one of the influences on Thất Tiết's music.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Edmund Rubbra had a life-long interest in comparative religion and metaphysics, and following a flirtation with Theosophy briefly practiced Buddhism before returning to Catholicism. In 1947 <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/06/give-us-something-else-give-us.html" target="_blank">Arnold Bax</a>'s brother <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Bax" target="_blank">Clifford</a> wrote the BBC radio play The Buddha; Rubbra provided the incidental music which became his Suite, The Buddha op.64 for chamber ensemble. Although this is the most overtly Buddhist of Rubbra's compositions, his whole opus is imbued with Buddha nature - the unceasing search for enlightenment. In his <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/edmund-rubbra/855723C0A084ED40F1D7DF81C87242B4" target="_blank">invaluable biography of Rubbra</a> Leo Black opines that the composer's final symphony - the compact and enigmatic Eleventh - reflects this unceasing search by asserting that transcendental enlightenment is a glimpse, not a state.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Danish composer <a href="https://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/artists/per-norgard" target="_blank">Per Nørgård</a>'s three act opera ballet <a href="http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/21615" target="_blank">Siddhartha</a> depicts the pre-enlightenment years of the young Prince Siddhartha. Composed in 1979 it has a libretto by one of Denmark's greatest poets <a href="http://www.greeninteger.com/book.cfm?-Ole-Sarvig-The-Sea-Below-My-Window-&BookID=101" target="_blank">Ole Sarvig</a> (1921-81). Writing of the opera Siddhartha some years ago <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/12/classical-music-as-ritual.html" target="_blank">I said that</a> "Despite its arcane origins and uncompromising modernity Per Nørgård's music sounds surprisingly familiar at first hearing, an apparent vindication of his rejection of serialism as an artificial device". Exhibiting fewer Buddhist tendencies but also highly recommended are Per Nørgård's symphonies, notably <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/11/play-it-again-sakari.html" target="_blank">the abrasive Eighth</a>.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;">Philip Glass is one of the two modern composer's celebrated for their Buddhist tendencies. His work for the Tibetan Vajrayana school of Buddhism and his commitment to <a href="https://tibethouse.us/about/overview/" target="_blank">preserving the Tibetan way of life</a> in the face of the <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/02/till-eulenspiegels-merry-pranks.html" target="_blank">Chinese cultural genocide</a> is celebrated. He scored Martin Scorse's 1997 movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119485/" target="_blank">Kundun</a> depicting the Dalai Lama's flight into exile from Tibet, and his Fifth Symphony sets extracts from the Tibetan Book of the Dead and concludes with the Dedication of Merit from the Mahayana school of Buddhism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">My inclusion of ambient composer Robert Rich's work in a <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/01/meditation-music-has-gone-mainstream.html" target="_blank">list of music for meditation</a> sparked <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/02/todays-koan-what-is-classical-music.html" target="_blank">a healthy debate</a> on whether he composes classical music. Most probably Zen practitioners would solve that koan by answering that Robert Rich's music is not not classical music. Semantic arguments not withstanding, his music was high on my playlist in Sri Lanka. Meditation is at the heart of Buddhist practice and in <i>Sunyata</i> - the Mahayanan concept of 'emptiness' - <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2018/12/written-with-my-head-in-clouds.html" target="_blank">Robert Rich explores using music</a> not for entertainment, but for induction into a new and vastly more important state of mind.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Lineages are an important chain of transmission in Buddhism. So it is significant that <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2013/11/britten-looking-forward.html" target="_blank">Jonathan Harvey mentored</a> the Catalan composer Ramón Humet (b.1968). Buddhism and Eastern metaphysics are an important influence in Ramon Humet's music; notably in his tetraptych <i><a href="https://www.trito.es/en/shop/article/16937/musica-del-no-esser" target="_blank">Música del Esse</a></i> (Music of non-being), and in other works such as<i> <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/01/new-audiences-want-classical-music-up.html" target="_blank">Quatre jardins Zen</a></i><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/01/new-audiences-want-classical-music-up.html" target="_blank"> (Four Zen gardens) and <i>Jardí de Haikus</i> (Garden of Haikus)</a>.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;">Herman Hesse's 1922 novel <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/286568/siddhartha-by-hermann-hesse/9780142437186/readers-guide/" target="_blank">Siddhartha</a></i>, which recounts the spiritual journey of a young man seeking enlightenment, was <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2018/02/listen-without-judgement-without-opinion.html" target="_blank">a sacred text</a> of the 1960 and 70s counterculture. It inspired Claude Vivier's eponymous orchestral work composed in 1976 to a commission from the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. Claude Vivier (1948-1983) <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/08/pushing-classical-music-envelope.html" target="_blank"> died in 1983</a> at the age of 35. He is one of a number of hugely talented but rarely performed composers whose cause is not helped by current classical programming which places more emphasis on <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/04/classical-music-is-exploiting-female.html" target="_blank">click bait potential</a> than artistic merit.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">John Cage and Philip Glass are the two modern composers usually linked to Buddhism. Whereas Philip Glass is associated with the esoteric school of Tibetan Buddhism, John Cage drew inspiration from the more austere Zen tradition. Zen scholar and teacher <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393521/obo-9780195393521-0257.xml" target="_blank">D. T. Suzuki</a> inspired a generation of American Buddhists, and John Cage <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14639940601025098?mobileUi=0&amp;journalCode=rcbh20" target="_blank">was particularly influenced</a> by the teachings of the Heart Sutra on <i>sunyata</i> - emptiness. The Heart Sutra's core teaching that "form is emptiness, emptiness is only form", found expression in Cage's groundbreaking silent piece<a href="https://johncage.org/pp/John-Cage-Work-Detail.cfm?work_ID=17" target="_blank"> 4'33"</a>, <a href="https://johncage.org/pp/John-Cage-Work-Detail.cfm?work_ID=134" target="_blank">Music of Changes</a>, and the multi-media <a href="https://johncage.org/pp/John-Cage-Work-Detail.cfm?work_ID=313" target="_blank">Black Mountain Happening</a>.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;">Zen was also a major influence on the Japanese composer <a href="https://en.schott-music.com/shop/autoren/toru-takemitsu" target="_blank">Toru Takemitsu</a>. Zen gardens were a particular influence, and <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2016/09/i-design-gardens-with-music.html" target="_blank">he once explained</a> that 'I design gardens with music'. The <a href="https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3937.html" target="_blank">Saiho-ji Temple</a> in Kyoto designed by the 14th century Zen priest <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2007/11/25/books/muso-sosekis-garden-of-zen/#.XIT7yij7SUk" target="_blank">Muso Soseki</a> inspired Takemitsu's Dream/Window for orchestra, and another work that reflects the composer's preoccupation with Zen gardens is his Spirit Garden. This preoccupation is reflected in the numerous other botanical references in the titles of Takemitsu's music, including In an Autumn Garden, A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, Tree Line, Garden Rain and Music of Trees. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/feb/11/contemporary-music-guide-toru-takemitsu" target="_blank">Writing in the <i>Guardian</i></a> of Takemitsu's Visions Tom Service said the work "sounds like music that should be at the heart of orchestral programmes and listeners' imaginations everywhere". But sadly, like Claude Vivier, Toru Takemitsu has been marginalised by<a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/04/how-many-mahlers-does-it-take-to-fill.html" target="_blank"> today's click bait classical programming</a>.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><a href="http://dhyana/" target="_blank">Dhyana</a></i> is the spiritual state of trance attained by the practice of higher Buddhist meditation. Expressions in music of the search for trance states range from the relentlessly ecstatic <a href="https://www.insomniac.com/magazine/how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-psytrance/" target="_blank">Psytrance</a> electronic dance music that originated from Goa in the late 1960s, through Jonathan Harvey's sound shaped Fourth Quartet featured at the start of this article, to the <a href="https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/specials/2015-eliane-radigue-feature/" target="_blank">nuanced electronica of Éliane Radigue</a> with its infinitesimal but engrossing dynamics. Éliane Radigue's middle period works are <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/08/all-kinds-of-musical-magic.html" target="_blank">overtly Buddhist</a>, notably <i>Jetsun Mila</i>, <i>Trilogie de la Mort</i>, and Songs of Milarepa; in the latter work texts by the Tibetan saint and poet Milarepa are spoken in Tibetan by <a href="http://www.lovely.com/artists/a-lamakunga.html" target="_blank">Lama Kunga Rinpoch</a>e and in translation by composer and poet <a href="https://www.furious.com/perfect/robertashley.html" target="_blank">Robert Ashley</a>. <br />
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Éliane Radigue's deeply Buddhist compositions bring me to the end of this personal overview of classical music with varying Buddhist tendencies. If this article has any message at all it is simply to encourage everyone to listen and think <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2018/05/stay-away-if-you-want-mollycoddling_29.html" target="_blank">beyond personal comfort zones</a>. The great Buddhist <a href="https://www.culturalindia.net/indian-history/ancient-india/ashoka.html" target="_blank">Emperor Asoka</a> of India expressed this message far more profoundly in an edict carved in rock. It is a message that applies far beyond attitudes towards religion:</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="color: black;">One should not honour only one's own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honour others' religions for this or that reason. So doing, one helps one's own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grave of one's own religion and also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religion, thinking "I will glorify my own religion". But on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others</span></blockquote><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">New <i>Overgrown Path</i> posts are available via RSS/email by entering your email address in the right-hand sidebar. Any copyrighted material is included for critical analysis, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).</span> </span> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-80563643345842705332024-02-09T11:14:00.000+00:002024-02-09T11:14:24.375+00:00Why do we always forget the Roma?<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU1Kt19OQiN30_qr8pKryX82E3LEe22Lc0Uh1NOxLvcHGNKbuhycCYJwU9pctKfsIez7evTCeQki8XycDfF-xTqb-gtKka59t6ZD89Q5AvnhFEhCrErhUvvn-14N5_tj4vbHokb-0DIqflQg5sdFikbkZyPi6Rwr5Xv2aJvkaB-kDoOFpsLZ8LQ/s1491/Gitans%202.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="1491" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU1Kt19OQiN30_qr8pKryX82E3LEe22Lc0Uh1NOxLvcHGNKbuhycCYJwU9pctKfsIez7evTCeQki8XycDfF-xTqb-gtKka59t6ZD89Q5AvnhFEhCrErhUvvn-14N5_tj4vbHokb-0DIqflQg5sdFikbkZyPi6Rwr5Xv2aJvkaB-kDoOFpsLZ8LQ/s600/Gitans%202.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">In his absorbing and sometimes outrageous memoir <i><a href="https://www.alaindanielou.org/books/corpus/autobiography/the-way-to-the-labyrinth/" target="_blank">The Way to to the Labyrinth: Memories of East and West</a> </i>the authority on Hinduism and Indian music <a href="https://www.alaindanielou.org/biography/english/" target="_blank">Alain Daniélou</a> makes the following thoughtful comment: <div><br /></div><div><i><b>I often wonder at the way people who speak of genocide always seems to forget the Gypsies, the homosexuals, and the German dissidents who died at the hands of the Nazis; by limiting their condemnations, they only weaken their argument. It is not just because the victims were Jewish that extermination camps were abominable. I never quite trust the sincerity of people who openly condemn anti-Semitism but conveniently forget the many other victims of Nazism. </b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>Back in 2006 in my post <i><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2006/06/roma-forgotten-holocaust-victims.html" target="_blank">Roma - the forgotten Holocaust victims</a></i> I explained how the fate of the millions of Jews murdered in Hitler's death camps is well documented and remembered, but less is known about the 500,000 Gypsies who also died. There are not many written accounts of the Roma or Sinti travellers who died in the camps, because their culture is traditionally oral, not literary. By contrast the majority of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust came from educated middle-classes, and left behind written records of their terrible fate.
</div><div><br /></div><div>Multi-instrumentalist <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2020/03/enlightened-musician-who-chose-road-not.html" target="_blank">Titi Robin's music</a> has been <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/07/among-us-there-are-no-castes.html" target="_blank">part of my life</a> for more years than I care to remember. An ardent champion of the music and culture of the Roma, for his 1993 album <i>Gitans</i> Titi was joined by Roma musicians from Spain to Rajasthan, including 'The Gypsy Queen of Rajasthan,' <a href="http://sakoyafoundation.com/kalbeliya-folk-dancer-padmashree-gulabo-sapera.html" target="_blank">Gulabi Sapera</a> who is seen above with Titi .</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzq7QAcYekItAydyXsSs3Dz6_KeidkCwnkRZJdBMU78YiaU6C6MNZqNTqgEFpZIE1C5d562VoQ4rGvc91ZQL0gB27WR2ZBWBOZa-PlOkh8OJvp7z3eNr3eIy1ETZAn9XqexGzI62_gNlhHhPOBzw8D9KzE2Nt5QlGid4LCmfAB9K6YipFdyv-fqw/s502/Gitans%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzq7QAcYekItAydyXsSs3Dz6_KeidkCwnkRZJdBMU78YiaU6C6MNZqNTqgEFpZIE1C5d562VoQ4rGvc91ZQL0gB27WR2ZBWBOZa-PlOkh8OJvp7z3eNr3eIy1ETZAn9XqexGzI62_gNlhHhPOBzw8D9KzE2Nt5QlGid4LCmfAB9K6YipFdyv-fqw/s16000/Gitans%201.jpg" /></a></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-17507906770060970032024-02-05T09:09:00.005+00:002024-02-05T10:50:16.656+00:00Not everyone climbs mountains<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiczp5o1MF02itgivk0A7UYGQsH8ZQoZ5AeVWlFJgCR6sSUO9bjpiGr7mqIdgsC2gt9qbh947X1NMD-5iQaOGVblV5oThGEdBDKVuyzzQ00ZBG-OlVwSxIdYdGNFSKXwVcp0SJpSnBUIT5edXjOS_AswjsTYrQ68vkTTJ5BMwzOHBcTtpJGpZ1Ug/s644/Goa%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="644" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiczp5o1MF02itgivk0A7UYGQsH8ZQoZ5AeVWlFJgCR6sSUO9bjpiGr7mqIdgsC2gt9qbh947X1NMD-5iQaOGVblV5oThGEdBDKVuyzzQ00ZBG-OlVwSxIdYdGNFSKXwVcp0SJpSnBUIT5edXjOS_AswjsTYrQ68vkTTJ5BMwzOHBcTtpJGpZ1Ug/s600/Goa%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;">These photos were taken by me on my recent trip to India. Listening and reading while in Goa set me thinking about a response to a recent post here. On his excellent <i><a href="https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2024/01/friday-miscellanea_26.html" target="_blank">The Music Salon</a></i> Canadian blogger Bryan Townsend wrote:<div><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>On an Overgrown Path tells us <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2023/12/there-is-no-mass-market-for-classical.html" target="_blank">There is no mass market for classical music</a>. I'm pretty sure of two things regarding that: first, I have known this ever since I got into classical music, so it ain't news and two, that is a big part of the appeal. Not everyone climbs mountains and not everyone listens to classical music.</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>Bryan's thoughtful response supports my thesis that for two decades classical music has been <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/11/classical-music-and-mass-market-fallacy.html" target="_blank">chasing a non-existent mass market</a>, as exemplified by the strategy of turning BBC Radio 3 into a clone of Classic FM complete with 'info-commercials'. But, and that is very important <b><i>but</i></b>, we cannot overlook that classical music is losing traction with audiences to an alarming extent. </div><div><br /></div><div>A simple example of this loss of traction is the programming in London's Royal Festival Hall. When <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/04/no-flowers-please-for-herbert-von.html" target="_blank">I worked in the classical industry in the 1980s</a> there was a world-class classical performance almost every night of the week in the Festival Hall. Now there is often<a href="https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/venues/royal-festival-hall?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAiP2tBhBXEiwACslfnoZH07CAb3SdNZ3MQ47ezQSemKzP8B2L9Y4cey_XrYoCzMWXI3ciGBoCKv4QAvD_BwE&from=2024-02-12&to=2024-02-18" target="_blank"> just one classical performance a week</a>, while the other six nights cater for entirely different audiences or are dark. This paucity of classical performances has nothing to do with Brexit as is wrongly claimed elsewhere by the click bait king. It is a due to a profound cultural and technological shift<a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/11/classical-music-is-not-connecting-with.html" target="_blank"> the classical industry is still in denial of</a>. Walking through the cabin of the Boeing 787 during the ten hour return flight from India underlined this deeply disruptive cultural shift: no classical playlist was offered on the in-flight entertainment system and around half the adult passengers were watching the new Barbie movie . </div><div><br /></div><div>Bryan Townsend is right when he says 'Not everyone climbs mountains and not everyone listens to classical music'. But what happens when the lack of new mountain climbers means that the essential guides and Sherpas disappear to seek other work? What happens when the essential fixed ropes start failing due to lack of maintenance? What happens when the routes to base camps are closed down due to lack of traffic? What happens when essential funding for the climbing infrastructure is withdrawn due to the lack of mountaineers? What happens when the mountains are dynamited by BBC Radio 3 to make them easier to climb?</div><div><br /></div><div>This is exactly what is happening with classical music. Not everyone climbs mountains or listens to classical music. But without a constant modest but essential rejuvenation of concert goers and mountaineers, the infrastructure for both disciplines will slowly atrophy. There is no mass market for classical music and there never will be; but there is a heterogeneous and highly fissile conglomeration of small overlapping niches. Which means the opportunity exists to expand the market in a modest way, and, most importantly, to rejuvenate it by developing new niches.</div><div><br /></div><div>My listening in India included Mason Bates <i>Works for Orchestra</i> recorded by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas <a href="https://www.masonbates.com/recordings/works-for-orchestra/" target="_blank">on the SFSO's own record label</a>. In his sleeve note the composer explains "I look to the digital world as an important twenty-first century expansion of the orchestral world". <a href="https://www.masonbates.com/about/" target="_blank">Mason Bates</a> has also <a href="https://www.wqxr.org/story/190600-mason-bates-portal/" target="_blank">worked as a DJ and techno artist</a> using the name Masonic in clubs and lounges around San Francisco, and this means he has a deep understanding of the new and young audiences that is almost completely lacking elsewhere in today's classical industry. </div><div><br /></div><div>While in Goa my reading included <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/12/the-islander-by-chris-blackwell-review-maverick-who-brought-bob-marley-to-the-masses" target="_blank"><i>The Islander</i></a>, the autobiography of <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/universal-music-group/island-records/" target="_blank">Island Records</a> founder <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/people/chris-blackwell/" target="_blank">Chris Blackwell</a>, who nurtured the careers of Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/11/now-we-rise-and-we-are-everywhere.html" target="_blank">Nick Drake</a>, and Norah Jones among others. In his book Chris Blackwell highlights how the bass line connects young audiences with music. He describes how bass is the lead line in reggae music, which explains the phenomenal success of Bob Marley and other other reggae acts far beyond their core Jamaican audience. Mason Bates' understands this importance of the bass line, as is shown by the impressive lower registers captured on the SACD layer of the San Francisco recording. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mason Bates is a rare example of someone with foresight developing the niche between classical and electronic music. As a DJ he worked with electronic dance music, and the EDM is <a href="https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/electronic-dance-music-market" target="_blank">worth US$ 9.68 billion in 2023</a> which is quite a big niche. (Interesting synchronicity here, electronic dance music <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/06/and-so-cocaine-started-to-be-sold.html" target="_blank">originated in Goa</a>.) Growing niche markets is a far more plausible commercial strategy than BBC Radio 3's futile lose/lose battle with Classic FM over the finite classical-light segment.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nobody is suggesting techno treatments of Beethoven. Classical music's separate niches operate independently with only limited overlap - orchestral music and chamber or opera or early music rarely appear on the same programme. Similarly there is space for classical music to rejuvenate its audience by exploring and expanding the electro-acoustic, pure electronic and ambient niches without losing its unique appeal by dumbing-down core repertoire. To continue with this theme an upcoming article <i>On An Overgrown Path</i> will feature an in-depth interview with a leading American electro-ambient composer and musician.</div><div><br /></div><div></div>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-24394419729100981222024-01-03T12:40:00.000+00:002024-01-03T12:40:08.393+00:00Deus ex machina <div><span style="color: black;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXIxfWeXM0rshySfTqPkAUggke_dz43MkMkuqAepZ0v1BJxDNvwWGfaJ-keosJpq_wlb7cPvoaRpU3V9vxLgIV-E45PAxS4PYg4xyGn0LFUYStDxT0VsxTVBv7ARdDWlFs1-41Qn1bpQ2E0VqN0go-Q8QTqBIAsqS4MeOJlcGTyorB78kpjT5wg/s499/Barroux%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="499" height="564" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXIxfWeXM0rshySfTqPkAUggke_dz43MkMkuqAepZ0v1BJxDNvwWGfaJ-keosJpq_wlb7cPvoaRpU3V9vxLgIV-E45PAxS4PYg4xyGn0LFUYStDxT0VsxTVBv7ARdDWlFs1-41Qn1bpQ2E0VqN0go-Q8QTqBIAsqS4MeOJlcGTyorB78kpjT5wg/w640-h564/Barroux%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></div><div><span>My recent retreat at the </span><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/11/songs-of-innocence-and-experience.html" target="_blank">Benedictine Abbey of Saint Madeleine</a><span> at Le Barroux in south-eastern France was my first since the COVID-19 pandemic. Since my last visit the Monastery has been extended and a new organ </span><span>by </span><a href="https://www.ustrup.dk/aubertin/" target="_blank">Bernard Aubertin</a> <span>has been constructed in the Abbey church </span><span>. The specification of the new organ is available via </span><a href="https://www.ustrup.dk/aubertin/orgel.asp?orgelid=168" target="_blank">this link</a><span>. Here is background to organ builder Bernard Aubertin from the </span><a href="https://www.maitresdart.fr/en/bernard-aubertin-1/background-and-achievements.html" target="_blank">Les Maitres d'Art website</a><span>:</span></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>The Aubertin organs are true creations, each being adapted to a unique person and to a precise place. The choice of proportions, governing the visual aspect, must be closely linked to the tone. Bernard Aubertin is a “biological” organ maker and refuses the “an organ can play any music”, using traditional materials. The main goal being for the artist to create a made-to-measure instrument , both living and welcoming, able to give pleasure and surprise again and again. </i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>Precise research aimed at finding the right materials and techniques to make the instrument live several centuries, leads the craftsman to varied technical and sound innovations. Bernard Aubertin is also asked, all over the world, to restore ancient organs. His workshops are situated in an old priory destroyed by different wars, abandoned and restored by the craftsman since 1978.</i></b></div><div><br /></div><div>The monastic community at Le Barroux has released <a href="https://boutique.barroux.org/musique-religieuse/3463-l-orgue-liturgique-au-barroux-3518370600111.html" target="_blank">a highly-recommended double CD</a> of the Aubertin organ played by guests <a href="https://www.nigelallcoat.com/" target="_blank">Nigel de Gaunt-Allcoat</a>, <a href="https://www.simonepedroni.com/bio-eng-1" target="_blank">Simone Pedroni</a>, <a href="https://www.mauritsbunt.nl/" target="_blank">Maurits Bunt</a>, and <a href="https://www.orgues-chartres.org/iain-simcock/?lang=en" target="_blank">Iain Simcock</a> who advised on the construction of the new organ . The CD's repertoire avoids the 'organ play any music' by with an eclectic programme of <a href="https://www.prestomusic.com/sheet-music/composers/31680--boyvin" target="_blank">Jacques Boyyin</a>, <a href="https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/francois-couperin" target="_blank">François Couperin</a>, <a href="http://www.hoasm.org/VIID/Guilain.html" target="_blank">Jean-Adam Guilain</a>, <a href="https://www.orgues-chartres.org/pierre-cochereau/?lang=en" target="_blank">Pierre Cochereau</a>, <a href="https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/p/po-pz/michael-praetorius/" target="_blank">Michael Praetorius</a>, <a href="https://organ.byu.edu/composers/sweelinck.html" target="_blank">Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck</a>, <a href="https://andrewbensonwilson.org/2015/08/17/programme-notes-nicolaus-bruhns-b1665-the-surviving-organ-works/" target="_blank">Nicolaus Bruhns</a>, and J.S. Bach. (Quiz time: which is the only 20th century composer in that list?)</div><div><br /></div><div>As well as guesting on that double CD the young Dutch Maurits Bunt organist has also released <a href="https://www.mauritsbunt.nl/#media" target="_blank">a solo album</a> of similarly eclectic repertoire. Recorded on <a href="https://www.greifenberger-institut.de/en/wissenswertes/orgel/frankreich/rodez_text.php" target="_blank">the organ of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption de Rodez</a> which originally dates from 1627 and is ideally suited to for French baroque works, the programme features music by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Nicolas_Cl%C3%A9rambault" target="_blank">Louis-Nicolas Clérambault</a> and J.S,Bach. </div><div><br /></div><div>Both CDs are available online from <a href="https://boutique.barroux.org/1404-media" target="_blank">the Monastery website</a>. The Latin loan words <i>Deus ex machina</i> are derived from the Greek for "god from the machine". This refers to the conventions in ancient Greek theatre where actors playing gods arrived on stage using a machine.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0YvwQG8EzYV5_0BGopYAauV6N4w620Y8IFUEL_waeVlk8kO4eBCMMy7_z8qwUIuAt0uZgTnbhTJX7HIQz4UQavUoaid_xXNxLknPcwLj2geoXjULXr5U-5PL3OcAipYHURn3WxmQw-T9RPd4E8iW_euGDkVZoMXrygBgPjrYTH0IX3vIJzVqBpQ/s2344/Bunt%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2087" data-original-width="2344" height="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0YvwQG8EzYV5_0BGopYAauV6N4w620Y8IFUEL_waeVlk8kO4eBCMMy7_z8qwUIuAt0uZgTnbhTJX7HIQz4UQavUoaid_xXNxLknPcwLj2geoXjULXr5U-5PL3OcAipYHURn3WxmQw-T9RPd4E8iW_euGDkVZoMXrygBgPjrYTH0IX3vIJzVqBpQ/w640-h570/Bunt%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-22290977199454497832023-12-28T16:01:00.006+00:002023-12-28T16:34:57.629+00:00There is no mass market for classical music<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm9GFJmAJbQJbHJK3qLkRoYfXaQ7m1AvUGFnAq10Eqzb_sI361SA_NmUTR3oL3qnU2xvLKVVPV5CthPMWGcWDWPayHCGWtMnxUuHXCYOBuyE-uI9fDJwV9ZVnik2w7bVLgWarDV3dTytH8SL5Ro_VKIpb8Omgx6Rzxw2xJ5uEkR2D_YTlNFcBatQ/s634/Dog%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm9GFJmAJbQJbHJK3qLkRoYfXaQ7m1AvUGFnAq10Eqzb_sI361SA_NmUTR3oL3qnU2xvLKVVPV5CthPMWGcWDWPayHCGWtMnxUuHXCYOBuyE-uI9fDJwV9ZVnik2w7bVLgWarDV3dTytH8SL5Ro_VKIpb8Omgx6Rzxw2xJ5uEkR2D_YTlNFcBatQ/s600/Dog%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">Classical industry executives should make it their New Year's resolution to finally understand that there is no mass market for classical music. <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/11/classical-music-and-mass-market-fallacy.html" target="_blank">For two decades</a> classical music has been chasing a non-existent mass market. The latest manifestation of this misguided thinking is the reinvention in the UK of BBC Radio 3 as a clone of Classic FM by the network's new Controller Sam Jackson, who <a href="https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sam-jackson-0295348" target="_blank">worked for Classic FM for five years</a> culminating in the post of 'Senior Managing Editor, Classic FM, Smooth and Gold'. Forget whether you love the new BBC Radio Classic 3 FM, or like me you loathe it with a vengeance.
Let's instead look at the facts. <div><br /></div><div>Industry strategies are based on the canard that Classic FM has a 'big' audience, therefore there must be a 'big' audience for classical music. Classic FM's audience peaked at 5 million but the station has failed to add listeners. In fact in May 2023 <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/music/classic-fm-hits-lowest-ever-audience-figures-after-losing-426-000-listeners-in-latest-quarter/ar-AA1btri1?ocid=Peregrine" target="_blank">the station had its smallest quarterly audience</a> since accurate figures became available 23 years ago. Despite this, BBC Radio 3 under its new Controller has adopted a futile strategy of unashamedly targeting exactly the same shrinking market.</div><div><br /></div><div>This mistake stems from a simple misunderstanding of the classical music market. The classical market is not a single large homogeneous entity which responds to 'one size fits all' marketing. Instead the classical market is a heterogeneous and highly fissile conglomeration of small overlapping niches - opera, chamber music, early music, contemporary music, orchestral music, etc. etc. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of these niches is the 'classic light' segment which has been ably exploited in the past by Classic FM. Yes, it is one of the larger, if not the largest niche. But it is also a finite niche, and, as recent Classic FM audience figures prove, that niche is highly inelastic. This means that beyond a certain point the 'classical light' segment does not respond to increased promotion, which in turn means that BBC Radio Classic 3 FM is doomed to fail. The station may show short to medium term audience gains, but these will be at the expense of Classic FM. The classical music market will not expand, but the egos of the BBC executives will every time the RAJAR audience figures are published. </div><div><br /></div><div>For years BBC Radio 3 has tried without success to differentiate itself from Classic FM by plugging that it is the only classical station with 'live' performances - have you ever heard 'dead' performances? - and forcing its presenters to plug the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme every thirty seconds. But now these ineffectual attempts at differentiation have been abandoned in the pursuit of the 'if you can't beat Classic FM join it' strategy, which can only result in a zero sum game as the two stations trade listeners . Which is both sad and wrong, because there is a viable alternative.</div><div><br /></div><div>The 'classical light' segments has become an obsession in the industry because of its perceived size. But when all the other niches plus the 'classical light' market are added together this becomes a big target market with real growth opportunities. There is a place for 'classical light' in 'drive time' segments, and this audience can be retained. But intelligently curated and presented specialist content at other times in the day targeted at all those other niches - opera, chamber music, early music, contemporary music, orchestral music - provides a far more viable alternative strategy that will not result to in a fight to the death with Classic FM . Instead, what BBC Radio 3 is currently doing is betting the network's future on prising listeners away from Classic FM, and the cost of this bet is abandoning all integrity, authority, and audience outside the 'classical light' market.</div><div><br /></div><div>If any proof is needed of the power of the niche it is provided by <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/12/early-musician-who-could-have-become.html" target="_blank">David Munrow's BBC Pied Piper early music programme</a> which ran for 655 prime time episodes over five years without resorting to chopping up Bach's Mass in B minor into easily digested daily morsels interspersed with commercials by another name, as has happened this week on BBC Radio Classic 3 FM.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEx-L2YWaF9XSvwYEE-gzhqepG9spgTbJ6cmlQ7OqhmkaiBzyJu_TUyftwOYS6rUvIZKtbv0CqQIIytj705KlrRk0ILprVtRzR7ZPU67NgmSio5q9f2Gu4NILBCYpioM8iRmB4P5VdJSnQG0Z9dG2ScJgpH9czLyWUAucDCC-hGWdN_Fr-k5k2Ig/s582/Dog%202.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="582" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEx-L2YWaF9XSvwYEE-gzhqepG9spgTbJ6cmlQ7OqhmkaiBzyJu_TUyftwOYS6rUvIZKtbv0CqQIIytj705KlrRk0ILprVtRzR7ZPU67NgmSio5q9f2Gu4NILBCYpioM8iRmB4P5VdJSnQG0Z9dG2ScJgpH9czLyWUAucDCC-hGWdN_Fr-k5k2Ig/s600/Dog%202.jpg" width="600" /></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">Header image comes <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12108061/Classic-FM-hits-lowest-audience-figures-losing-426-000-listeners-latest-quarter.html" target="_blank">from Daily Mail</a> and second image <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001v1m6" target="_blank">from BBC Radio 3</a>.</span></div>
</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-34750606246950741972023-12-27T08:20:00.002+00:002023-12-27T08:21:14.968+00:00All you need is passion<div><span style="color: black;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHO1ZQ-n5ZwXiuLjv7g-2i09BGHbriBtbwcuIqAomNquwlRxodJlB9a6OPB_CMcPmyU6Y-yL6c190mliDS_GI0xmSxqbOGA728eGpMrbrIq9p_FCd-vMX1dhtjP5nUcJK3MdytzW7oLwnvqC0VPIsozPrYs1Gcva_G3hsKqQOCVlCHsAJBWvak7g/s904/Markus%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="904" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHO1ZQ-n5ZwXiuLjv7g-2i09BGHbriBtbwcuIqAomNquwlRxodJlB9a6OPB_CMcPmyU6Y-yL6c190mliDS_GI0xmSxqbOGA728eGpMrbrIq9p_FCd-vMX1dhtjP5nUcJK3MdytzW7oLwnvqC0VPIsozPrYs1Gcva_G3hsKqQOCVlCHsAJBWvak7g/w640-h640/Markus%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></i></span></div><span style="color: black;"><i><b>'Heaven and hell do not exist "out there" somewhere. They exist in our own lives, now. Life is a trip, an experience... Everything in our lives is here to teach certain lessons, which ultimately are spiritual lessons. Awareness must come through one's own experience of heaven and hell' </b></i>- from flautist <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/search?q=paul+horn" target="_blank">Paul Horn</a>'s autobiography. Jordi Savall's recently released <a href="https://www.alia-vox.com/en/catalogue/j-s-bach-markus-passion/" target="_blank"><i>Markus Passion</i></a> is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFeKxYstBKo" target="_blank">rich in spiritual lessons</a>. More on Jordi Savall via <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/01/jordi-savall-on-record.html" target="_blank">this link</a>.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-35111586195332063432023-12-21T09:30:00.001+00:002023-12-21T09:30:53.243+00:00Do they know it's Christmas?<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSkVb9QUjPedloz7dYbSBwRBV-6g2IR8YZ2QHY7qWLVw43SkQ1z2l7gxaXSWiXZaoOl3SrdgHrehRblMa63oPNUXOMKLSc1khpKAJf2XXmiZZEIZd1gOyvakWK0-HRTqWTviwsJBlwv1zvqzMh4OHYphmvpIaweEGnR1HXtOeNxbJ3Xl96k9LziA/s504/Paelestine%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSkVb9QUjPedloz7dYbSBwRBV-6g2IR8YZ2QHY7qWLVw43SkQ1z2l7gxaXSWiXZaoOl3SrdgHrehRblMa63oPNUXOMKLSc1khpKAJf2XXmiZZEIZd1gOyvakWK0-HRTqWTviwsJBlwv1zvqzMh4OHYphmvpIaweEGnR1HXtOeNxbJ3Xl96k9LziA/s600/Paelestine%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">Seen here are just two of the images that have appeared <i>On An Overgrown Path</i> over the past nineteen years celebrating different cultures and music traditions. That CD by the Music Ensemble of Palestine comes from a 2010 post titled - <i>rien ne change -</i> '<a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/03/music-from-war-zone.html" target="_blank">Music from a war zone</a>'. Hezy Levy who represented Israel in the International Music for Peace Festival in Paris, and his album of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yte01cy01jE" target="_blank">traditional and modern songs of the Jewish people</a> featured in a 2009 post titled <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2009/08/music-as-last-bulwark-against-barbarity.html" target="_blank">'Music as the last bulwark against barbarity'</a>.<div><br /></div><div>Those celebrity musicians and self-appointed classical influencers who have rushed to show their support for one side against the other in the current Israel-Gaza War should remember that music is a bulwark, not a weapon, against barbarity. In the present conflict there will be no winners, just far too many victims on both sides. As <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/01/jordi-savall-on-record.html" target="_blank">that great humanitarian Jordi Savall</a> tells us in thes introductory essay to <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/02/against-monoculture-of-modernity.html" target="_blank">his album about the tragedy of the Cathars</a>, absolute evil is always the evil inflicted by man on man</div><div><br /></div><div>I wish my readers and all other sentient beings a pleasurable Christmas and a better new year. But we shouldn't be too optimistic. Because, as the Second <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/01/music-and-first-law-of-thermodynamics.html" target="_blank">Law of Thermodynamics</a> tells us, the total quantity of disorder in the universe must always increase, or at least can never decrease.</div><div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fkGcAFjcD4VPUH-Z0vKixV0_Nob9jtr6_DY6HdAWh9scBl7JAk6E_Uh2sQOPFcUBcSQ6XiZWQSFA9VsqdSERU91MfY1FiDOpLsQIcuJKvHyz5sOOq1-ea5UE7JM_mek3GXOnYEtkxzL6snRWHAp7VNIpRX6iU7eZxv0yuvGqhYGVDlr7WJPgpg/s504/Levy%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fkGcAFjcD4VPUH-Z0vKixV0_Nob9jtr6_DY6HdAWh9scBl7JAk6E_Uh2sQOPFcUBcSQ6XiZWQSFA9VsqdSERU91MfY1FiDOpLsQIcuJKvHyz5sOOq1-ea5UE7JM_mek3GXOnYEtkxzL6snRWHAp7VNIpRX6iU7eZxv0yuvGqhYGVDlr7WJPgpg/s600/Levy%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div></div></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-47428533442438411232023-12-18T09:27:00.001+00:002023-12-18T09:29:55.428+00:00What would be the biggest headline ever?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5HOUFFK247p4aEoPtH8uwHThyphenhyphenAfl7Mg0zxIu2OsjtIrSbDdgJj35xwhdeYaJMUahyPk4hZvmngfw_fQFpwyMYkKeHSJ-HVexn_0hOdaigsq1SXI5rIthlsKgyPY1pjDcwoesUBuvtYXNr7H9A_jqFI0aVC2f1tlwtlKbfDk9vaPkvjnUMFPmbg/s741/Rantala%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="741" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5HOUFFK247p4aEoPtH8uwHThyphenhyphenAfl7Mg0zxIu2OsjtIrSbDdgJj35xwhdeYaJMUahyPk4hZvmngfw_fQFpwyMYkKeHSJ-HVexn_0hOdaigsq1SXI5rIthlsKgyPY1pjDcwoesUBuvtYXNr7H9A_jqFI0aVC2f1tlwtlKbfDk9vaPkvjnUMFPmbg/w640-h488/Rantala%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="color: black;"><b><i>There have already been some pretty big stories: The moon landing, that was big. And the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And 9/11. But, if you ask me, the biggest news ever would be the day we get visitors from another planet.</i></b><div><span style="color: black;"><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>Let me paint you a picture of how it happens. Unlike in the many fantasy films, these visitors have arrived in peace. One day they just land in their spaceship, let's say...in Potsdam. Since there's no shooting or anything like that, the Mayor of Potsdam starts to mingle with them.</i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>By this time, the world's media is following each and every development closely. The Mayor is presenting the latest models from the German car industry to the aliens. They follow it all politely, but don't seem particularly impressed. The Mayor is panicking, and starts to show them some up-to-the-minute technical innovations. Still no reaction. The aliens look as if they really couldn't care less.</i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>Soon the Mayor realises that there's no point in bragging about the latest technical stuff; it's clear that these aliens are far ahead of humankind. They have found our planet, and we don't even know where they have come from? The Mayor and his staff are now getting very jittery. How to impress these visitors? The aliens must be starting to think that people from Earth are all total losers. </i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>But then there is a change. It happens when the Mayor shows the aliens <a href="https://www.visitberlin.de/en/nikolaisaal-potsdam" target="_blank">Potsdam's concert hall</a>. What's happening here, they ask? Musicians perform music and an audience sits and listens to it. So the aliens ask, perhaps they could have a concert of their own? The Mayor gets excited. He books all kinds of artists to perform. The aliens will hear some music by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Puccini, Stravinsky, Charlie Parker, Frank Zappa and Leonard Bernstein.</i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>The aliens are totally blown away. They say that in the technical department we on Earth are still thousands of years behind them, but they don't have any music on their planet. They also regret that they have spent so much time and energy on the technical stuff, time they could have spent with the music, with all this beauty.</i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i>The aliens know what they want: they would like to take a few artists back with them. Soon, however, when the aliens realize quite how impossible the artists' managers are to deal with, they drop the idea, and decide to develop their own music.</i></b> </div><div><br /></div><div>That is Finnish pianist <a href="https://iirorantala.fi/biography/" target="_blank">Iiro Rantala's</a> sleeve essay for his recent album <i><a href="https://iirorantala.bandcamp.com/album/potsdam" target="_blank">Potsdam</a></i>, and he is seen in my header photo. Iiro Rantala studied piano in the jazz department of Sibelius Academy and classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music. His albums include <i><a href="https://www.jazzwise.com/review/iiro-rantala-mozart-bernstein-lennon" target="_blank">Mozart, Bernstein, Lennon</a></i>, featuring a performance of Mozart's ‘Piano Concerto No. 21, C Major, K.467 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and <i><a href="https://iirorantala.bandcamp.com/album/veneziana" target="_blank">Veneziana</a></i> depicting imaginary scenarios featuring famous composers in Venice recorded with members of the Berlin Philharmonic. He has also appeared in <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2021/01/when-alfred-brendels-steinway-played.html" target="_blank">the Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic concerts</a>. Iiro Rantala is one of the very few musicians whose new albums I buy automatically - need I say more? </div><div><br /></div><div>For years classical music has <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/11/classical-music-and-mass-market-fallacy.html" target="_blank">tried in vain to expand its audience</a>. Among the great musicians who blurred the boundaries between classical and jazz were Igor Stravinsky - the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToYUCuUE9pk" target="_blank"><i>Ebony Concerto</i> </a>written in 1945 for the Woody Herman band - and Leonard Bernstein - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8-T3t3MDh0"><i>Prelude, Fugue and Riffs</i></a>. Many, including this writer, were first exposed to great music by jazz musicians such Jacques Lousier and the MJQ. Why is jazz <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2021/01/when-alfred-brendels-steinway-played.html" target="_blank">so underrated</a>?</div></span></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-7590583107550049602023-12-13T16:18:00.002+00:002023-12-13T16:18:58.796+00:00Our terrible time makes the choices clear for us<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFcWiP8pjXXT-W1g5BWfxVytwOGLj55LUqghN_RpbZ6Qh15INpVlfy64AiMMINpjrP4AQrotcxP_vk1_5ZXiqcsRt_kqmZRtodXgRht6voPQEaM499Lv9TmRU2KupGypqOHHegra6_GMikGCEDzuAcyhSomuQkEv-ahctlO49wtKSLQQXEYt1nQ/s484/OP%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFcWiP8pjXXT-W1g5BWfxVytwOGLj55LUqghN_RpbZ6Qh15INpVlfy64AiMMINpjrP4AQrotcxP_vk1_5ZXiqcsRt_kqmZRtodXgRht6voPQEaM499Lv9TmRU2KupGypqOHHegra6_GMikGCEDzuAcyhSomuQkEv-ahctlO49wtKSLQQXEYt1nQ/s600/OP%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><b style="font-style: italic;">'You want a philosophy that says, "Man will get better. Man will change his world. There is hope." That philosophy would be a lie. This world is illusion. But within this world and within man there are great powers - powers of love, of healing, of clarity, than can lead man to liberation. The worse the time, the more we should look for those powers within ourselves, the more deeply we should strive to obtain them and live them , for our own sake and the sake of others. Our terrible time makes the choices clear for us. We will not be able to pretend that we can go on living without taking thought for our salvation and that of others. We will have to invoke the deepest strengths of our spirit to survive at all'. </b><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div>That is Buddhist monk Nawang Tsering quoted in Andrew Harvey's <a href="https://kimstallwood.com/writer/book-reviews/a-journey-in-ladakh-by-andrew-harvey/" target="_blank"><i>A Journey in Ladakh</i></a>. Jonathan Harvey's <i><a href="https://www.fabermusic.com/music/other-presences-4851" target="_blank">Other Presences</a> </i>is a work for solo trumpet and live electronics written by Jonathan Harvey for <a href="https://www.markusstockhausen.de/?lang=en" target="_blank">Markus Stockhausen</a>. It is inspired <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/08/lit-up-with-sound.html" target="_blank">by ritual Tibetan ceremonies</a>, with Stockhausen's written and improvised trumpet parts <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGHED0AaIY8" target="_blank">looped and harmonised in real time</a>. On <a href="https://www.sargasso.com/product/jonathan-harvey-other-presences/" target="_blank">the album</a> seven other composers contribute a personal 'remix' of the original recording, among them a notable contribution <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh0__v5mgZA" target="_blank">from Jonathan's daughter Anna Harvey</a>. More on Jonathan Harvey via <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/05/jonathan-harvey-on-record.html" target="_blank">this link</a>.</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-40123719883189952632023-12-09T11:03:00.002+00:002023-12-09T11:08:25.467+00:00On boredom<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs6qsKQd1hIFtgRGSFg12ZrSiIt7O5PbHQ3qp5S9IlI7phm0JzCuB5anwdDWNy1gIkwNqCTTjoPEuFMf5Qd0R4mbd3GQ-wMihvsCQA5kYQuX-9odjkwx_C5o_mYrwwGioBUlZIFYxyFkMOukOLM_qlmgg6zKu6z7c78iBwaOA0E6r8l51PEWDhyQ/s804/Scattered%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="804" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs6qsKQd1hIFtgRGSFg12ZrSiIt7O5PbHQ3qp5S9IlI7phm0JzCuB5anwdDWNy1gIkwNqCTTjoPEuFMf5Qd0R4mbd3GQ-wMihvsCQA5kYQuX-9odjkwx_C5o_mYrwwGioBUlZIFYxyFkMOukOLM_qlmgg6zKu6z7c78iBwaOA0E6r8l51PEWDhyQ/s600/Scattered%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><div><i><b>'A Tantric Master, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/crazy-wisdom-life-times-chogyam-101120/" target="_blank">Trungpa</a>, has written that some meditation should be boring, should be as boring as possible, because in intense boredom all our habitual responses and concepts are dissolved. The mind's terror of boredom is the most acute because the mind suspects that through boredom, through its extreme experience, another reality might be reached that would threaten its pretensions, and perhaps even dissolve them altogether</b>'</i> - quoted from Andrew Harvey's <i><a href="https://kimstallwood.com/writer/book-reviews/a-journey-in-ladakh-by-andrew-harvey/" target="_blank">A Journey in Ladakh</a></i>. At a time when the only difference between BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM is the frequency they are broadcast on, <a href="https://www.johnlutheradams.net/story" target="_blank">John Luther Adams</a>' recently released <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAx9xczs68o" target="_blank">Darkness and Scattered Light</a></i> performed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/arts/music/robert-black-dead.html" target="_blank">bassist Robert Black</a> is an object lesson in the extreme benefits of <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2020/06/great-music-is-art-and-science-of.html" target="_blank">dissolving habitual responses</a> and <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/01/more-than-one-way-to-challenge-music.html" target="_blank">challenging comfort zones</a>.</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-90526954293944664842023-08-09T08:00:00.006+01:002023-08-28T08:38:30.692+01:00Everything falls under the law of change<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj9tlNk3Y2mNb73m_lDwPA5VleCSn7DIW22_TRL-I0hOUrqOZeWJbDy1saig4VDAjAsKPTuOWsberPDHW8UeRjKZ7JjHtMPGQnWOrTmTnYgjFY6CEwqp494FxLaKMrOowS3CMcjoSnx9PFZ9GBwY2qPwHTyAVCFU5qYQWhjRaMgi45iEVZaeeWnw/s892/Mandala%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="892" data-original-width="892" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj9tlNk3Y2mNb73m_lDwPA5VleCSn7DIW22_TRL-I0hOUrqOZeWJbDy1saig4VDAjAsKPTuOWsberPDHW8UeRjKZ7JjHtMPGQnWOrTmTnYgjFY6CEwqp494FxLaKMrOowS3CMcjoSnx9PFZ9GBwY2qPwHTyAVCFU5qYQWhjRaMgi45iEVZaeeWnw/s600/Mandala%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-style: italic;">Everything falls under the law of change, </b></div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><i>Like a dream, a phantom, a bubble, a shadow, </i></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><i>Like dew or a flash of lightning; </i></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><i>You should contemplate like this.</i></b> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">- </span>Conclusion of <a href="https://www.lifelonglearningcollaborative.org/silkroads/articles/diamond-sutra-translation.pdf" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The Diamond Sutra</a></div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Recent listening and reading:</div><div><a href="https://nmc-recordings.myshopify.com/products/jonathan-harvey-body-mandala" target="_blank">Body Mandala, Jonathan Harvey</a> - BBCSO, Ilan Volkov & Stefan Solyom</div><div><a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/muse-odalisque-handmaiden/" target="_blank">Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden</a> - Rose Simpson</div><div><a href="https://paulcrossleypianist.com/takemitsu-complete-piano-music/" target="_blank">Toru Takemitsu, Complete Works for Solo Piano</a> - Paul Crossley</div><div><a href="https://www.thirdmanbooks.com/catalog/monolithicundertow" target="_blank">Monolithic Undertow, In Search of Sonic Oblivion</a> - Harry Sword</div><div><a href="https://www.thirdmanbooks.com/catalog/monolithicundertow" target="_blank">On the Threshold of a Dream</a> - Moody Blues</div><div><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/05/inner-landscapes.html" target="_blank">Moroccan Atlas, The Trekking Guide</a> - Alan Palmer</div><div><a href="https://steveroach.bandcamp.com/album/zones-drones-atmospheres" target="_blank">Zones, Drones & Atmospheres</a> - Steve Roach</div></span><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/an-ugly-truth-sheera-frenkelcecilia-kang?variant=40828191637538" target="_blank">An Ugly Truth, Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination</a> - Sheera Frenkel & Cecilia KangUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-62091748988915631672023-08-06T07:48:00.002+01:002023-08-06T07:48:54.198+01:00....towards a Pure Land<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: black;"><div><span style="color: black;"><i><a href="https://www.fabermusic.com/music/towards-a-pure-land-4593" target="_blank">....towards a Pure Land</a></i> for small string ensemble and orchestra by Jonathan Harvey describes, in the words of the composer, "a state of mind beyond suffering where there is no grasping... a model of the world to which we can aspire". </span>In the photo above I am interviewing Jonathan Harvey in August 2010. When the interview was finished I drove down from his house on the Sussex Downs and ate alone in a restaurant in Lewes. During my meal I listened to the interview again on headphones, and as I listened it became apparent that something rather special had been captured. This was confirmed when the interview was subsequently <a href="https://soundcloud.com/overgrownpath/speakings-with-jonathan-harvey">broadcast on Future Radio</a>: how many contemporary composers have made the news - not arts - sections <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/sep/05/jonathan-harvey-classical-music-amplifiers">of the <i>Guardian</i></a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/7982698/Classical-music-needs-blasphemous-ideas-like-amplification.html">the <i>Telegraph</i></a> in the same week? Very sadly, the interview was made even more special by Jonathan's untimely death two years later.</div></span><div><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: black;">Jonathan Harvey was a true Renaissance man, and in the interview he ranges from Britten, Stockhausen, Babbitt and Boulez to Rudolf Steiner, Buddhism, Sufism, serialism and the future of classical music. We are very fortunate that composer and pianist <a href="https://timstevens.com.au/about/" target="_blank">Timothy Stevens</a> in Australia transcribed the interview for publication here, and when I read the transcript below I was reminded me of these lines from T.S. Eliot's poem <a href="http://www.wisdomportal.com/Technology/TSEliot-TheRock.html"><i>The Rock</i></a>: 'Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?'</span></div><div>
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>Bob Shingleton</b></i>: Hello. welcome to a very special edition of Chance Music, which comes form the Sussex home of composer Jonathan Harvey. Jonathan Harvey’s music is astonishingly diverse; it includes four string quartets and three operas. He has written a wide range of choral and orchestral works, and his new composition for large orchestra and electronics, <i>Speakings</i>, will close today’s program. His music, which uses electronics extensively, is uncompromisingly modern, and he has said that the thought of composing tonal music fills him with dread. He has set many sacred texts, and Buddhist themes are found in a number of his works, including his new acclaimed opera, <i>Wagner Dream</i>. He has a deep interest in mystical religions, has studied Hindu philosophy, and says that in the 1970s he got into meditation ‘in a big way’. Yet, despite this intimidating pedigree, Jonathan Harvey’s music has reached a remarkably wide audience, and today he is one of Britain’s senior composers. If you search on Amazon, you will find more than fifty recordings of his music; his compositions have received eighteen BBC Prom performances, and his choral <i>Passion and Resurrection</i> was the subject of a BBC TV film. Jonathan Harvey, welcome to <i>Chance Music</i>. <br />
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<i><b>Jonathan Harvey</b></i>: Thank you.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Jonathan, there’s no standard career path for a composer. But your own career has developed in a particularly interesting way. I want to start by asking you about your teachers. At Cambridge you studied composition with Patrick Hadley, for a short time, and that all ended in tears. Can you tell us about that?<br />
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<i><b>JH</b></i>: Well, Paddy Hadley was quite a character. He had many eccentricities, and basically he was rather a pastoral sort of English composer. That was the tradition he loved, to the exclusion, for instance, of the Austro-German tradition, to a considerable and rather alarming degree. But that was also exclusive even more of the Second Viennese School – people like Schoenberg – which he completely, as far as I can remember, dismissed out of hand. And I was at the time going into these composers in quite a big way, and I remember how it ended in tears – you’re quite right – was that I produced a composition, and he made one of his characteristic reactions, which was sort of [sounds of papers being flung away], and one never knew quite how to respond to these things. Anyway. He pointed viciously at this note, and eventually explained to me that it was an ‘unprepared dissonance’. And for someone who had been studying Schoenberg’s music for some months, indeed probably about a year by then, I just couldn’t understand what he was getting onto. And he had had probably a little too much whisky; it was probably half past ten supervision, as far as I can remember, but nevertheless he was in a slightly ugly mood, bless him. And I just got up and walked out, shut the door rather loudly, and I never went back.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: Right. And your first real teacher, the teacher that made an impact on you was actually Erwin Stein, who interestingly, wasn’t actually a composer in his own right. And Erwin Stein was suggested by Benjamin Britten. You met Britten first at Repton, I think, and then afterwards at Aldeburgh. What are your memories of Britten?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Well, very strong of course, although I didn’t see him that much. I went to Aldeburgh a few times. As you say I was introduced at my school, then Britten very kindly said, ‘well, send me some of your compsitions,’ and then when he saw them he said, ‘come over, and we’ll have a chat about them.’ He always said, ‘I’m not a teacher but I’d be interested to see your work, and I will help you, I’ll find a teacher for you.’ Anyway the days at the Red House in Aldeburgh were spent playing tennis, going for a swim, meeting rather distinguished people at his house, and so on. So that was an absolute delight. And of course he was a wonderful teacher. Brilliant. And he could tell immediately what was going to work, or what was not going to work, what would be effective, and what not. And that was an enormous help. <br />
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As a person he was intense, I would say. I mean full of fun, very witty – quite often caustic wit, as you can tell from the opera characterisations. He loved gossip, he loved talking about people, but there was also this intense side of him, this sort of – everything mattered, particularly in music, to a degree I think I’d never met before in anybody. The importance of it – one sensed that. Well, he was very encouraging, and he found Erwin Stein for me, and that’s how things for me really started.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: And after Erwin Stein died, in 1958, you studied with Hans Keller, who was also recommended in fact by Benjamin Britten. Now Hans Keller is remembered today as a broadcaster and musicologist rather than as a teacher. He’s also remembered as the perpetrator of the notorious Piotr Zak hoax, on BBC Radio 3, which famously poked fun at avant-garde music. What was Hans Keller like as a teacher, and how did he influence you?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Well the hoax was quite typical. He and Susan Bradshaw did a sort of avant-garde-style improvisation. And everybody knew that Hans was a stickler for strict structure, deep thinking in music, and so on. And so the critics all gave it a, well, a fairly good review, anyway. And for Hans this proved that the avant-garde – probably the generation of Stockhausen and Boulez, and the many adherents to this aesthetic who were less than geniuses – were really barking up the wrong tree. They were just jumping onto a kind of chaotic bandwagon where anything goes. And Hans taught quite a simple fundamental precept, that music must be coherent, it must work against a given background. And at every moment you must be aware that it is a transformation of what has gone before. It mustn’t be chaotic, meaningless, ‘so what’. Everything must have that intelligible line. <br />
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He actually always had the same philosophy for his performance coaching, which he became very famous for: unless a performer feels this in his Haydn or his Brahms, he won’t perform well. Feels what the composer went through when he changed the pattern, and it was a moment of importance for the composer, because he went beyond what’s already in the past, of what the piece has already done. So that was quite a simple precept, but very, very fundamental, and he would apply that to my music that he looked at as we sat in various pubs near the BBC in London, and we got drunker and drunker – he was a delightful man. I mean quite authoritarian, but he loved to laugh, and sometimes he would say to me, ‘Jonathan, you have not yet contradicted me.’ This is one of his most severe rebukes. So we had a lively time, and he kind of psychoanalysed me, because he was a psychoanalyst in Vienna. And his approach to the excitement of music, the emotional authenticity, was one of the big things I learnt from him. <br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: I think he effectively psychoanalysed your scores as well, didn’t he? That was his approach as a teacher, I think.<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Yes, you could say that, in terms of the psychological reaction he had as a listener. He could read scores brilliantly of course. So he was a listener, when he read my scores, and he would tell me how he reacted. ‘This is banal; I could predict this a thousand miles off,’ and things like that, he would say.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Hans Keller’s approach was fairly unconventional, but up to that point, it had been a fairly standard training that you’d had. But then in 1966 you met Karlheinz Stockhausen in Darmstadt and three years later you started your book about his music. You’ve said that discovering Stockhausen was a ‘very heady thing’. Can you explain what you meant?<br />
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<i><b>JH</b></i>: Well, being in Britain at that time was to be rather insular. Insulated from the extraordinary things that were happening with Stockhausen and Boulez and Nono and Berio and so on. Really it’s hard for people to understand now but we knew very little of what these composers were doing. And even so a lot of the works of Stockhausen are not well known now. Particularly of the earlier period. But yes, the recordings came over, the broadcasts were given, by the BBC sometimes, and bit by bit one got to know about them, and then I went to Darmstadt, and saw him lecture, and heard a lot of his tapes, a lot of his performances, for a week or two, and realized that this was like another planet. Music was never like this, that I had heard before. There was a kind of release from conventional time. And I heard the piano pieces particularly played by the Kontarsky brothers. Up to that point there were eleven of them. And the way they move through time with long silences, and extraordinarily intense fast passages, and everything in between. The structuring of the ‘in between’ so that the whole field is kind of covered, but not in the linear fashion that one expects from music. By the time the piece is finished you have a sensation that you’ve looked at a symmetrical, harmonious universe – but you can’t really trace a straight line through it. <br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: You’ve summarized Britten’s personality as ‘intense’. How would you summarise Stockhausen?<br />
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<i><b> JS</b></i>: Again, intense. But quite different from Britten. He was much more arrogant, really. But that’s the negative side; on the positive side he was just a visionary, someone who was far less modest than Britten. Britten wanted to make music for amateurs, as you’ll know, and make music which would be useful to people, which they would enjoy; Stockhausen couldn’t care less about that. He wanted to make music of truth, music which reflected the divine order, which reflected his visions of the nature of the cosmos, no less. And the fascination of him was that he was both very technological – he learnt all there was to be learnt about time from the electronic studios – and very spiritual. He had this sense that the universe was a spiritual place, and that God was everywhere, that God had created it, perhaps, and the reflections that art makes of this universe should be aware of that.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: And then it all changed again. In 1969 you went to America to study with Milton Babbitt at Princeton University. Now Babbitt was an important figure in the development of serial and electronic music, yet his name is much less familiar than Stockhausen’s. Why do you think that is?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Babbitt was famous for writing for a certain type of listener. He never claimed really to write for everybody. And this was his undoing. That everybody expected him to write music for them. But he said, ‘you know, why should music – most of us are in universities, in the States, who are interested in complex music, but maybe we should just write for our sort of elite, the way mathematicians send incomprehensible equations to each other. You know, what’s wrong with that?’ And he has a point, absolutely. So his reputation has somehow been branded as an elitist, which is totally unfair, and in this country he’s been dismissed. In the States, as I say, particularly in the university culture, he’s held in very high regard in many places.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: Do you think Milton Babbitt’s time will come?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: I hope he will have more of a recognition. I’m not sure that I really enthuse deeply about the music. I find it fascinating, but it is very much a music of structure, and a structure that’s difficult to hear unless you’ve spent quite a long time getting to grips with it. It’s like the most recondite music of Bach in a way. But it may come. I think it will come, actually. Much more.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: You said that Milton Babbitt’s music was inaccessible, was structure – both Hans Keller and Benjamin Britten had a healthy cynicism about the extreme avant-garde and the kind of music that Milton Babbitt was creating. What were their reactions when you went to study with Babbitt in the States?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Both of them were not very approving.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: That’s putting it politely, isn't it?<br />
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<i> JH</i>: Yes, yes. Yes, Hans Keller made some characteristically caustic remarks. But in a way I think he thought it could be an interesting and broadening experience to meet all sorts of American composers, as I did – not just Milton – and Britten, well he just thought it was the wrong direction for me. I think he was a little bit more sympathetic, or you know, he took me quite seriously, he really believed he wanted to help me, it was his task to do the best for me. And perhaps he felt he had failed a little bit in that I chose to go off to Milton Babbitt.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: Did he see the error of his thinking?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: That’s a complicated question, because although I kept more or less in touch with Britten until his death it wasn’t close and I didn’t show him many pieces. But he certainly thought, things I did show him in later years – that my music was a little too – I don’t know whether ‘academic’ is the word, but a little too lacking in immediacy. By his lights I’m sure that was correct.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Jonathan, so far we’ve talked about purely musical influences on you. But extra-musical influences have also been very important on your development as a composer. One of the extra-musical influences was the Austrian polymath Rudolf Steiner. Today Steiner is best known for the many schools based on his educational principles. How did he influence you?<br />
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<i><b>JH</b></i>: I read about forty of his books. He was an extraordinary man. He used to lecture apparently nearly every evening of his mature life, in a different place, and he always had a faithful dictation lady who would scribble it down, and so they are published. And they amount to forty or fifty books, a series of lectures, and they’re all different. That is the remarkable thing. They all bring something new, each evening. So I immersed myself in Steiner, and the effect was to really deepen the possibilities of life. A little bit like a scientist telling us about the atoms and the molecules behind the table and the piano that we look at. Steiner showed that the whole of life is based on energy, and not only energy but energy of certain character and colour. And he could see these colours with the auric vision that he had, the clairvoyance, and he could analyse people that way, like insight into people’s personalities; he could analyse illness, but he could analyse material substance. And not only that, but he had a lot of theories about the afterlife, the nature of what happens after death, and he was in the Buddhist tradition of course, of reincarnation, and what happens in between death and rebirth he explained in great detail. The fascinating thing is a lot of these details were artistic, in the form of colour, and musical, in the form of sound. So he would explain what it is like to be dead in terms of sound. And that’s quite mind-boggling. Of course, I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but I know that Steiner was a man of great integrity, so I read what he says with a feeling and the instinct that a lot of it could be true. And I’ve come across nothing in life to convince me that it is untrue. So that’s how I stand with Steiner, and how he began to influence my thinking about sound, and the fluidity of the world. Everything merges into everything else. Everything is impermanent, as the Buddhists say. Nothing is fixed and solid.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Rudolf Steiner founded a new spiritual movement with links to Theosophy, which brings us on to the topic of Buddhism. I mentioned in my introduction that Buddhist themes recur in your music. Is it fair to call you a Buddhist composer, or is that too neat a pigeon-hole? <br />
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<i><b>JH</b></i>: All artists I think try different paths. They constantly change, and they have their ‘this’ period or their ‘that’ period. Now I’m not saying that the Buddhist thing is my ‘Buddhist period’. I think it goes back rather longer than that. I came across Buddhism perhaps after Steiner, but even before that, when I was a student at Cambridge. But I was never really wholeheartedly into it. So I’ve been Buddhist most of my life, but the Buddhist period would be quite recently if you looked at the titles of my music and the explicit musical themes – maybe ten or fifteen years. And I don’t mind being called a Buddhist composer. But like all artists I don’t like being called only a Buddhist composer. So of course it’s a subject I could expand on for a long time, about what being a Buddhist composer is, but that’s another story.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Jonathan, turning back to your music, back in 1996 you said in an interview, ‘Serialism has crashed. It was supposed to transform structure, but people could not get any further.’ We’re fourteen years on from that statement; have your views on serialism changed? And how do you view the other fashionable music ‘isms’ that have come along?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: No, my view of serialism hasn’t really changed; it is of course a matter of how well the composer deals with serialism. Serialism is a tool, and some composers can use it very well. Stockhausen I think extended serialism to include everything; just before he died he was working on serial fragrances, and sending those into the auditorium in serial form. And he designed his house, which I’ve been into, in serial form – a fascinating structure. So he extended serialism far beyond the twelve notes. And in a way, serialism has a very fundamental point, that you arrange something in a certain way, and that can then expand to anything. The first serialists which I was really talking about when I said serialism has crashed, were the ones who just used serialism for pitch, or mainly for pitch, and then there would be a conflict of interest between non-serial thought and a serial kind of hoping-to-tie-it-all-together spirit, which to my mind crashed completely. And a lot of composers continued to write that until recently, but they still do, and I feel it’s dangerous. <br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: In Arnold Whittall’s 1999 book about you in the ‘Composers of Today’ series, he spoke about the appeal of music that integrates the linear styles of past centuries with the global music of the 20th century, which resonates with the popularity of world music. Jonathan, looking today from the second decade of the 21st century, how do you think that integration between the linear styles and the global styles has progressed?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Aha. That’s actually a slight misunderstanding of what I said, but I’ll try and answer your question even so. I think I was talking about linear time and global time, by which I meant the kind of time that is a depiction of eternity. In other words, you look back at the end of the piece and you see that it has made a harmonious form, but you have not walked along a narrative line. Which is a different kind of time. And that was the revolution of the so-called Darmstadt School, the people like Stockhausen and Boulez and so on, who wrote after the Second World War. That has had an interesting interaction with linear time, which is more Hans Keller’s sort of time, where everything comes after what has gone before, in a line, a meaningful line, and a mixture of the two, as in a composer like Messiaen; who often seems to be completely static for a whole quarter of an hour, and it’s wonderful – you contrast that with his linear structures, which develop. But you were really asking more about global music, I think<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: Yes...<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: And world music, and that’s another question. The influence of what we can buy in every record store, or hear every day on the radio, is bound to be enormous, obviously. None of us would probably be claiming to be free from that. For me, it’s come via the cultures whose philosophy and spirituality I like, or [that] have deeply influenced me, like Hinduism, or Tibetan Buddhism, so those two musics have been very influential on me, and I have even been I think noticeably influenced; people talk about my tabla imitations on the cello, a work like <i>Advaya</i>, or <i>One Evening</i>, where I recorded electronically tablas and treated them in all sorts of ways; so those are examples of Indian rhythm structure. And my opera <i>Wagner Dream</i> takes an Indian subject, which took place in India at the time of the Buddha, and that uses the drone instruments, or electronic imitations of them, or even recordings of them, through much of the music. And it has similar <i>taal</i> rhythmic structures, taken from Indian music.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Staying with global cultural influences, in 1966 you set a poem by the Sufi saint and mystic, Mawlānā Rumi. 'How could the soul not take flight' is inspired by the ecstatic vision of Sufism, and that’s far removed from the contemplative Christian text you set fifteen years earlier, in your <i>Passion and Resurrection</i>. Can music cause spiritual elevation? And taking the discussion further, into the esoteric realm – and in fact I think you touched on this, when you were talking about Rudolf Steiner – can music transform matter?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Yes, let’s, first of all, look at spiritual elevation – I think I’ve always believed that, even in Passion and Resurrection, the resurrection music is for me a new sort of music that I wrote, which is not bass dominated, it’s sort of centred around the middle and it floats from the middle, either side of this middle structure. And that for me represents the change of the world, at the time of the Resurrection, and the elevation there, the release from gravity, of Christ rising. So I think that’s been there all along, with my Sufi settings and many things – a release into a world of ecstasy – this is what music does. And the question of whether music can transform matter is a very big question. We all know about the soprano shattering the wine glass. It’s all vibrations, I mean music and the world, everything is oscillation. <br />
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Energy is oscillation, largely. And when we say we are stirred by a piece of music, we’re excited, we are moved, and so on, we’re talking as if we are like a tuning fork which has been struck by some music, and it’s continued to vibrate for some time, and then it stops vibrating and you’re no longer moved by that experience – it may last a few minutes or a few hours or a few weeks. It depends on the intensity of the striking. So music is always putting us into vibration. I was talking to a neurologist who’s done very interesting, hyper-sophisticated brain scans, for people listening to music, and she has published results showing how the neurons affected vibrate in precisely the rhythm of the music being played. And if the tempo of the music being played to the subject changes, so does the neuron visibly change its firing tempo - this probably proves what we sense intuitively.<br />
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But your question, ‘can music transform matter?’ – when we look at that computer screen and see this in the form of the matter of the brain being transformed by the music, it’s rather moving, and rather important I think. And the whole culture of music, probably from the very beginnings, has been founded surely on vibrating together, in a community, to a drum beat. We all begin to dance, we all begin to sing, in unison. This unison of a community of people has been profoundly important for the human identity. The identity of tribes and nations and groups. So at many many levels one can find music transforming the brain, and I think the material world.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Jonathan, let’s stay with that all-important interface between art and science, and then move on to electronics. Electronics – or, to be more precise, electro-acoustics – play an important part in your music. We’ve heard how your love affair with electronics started with Stockhausen and Babbitt, but it was really consummated during your period in the 1980s in Paris, at IRCAM, with Pierre Boulez. You’ve described your time at IRCAM as a ‘gift from God’. Can you tell us about that gift?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Well, Boulez is sometimes called god in Paris, but anyway, he gave this thing to the world, because of his powerful personality, his absolute determination to come back to Paris from Germany, where he had decided to live until that point, and if he came back to Paris, President Pompidou would give him a large budget for creating a new institute. So it was a sort of gift to composers. I thought it was a gift from God because my first essays in electronic music were so difficult – I started in Princeton with Babbitt, and I won’t go into all the complications but in short one would compute on a huge tape for about eight hours overnight and end up with one pathetic simple minute of sound, which probably was completely wrong and one would have to start all over again. One went from that to the IRCAM of the eighties, and there one was given a tutor. That was very important. Someone who knew all the ins and outs of what was available, the software and the hardware, and was designated to help you. That tutor, or assistant as it’s now called, was crucial, of [sic] Boulez. So composers were invited, and they got stuck into new thinking, with the help of their tutor, and began to create much much more easily, with much greater pleasure and delight, than they would in this incredibly bloody hard work they had to do before.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: Jonathan, you gave us rather beautiful summaries of Benjamin Britten and Karlheinz Stockhausen as creative personalities, and now Pierre Boulez, another one of the great creative personalities has come into the discussion. Can you give us a thumbnail of Pierre Boulez as a creative personality? <br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Well, as you say a very strong creative personality, and a strong personality, and that’s what that postwar movement needed, strong personalities, people who would really change the world, they were all strong personalities. Luigi Nono, too, and Luciano Berio. Boulez particularly, perhaps the most of all – he was able to change the politics of the musical Europe I would say, singlehandedly. And he did this of course against enormous opposition, and nasty things written about him everywhere. But he was too strong for them, you know, they didn’t affect him, they all rolled off his back, and he gave as good as he got. So I think everybody knows what he has done, he created the IRCAM, he created the Ensemble Intercontemporain, he’s created new standards in conducting the 20th century classics and later up to the present day, and of course last and not least at all, he created some of the finest compositions of the time. But if we’re talking about strength of personality, one has to admire him really, that he was so determined, and so – it’s so impossible for him to accept ‘no’ from politicians. I mean he just rubbished them, the feeble-minded ministers of culture and so on in Paris. So – would that we had someone like that!</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Staying with the influence of Pierre Boulez, electronics have allowed you to explore the technique of spectralism. This breaks sound down into its constituent components. Many listeners will not be familiar with this technique, so can you explain how it works, and particularly what opportunities it offers you as a composer?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: One of the things that spectralism has done is to replace serialism, and intervallicism. By that I mean working with intervals as the primary listening object. How intervals follow each other and how they make patterns, whereas spectralism is more about harmony. And it’s based on the study of the harmonic series, the acoustically natural phenomenon which you find in most instruments, and of course its transformation. Because we’re living in an electronic age, and we can do whatever we like by computer, we can do whatever we like to music in the microcosm. We can get into the structure of music and change that. So the harmonic series can be, as it were, stalled by the computer for any particular instrument – my favourite trombone, or whatever – each one will have a slightly different harmonic series for each note it plays. So it’s very particular, and that series can then be manipulated, either printed out in numbers, which can be then orchestrated, or it can be replayed as partials, which are then transposed a little bit. So if you take the seventeenth partial, and you want to make it a bit lower, you can do that on the computer – that is spectralism. <br />
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What the beauty of that is, is less easy to describe. But I would say spectralism is basically a colour thinking. At its broadest it’s just colour thinking. Going the direction that someone like Debussy pointed, where you work primarily with mixing colours and making extraordinarily subtle blends of colour, which perhaps have never existed before, and that is the way you think and structure music. It doesn’t just take the argument of a good melody and then you colour it, it starts with the colour, and then it might make a melody of colour, but it starts at the other end.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: I said at the beginning of the program that your music has reached a remarkably wide audience. I think it’s also true to say that you've achieved this without artistic compromise. Jonathan, we live in an age where compromise is expected, or even demanded, of the arts. For instance we have classical chart radio, and classical talent shows on television. From your position as one of our senior composers, how do you see the future for what Pierre Boulez described as <i>musique savant</i>?<br />
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<i><b>JH</b></i>: <i>Musique savant</i> is quite an often used word in French, actually – it means I suppose ‘learned music’. And it’s something they talk about in a way we don’t. I think it offends our democratic instinct, or something. I don’t know. But it’s taken for granted that if you go to a conservatory or if you study music you are getting into learned music. So part at least of what you will study requires the same sort of learning you might apply to science or to any other subject, where you have to go into so-called intellectual complexities to some degree. Anyway, that is not necessarily the only thing that – that is an element of the future, that we have to worry about. <br />
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Music is I think broader than the description I’ve just given of <i>musique savant</i>. But it is of course a very refined music, a music which composers of our generation – and of every generation – have studied and worked ten hours a day for fifty years to develop, and it’s very sophisticated. We have created wonderful concert halls, which are very silent – you can hear the softest sound, and they sound good with the loudest sound of the full orchestra, an almost chaotic complexity – and we expect this. On the other hand the future, young people today, the mass of young people, don’t like concert halls, or not until they’ve been converted. They wouldn’t normally go to one, except for amplified music. They have no concept of what it is to hear music as soft as a pin dropping, and that kind of delicacy and refinement. <br />
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So there’s a big divide between amplified music and non-amplified music, and the two cultures. I think what the future must bring is things which are considered blasphemous, like amplifying classical music, in an atmosphere where people can come and go, where they can even talk perhaps, and it wouldn’t be sacrilege, and they can certainly leave in the middle of a movement if they feel like it; these are the sort of situations where young people’s music takes place, and it’s of course not expecting as much of music as those of us who are musicians would want. But it is a kind of compromise that I think will have to happen, and if it happens, I think young people will really realize what they’re missing. They’ll realize that they’ve been stupid to be so sort of afraid of the concert hall and its demands. So that’s one vision of the future; I think nobody should be deprived of classical music, least of all by rather silly conventions, which we all tend to think are sacred.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: Staying with what you (I think tongue in cheek) called ‘blasphemous technology’, in a little while we’re going to hear a work from a new CD of your music, and that work is <i>Speakings</i>. It was composed in 2008 and is scored for large orchestra and electronics, which ties together some of the threads from this discussion. On the CD sleeve Jonathan you’re credited for ‘diffusion and sound projection’. Can you explain exactly what that means?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: Well I’ve always been a performer manqué actually, although I enjoyed playing the cello when I was younger, quite a lot, in public. But to diffuse the sound is actually very important I think for a composer, because it means getting exactly right the relationship between the electronics and the players on the stage, which is no easy matter. Many an occasion has been spoiled by an imbalance – one or the other is too loud. If there’s a subtle ambiguity, perhaps you can tell which is the louder – or which is which, even more exciting – at many points in the piece, then that’s a good balance. <br />
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In a work like <i>Speakings</i> to diffuse and balance the sound needs quite an inside knowledge into the piece because it moves very fast, things are changing all the time, different instruments are treated, they have to blend with, you know, twenty-three other instruments at the same level; all these things have to be familiar to the diffusion person. That’s one reason actually why I’m very keen to get recordings. Because once I’ve got the balance really beautiful for recording, which you can do in the studio over and over again, then there’s a sort of model for people to follow in subsequent years for the performance. Otherwise it is difficult for anybody but the composer to really know. <br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: <i>Speakings</i>, which we’re going to hear in a minute, is on a new CD of Jonathan Harvey’s music, and it was recorded by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, as was his acclaimed 2008 disc, Body Mandala. Jonathan, you’ve written for many great orchestras including in fact the Berlin Philharmonic, but you seem to have a special relationship with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. How did that come about?<br />
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<i><b> JH</b></i>: I’m still not clear why they chose me, but they did; Ilan Volkov had something to do with it, the young Israeli, brilliant, conductor. And Hugh Macdonald, who was manager of the orchestra, and who has always been very interested in contemporary music and very knowledgeable about it. So these two men I think in particular chose me, and I was delighted. I had always wanted to have a close association with an orchestra and this was the first time it happened, and it couldn’t have been happier. This orchestra prides itself on its ability and virtuosity in contemporary music, they’re really proud of it, and they come up to me and say, you know, ‘how’s it going? Were you pleased?’ and ‘I enjoyed doing this, I enjoyed doing that.’ Really enthusiastic, a nice atmosphere. It’s not so with all orchestras, I of course should add, but that certainly was a great pleasure and I think a great success. I wrote quite a lot of music, including Speakings, for them, and in all I think they performed about twelve works over the three years.<br />
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<i><b> BS</b></i>: Am I right in saying that you played cello with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra when you were going your PhD in Scotland? I don’t know if you forgot that, or whether you didn’t mention it through modesty.<br />
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<b><i> JH</i></b>: No, I should have mentioned that – perhaps it was a factor in choosing me. But I don’t think it was, because I mentioned it and they didn’t seem to know. But yes, that’s right. I played in the very back desk of the cello section, and when I told the orchestra that at the first rehearsal I turned up at, they were quite amused.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i><b>BS</b></i>: My special guest today has been the composer, Jonathan Harvey, and we’re going to conclude the program with a complete performance of his Speakings for large orchestra and electronics, in the performance by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov. Jonathon, it’s been a great pleasure talking to you today, and could you please introduce for the listeners this performance of Speakings and tell them a little about the work.<br />
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<i><b>JH</b></i>: It’s based on the idea of making an orchestra speak – and that doesn’t mean during a rehearsal. I’ve been fascinated for a long time with speech and music – the relationship between them, and of course song, and the nature of song – but more fundamentally than that, how musical speech is, and without going into song. And a lot of research has been done in linguistics and in acoustics, on the analysis of the human voice, the scientific analysis of the components of the spectral sound, and how this changes with the speaker. So I brought some of this research together, from the studio of IRCAM in Paris, and started to compose a piece which imitated speaking sentences, which I made up myself – nobody has been told what they are, but the orchestra seems to be speaking something like that – and on top of that I went much deeper and analysed recordings of speech taken from here, there and everywhere, off the radio, or recordings of poetry reading, or fragments of drama, arguments, men, women, angry, calm, whatever, and also a baby – baby sounds, which we start with – but the main movement sort of evolves from learning to speak, for a baby, into these adult rapid sounds, which are put into the computer and then these acoustic structures, which are fragments of speech, treat the orchestra as it is received inside the computer from the microphones. So the orchestra’s inside, and the speech is inside, and there’s a kind of treatment which marries them together, and the orchestra seems to speak as the sound comes out of the computer into the loudspeakers around the hall. The orchestra flickers with vowel changes, with bits of consonant percussion, often very rapid because speech is often very fast, and that gives an impression of the mad chatter of human life in all its different moods and emotions. So we have two levels there: the orchestral music, which itself is quite speech-like, and the real speech, which is colouring it. <br />
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There are three basic sections: in the first one you’ll hear a baby screaming, the first sound we utter, and then babbling, and cooing, or I should say cooing first, rather gentle sounds, and finally babbling, which begins to become more like speech. That lasts three or four minutes. Then we get into the adult speech section, where speech is much more clear-cut and distant from music, in a sense; and I had the idea of purifying speech. It’s part of a trilogy of orchestral pieces in which the purification of body, speech and mind, the traditional Buddhist ceremony, is performed. So this is the central purification of speech, and the mantra ‘Om Ah Hum’ is traditionally the womb of all speech, out of which all speech originated, so this is chanted by the orchestra, via the computer – ‘Om Ah Hum’ – over and over again towards the end of the central movement, as it were purifying the nature of the random, scattered speech. And then the third movement itself is a different kind of music, which is almost song-like, like a plainchant. Again speech inflects it, but it’s much more transcendental, much calmer, almost song. So that is a kind of symbol for purified speech. <br />
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My aim then was this Buddhist ceremony, which I witnessed in Tibet, and the music is my attempt to do something which I believe has not been done before, to use very new programs from IRCAM to really try to see how an orchestra can learn to speak, how it can evolve from just playing instrumental sounds to the next step in consciousness - speech.<br />
<br />[<i><a href="https://outhere-music.com/en/albums/harvey-speakings" target="_blank">Recording of Speakings</a> performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov follows</i>]<br />
<br /><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/05/jonathan-harvey-on-record.html" target="_blank">First published</a> <i>On An Overgrown Path</i> 2014</span><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-192366812699685042023-08-02T08:50:00.000+01:002023-08-02T08:50:40.638+01:00Negativity is positive<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDyc7wwZmEV9IOKJEtnS46_CZYbWrSZqqHi1fdJhR94YtWyB5h9HO37w-_7FCTOPNNqDj7oHHdIy3rqJ0RyWA2ehvUlq4MjLLy-Ndy5ey4xsmX8j7NISun8X0MooGTnj5VRd4kMFdWZOwPx3UaM_2Kj5RrtKONEvsMlmLqDjbZ96QufBPhhb-grA/s1204/Tashi%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="1204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDyc7wwZmEV9IOKJEtnS46_CZYbWrSZqqHi1fdJhR94YtWyB5h9HO37w-_7FCTOPNNqDj7oHHdIy3rqJ0RyWA2ehvUlq4MjLLy-Ndy5ey4xsmX8j7NISun8X0MooGTnj5VRd4kMFdWZOwPx3UaM_2Kj5RrtKONEvsMlmLqDjbZ96QufBPhhb-grA/s600/Tashi%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div><span style="color: black;"><b><i>'The Internet I'd grown up with, the Internet that had raised me, was disappearing...The very act of going online, which had once seemed like a marvellous adventure, now seemed like a fraught ordeal. Self-expression now required such strong self-protection as to obviate its liberties and nullify its pleasures. Every communication was a matter not of creativity but of safety....
When I came to know it, the Internet was a very different thing. </i></b><div><b><i>It was a friend and a parent. It was a community without border or limit, one voice and millions, a common frontier that had been settled but not exploited by diverse tribes living amicably enough side by side, each member of which was free to choose their own name and history and customs.... Certainly, there was conflict, but it was outweighed by goodwill and good feelings - the true pioneering spirit.... You will understand, then, when I say that the Internet of today is unrecognizable</i></b> ' - Edward Snowden <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231/permanentrecord" target="_blank">Permanent Record</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>'I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken democracy. The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safe but won't make the necessary changes because they put their astronomical profits before people'</i></b> - former Facebook employee <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/24/frances-haugen-i-never-wanted-to-be-a-whistleblower-but-lives-were-in-danger" target="_blank">Frances Haugen</a> testifying in 2020 to Senate consumer protection sub-committee</div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>'1. Since most of what we are told about new technology comes from its proponents, be deeply sceptical of all claims. </i></b></div><div><b><i>2. Assume all technology 'guilty until proven innocent'. </i></b></div><div><b><i>3. Eschew the idea that technology is neutral or 'value free'. Every technology has inherent and identifiable social, political, and environmental consequences. </i></b></div><div><b><i>4. The fact that technology has a natural flash and appeal is meaningless. Negative attributes are slow to emerge. </i></b></div><div><b><i>5. Never judge a technology by the way it benefits you personally. Seek a holistic view of its impacts. The operative question in not whether it benefits you, but who benefits most? And to what end? </i></b></div><div><b><i>6. Keep in mind that an individual technology is only one piece of a larger web of technologies, 'megatechnology'. The operative question here is how the individual technology fits the larger one. </i></b></div><div><b><i>7. Make distinctions between technologies that primarily serve the individual or small community and those that operate on a scale outside of community control. The latter is the major problem of the day. </i></b></div><div><b><i>8. When it is argued that the benefits of the technological lifestyle are worthwhile despite harmful outcomes, recall that Lewis Mumford referred to these alleged benefits as 'bribery'. </i></b></div><div><b><i>9. Do not accept the homily that 'once the genie is out of the bottle you cannot put it back', or that rejecting a technology is impossible. Such attitudes induce passivity and confirm victimization. </i></b></div><div><b style="font-style: italic;">10. In thinking about technology within the present climate of technological worship, emphasize the negative. This brings balance. Negativity is positive' </b>- <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.org/people/jerry-mander/" target="_blank">Jerry Mander</a> writing in his 1981 book <i><a href="https://scott.london/reviews/mander.html" target="_blank">In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations</a></i>.<div><br /></div><div>Recent listening and reading:</div><div><a href="https://www.tashi-lhunpo.org.uk/shop/time-of-the-skeleton-lords-cd" target="_blank">Time of the Skeleton Lords</a> - Tashi Lhunpo Monks</div><div><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42634639-fried-in-a-hubcap" target="_blank">Fried in a Hubcap</a> - Sukoshi Rice </div><div><div><a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/3643805-Jonathan-Harvey-Wagner-Dream" target="_blank">Wagner Dream, Jonathan Harvey</a> - Ictus Ensemble, Martyn Brabbins</div></div></div><div><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781466814486/psalmatjourneysend" target="_blank">Psalm at Journey's End</a> - Erik Fossnes Hansen</div><div><a href="https://steveroach.bandcamp.com/album/alive-in-the-vortex" target="_blank">Alive in the Vortex</a> - Steve Roach</div><div><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Afterzen.html?id=8tRH6cQAgccC&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Afterzen, Experiences of a Zen Student Out on his Ear</a> - Janwillem van de Wetering</div><div><a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/5163322-The-Dave-Brubeck-Quartet-Original-Album-Classics" target="_blank">Dave Brubeck Quartet</a> - Original Album Classics </div><div><a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/gabrielle-drake/nick-drake-the-life/9781529308129/" target="_blank">Nick Drave, the Life</a> - Richard Morton Jack</div><div><a href="http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/oct02/egypt.htm" target="_blank">Music in the Age of the Pyramids</a> - Hathor Ensemble</div><div><a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/anna-sherman/the-bells-of-old-tokyo/9781529000498" target="_blank">The Bells of Old Tokyo</a> - Anna Sherman</div><div><a href="https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/f/frescobaldi-complete-keyboard-works/" target="_blank">Frescobaldi, Complete Keyboard Music</a> - Roberto Loreggian</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-59434484026299415552023-07-30T11:58:00.001+01:002023-07-30T11:58:48.788+01:00Music of the Muslim counterculture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJGoOQkCjqB1LTtKNLgPqu5hRg3r7Igqz8E-bpJZDZS720iDuXk5tKYX2l5rUPnkSH_HXOdYrxXZMmW-uw18cSUC8WQ-LYAE6hX7ecTE4iX_gPImcTXSjW7lwi7jXiOWDAKG5V_Q/s1600/mightybaby+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="624" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJGoOQkCjqB1LTtKNLgPqu5hRg3r7Igqz8E-bpJZDZS720iDuXk5tKYX2l5rUPnkSH_HXOdYrxXZMmW-uw18cSUC8WQ-LYAE6hX7ecTE4iX_gPImcTXSjW7lwi7jXiOWDAKG5V_Q/w640-h454/mightybaby+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: black;">For many children of the sixties a 'journey to the East' was a mandatory rite of passage. As a result one of the lasting impacts of the counterculture was the assimilation into Western culture of esoteric religions. The embrace of Vedanta and Zen Buddhism is well-documented, as is the music that it produced ranging from the Beatles' Indian period to John Cage's 4' 33". Less celebrated is the counterculture's engagement with the esoteric strand of Islam known as Sufism, an involvement that also produced important but overlooked music. Given the current preoccupation with Islam it is puzzling that more attention has not been paid to the green shoots of Sufism - a tradition with a benign history - that appeared in the West in the late 1960s. Earlier this year the film <a href="http://www.thestrangers.co.uk/" target="_blank">Blessed are the Strangers</a> directed by young director <a href="https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/speakers_and_authors/ahmed-peerbux/" target="_blank">Ahmed Peerbux</a> premiered. But this film is selective in its coverage of 1960s Sufism, so this post attempts to fill in some conspicuous and important gaps in the story.<br />
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In his Diwan - collected writings - <a href="http://ecstaticxchange.com/2015/07/05/sayyedina-shaykh-muhammad-ibn-al-habib-1876-1972/" target="_blank">Sidi Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib</a> counsels "Then let your thoughts range free before the mountains, and you will find them, without doubt, to be the pegs of the earth". Ibn Al-Habib was a Moroccan Skeikh of the <a href="https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Darqawa&item_type=topic" target="_blank">Darqawa Sufi order</a> who lived from 1876 to 1972. His exhortation to open-mindedness within a rigorous spiritual framework attracted a select group from the 1960s counterculture who travelled to the the Sheikh's tariqa in Meknes. Esoteric religions in their counterculture guise spawned controversial leaders such as Transcendental Meditation guru <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/how-a-new-book-exposes-the-dark-side-of-transcendental-meditation-20160607" target="_blank">Maharishi Mahesh Yogi</a> and the reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist master <a href="https://boulderbuddhistscam.wordpress.com/chogyam-trungpa/" target="_blank">Chögyam Trungpa</a>. Sufism was no exception to this, with Scottish born Ian Dallas playing a leading and controversial role in the transplanting of Sufism into the West. <br />
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<a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2012/11/she-made-her-life-bridge-for-others-to.html" target="_blank">Hazrat Inayat Khan</a> (1882-1927) had introduced the West to Sufism many years previously. But his strand of Sufism drew on the perennialist belief in the unity of the great faiths and played down the tradition's Islamic roots, while the idiosyncratic version of Sufism advocated by <a href="http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/40articles/neosufism.htm" target="_blank">Idries Shah</a> (1924-96) has even less to do with Islam. By contrast, the Darqawi <i>zawiya</i> [Sufi lodge] which Abdalqadir as-Sufi established first in London and then Norfolk strictly observed the prescriptions and proscriptions of Islam and had political as well as spiritual ambitions. In his book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/western-sufism-9780199977642?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank">Western Sufism</a> the authority on Sufism <a href="http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/mark-sedgwick(e65a03c7-010f-40e3-9fc3-d03f30e6954f).html" target="_blank">Mark Sedgwick</a> explains that the Darqawi "Developed both a political program that in theory promoted jihad,and an organisation to prepare for jihad, called the Murabitun. In practice, however, the Murabitun ended up promoting not violence, but classical Islamic scholarship". <br />
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Ian Dallas' spiritual guide was Sidi Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib, and in 1967 Dallas converted to Islam and took the name Abdalqadir as-Sufi. Five years later he established a Darqawi community in London modelled on a traditional Moroccan <i>zawiya</i> in the Bristol Gardens area of Little Venice. Before his conversion Dallas worked for the BBC, and he acted in Fellini's 8½ and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396714/" target="_blank">a 1963 BBC TV play</a> that featured a then unknown Bob Dylan - a <a href="http://robertluongo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/radical-muslim-leader-has-bohemian-past.html" target="_blank">possibly apocryphal story</a> credits Dallas with giving Dylan his first volume of Rimbaud's poetry. The <i>zawiya</i> attracted members from London's thriving creative community including <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/04/i-am-not-from-east-or-west.html" target="_blank">Fairport Convention co-founder Richard Thompson</a>, the <a href="https://ianwhiteman.blog/2016/04/19/daniel-moore-poet/" target="_blank">American Beat poet Daniel Moore</a>, rock photographer <a href="https://petersanders.com/" target="_blank">Peter Sanders</a> - famed for his work <a href="https://petersanders.com/portfolio/icons/" target="_blank">with Hendrix, Dylan and the Rolling Stones</a> - and three members of the psychedelic rock band Mighty Baby, including their multi-instrumentalist Ian Whiteman. Eric Clapton was not a member of the <i>zawiya</i>, but he moved on the fringes and a translation of <a href="http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/49-99-0/mi-jcok.htm" target="_blank">Nizami's romantic tale Layla and Majnun</a> given to him by Ian Dallas inspired Clapton's hit Layla. In the photo below taken outside the Bristol Gardens <i>zawiya</i> Richard Thompson is in the back row fifth from right and Ian Whiteman is also in the back row wearing a black turban.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Mighty Baby - seen below - was a reincarnation of the Mod band <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/reg-king-soulful-lead-singer-with-the-underrated-but-influential-mod-band-the-action-2129487.html" target="_blank">The Action</a>. Ian Whiteman, Mike Evans (guitar), Roger Powell (drums) and Martin Stone (guitar) from Mighty Baby all joined the London Darqawi <i>zawiya</i>. <a href="https://ianwhiteman.blog/2016/12/25/the-passing-of-martin/" target="_blank">Martin Stone</a> soon left, but the other three musicians stayed and Sufism soon changing their lives and music. Mighty Baby only had a short creative life, but the reputation of the band's second and Sufism-saturated album <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Mighty-Baby-A-Jug-Of-Love/release/3155089" target="_blank">Jug of Love</a> cut in 1971 has, like a fine wine, matured over the years. In 2006 <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/frickes-picks-what-if-pink-floyd-gave-birth-to-ummagumma-in-the-bands-basement-20061129" target="_blank">a Rolling Stone reviewer</a> described it as "a trance like blend of the Meddle-era Floyd, the Byrds circa Ballad of Easy Rider and how, I suspect, the Grateful Dead sounded in early rehearsals for American Beauty". Mighty Baby broke up in 1971 and with Ian Whiteman at the helm the three Sufi adepts in the band joined with two itinerant West Coast musicians a year later to form The Habibiyya - followers of Sidi Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib - and cut the one-off album <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Habibiyya-If-Man-But-Knew/release/1671623" target="_blank">If Man But Knew</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Despite achieving little initial success If Man But Knew has achieved legendary status with copies of the now-deleted <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Habibiyya-If-Man-But-Knew/release/1416645" target="_blank">2007 Sunbeam Records CD transfer</a> changing hands for inflated sums. Ian Whiteman was a trained architect and as Abdallateef Whiteman his personal journey took him onwards to <a href="http://almadinainstitute.org/blog/from-rockstar-to-islamic-designer-ian-whiteman/" target="_blank">a successful career in the Muslim world as a graphic designer</a>, relocation to Andalusia, and participation in recent recordings of Islamic sacred music, including the Rawdat al-Shuhuda’ <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/05/this-new-album-demands-innocent-ears.html" target="_blank">which featured here recently</a>. It is quite a journey and one that I wanted to share with readers. So I was delighted when Ian agreed to the following interview for <i>On An Overgrown Path</i>. Below is a previously unpublished period photo by fellow Darqawi <i>zawiya</i> member Peter Sanders.</span><br />
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</b> <span style="color: black;"><b>Bob Shingleton: Ian, many thanks for agreeing to share your fascinating musical and spiritual experiences with us. Let's start with The Action - can you tell us how a fashionable Mod group morphed into the band that cut Jug of Love, an album that has achieved iconic status as a rare counterculture celebration of Sufism?</b> <br />
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<b>Ian Whiteman</b>: No one had a plan. We just played what we wanted to play. Initially I fitted into The Action well, as we had a shared love of Motown and the keyboard meant we could play much more than a voice, one guitar, bass and drums allowed. They were a very close group of friends who had grown up together in Kentish Town but I never felt an outsider. Everyone at that point wanted some kind of transcendent music and we borrowed from wherever to achieve that. The music we began to play wasn't the sophisticated jazz that I had loved so much, but we borrowed simple soulful jazz themes that we could manage like Coltrane's Equinox for example and his exquisite India. And after the late Martin Stone joined we began a kind of meshed style of improvisation. I say meshed as it wasn't the rigid theme and improvisation of typical jazz group performances but a kind of blend of individual musical voices mixed with west coast influences like the Association and the Byrds. We would take well known songs like Bluebird from the Buffalo Springfield (a big influence on us) and turn them into driving electric numbers which really confused the existing Action mod audience but which I loved performing. There was extensive soloing, but not jamming. It was a kind of interplay in which no one really dominated like a conversation. Except of course Martin's raga style blues lines which were loud and also the phenomenal drumming of Roger Powell who in many ways was the engine of the band. And the humorist.<br />
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We were unconsciously looking for a sound, a feeling, an elevated ecstatic musical feeling and getting there I think. When Reg King, the front man singer, left, we morphed almost immediately into a West Coast type of band with two voices singing songs but along with instrumental numbers like Coltrane's India. It usually began with a quiet drum pattern and flute and then just evolved in real time. It was an adventure. We never knew quite where this would take us but became quite a feature of our gigs. It had a shape but mostly it was just intuition and empathy. When you play with other musicians for a long period, (and none of us virtuosi), the band starts to lose its egotism. The reviews of the first quite wild <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Mighty-Baby-Mighty-Baby/release/2819462" target="_blank">Mighty Baby album in 1969</a> often used the phrase 'no egos'. In a crude kind of way that was true. The inner politics of the band just didn't allow for the kind of theatrical egotism of many performing music acts. No none took individual credit for the writing of a particular song. It didn't matter who introduced the original idea it was always communally credited. In fact it was hard to get anyone to get out front and sing or to even be spokesman. This could have been from either being too stoned or from some kind of snooty arrogance. I'm not sure. Both probably.<br />
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My attitude to music changed dramatically over the many miles travelled, and the many gigs played. It had its ups and downs, but after a gig in Middle Earth in Covent Garden circa 1967 that we shared with the famous Byrds in one of their best incarnations, and the original Fairport Convention line up, we all witnessed the simple beauty of countrydelic American music. And that we weren't The Action any more. Small Fender amps, more country style songs (e.g. I'm from the Country from that first album - after all I was from the country) and bendy notes. This evolved into the kind of songs on Jug of Love which were imbued with bits of mysticism like Virgin Spring, the Happiest Man in the Carnival, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Mighty-Baby-Slipstreams/release/7498735" target="_blank">Slipstreams</a> which illustrated the path we had taken from Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, the I-Ching, right through to Rumi’s poetry and Islam itself. Martin Stone had pioneered the group's entry into the Moroccan Sufi brotherhood as he had secretly entered Islam in that period just before Jug of Love was recorded. The impact was seismic. Jug of Love was not just about spiritual awakening in general. It was about <i>our</i> spiritual awakening.<br />
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It would be true to say that Jug of Love was really pure folk music as it was in essence the story of our lives told in the only way we could. Each song had its story and meanings most of which were well beyond the comprehension of <a href="https://www.djtees.com/history-of-blue-horizon-label/" target="_blank">Blue Horizon</a>, who were paying for the record. The record however did not reflect our live music at the time. It was a studio album and so was more reflective. The track Tasting the Life was about our travels around Britain and told the story of our trip to the Lindisfarne monastery where <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_rANpZWXLQ" target="_blank">Polanski's film Cul-de-sac</a> was filmed and the track Jugging was a throw away song about a roadie we had, but that track also well illustrated 'meshed' improvisation which in places I thought sounded like a cosmic <a href="http://terryriley.net/" target="_blank">Terry Riley</a> piece. For me the album has a sadness to it as it was the swan song of a whole intense and formative period of our lives. But it just could not have lasted.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><b>BS: Without Islam and Sufism there would be no Jug of Love and no If Man But Knew. Tell us what attracted you to Islam and how you became involved with Ian Dallas and the Bristol Gardens Sufi zawiya.</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: This is a complex and detailed story to relate. Briefly, in late 1970, <a href="https://ianwhiteman.blog/2016/12/25/the-passing-of-martin/" target="_blank">the late Martin Stone</a> our cosmic wizard guitarist and our drummer Roger met with Ian Dallas for an interview for the International Times, a not very well known London anarchist rag. This led to a further meeting with Dallas and Martin and a secret trip to Morocco and Stone's entry into Islam at the hand of the venerable scholar and spiritual guide Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib in Meknes, Morocco who was over 100 at the time. To cut a long story short, both our drummer, our bassist and myself 'joined up' after much heart searching. Bam [Alan King] our other guitarist, refrained from joining but went on to form <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/ace-mn0000588112/biography" target="_blank">the rock group Ace</a> that immediately shot to the number one singles spot in the UK and the USA for six weeks. Mighty Baby continued through the summer of 1971 playing Glastonbury and The Isle of White festival along with Hendrix and others but after the first Ramadan in Morocco in 1971 and two weeks touring in Holland the band hit the buffers and broke up—but with no animosity. It just didn't play any more. We just couldn't keep it going.<br />
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On my return to London I walked in the door of my £5 a week garden flat off Westbourne Grove (seen in the header photo) the phone was ringing with <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Chris-Blackwell-is-the-most-interesting-man-in-the-world_85200" target="_blank">Chris Blackwell</a> of Island Records inviting myself and Roger, our drummer, to go visit him. On offer was a recording contract, a modest advance to record whatever we wanted. But we had no idea what we wanted. Both of us had done much session work, particularly for Island artists John Martyn, Sandy Denny and the Fairports. John Martyn had wanted myself and Roger to join his band. So they must have dropped a few hints to Chris B. The result was the Habibiyya album, a mostly improvised album, not unrelated to how we used to play in Mighty Baby. But incorporating singing we had heard after one trip to Morocco. The recording was often utterly spontaneous but was preceded by as much as an hour of repeated Qur’anic invocations in Arabic...(we hoped it helped diminish our egos!). I read somewhere that we fasted three days beforehand. I don't remember that.<br />
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As expected the results were pretty mixed, but sifting through it there were good bits which were used on the record. It was complicated by the fact that Ian Dallas interposed himself in the project and I think was dictating things. We were invited to do a tour of Europe but Dallas's shenanigans meant that key musicians were suddenly 'not available'. I think it would fair to say he broke it up. There are tracks on the album which I still like — mostly the instrumental tracks —which sounded almost scored, but which were absolutely not. The Arabic singing remains an embarrassment and I cringe when I hear it. It has little to do with authentic Andalusi singing. It might serve as a bridge, however, for those for whom the real thing is too arcane!</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><b>BS: In my introduction I described Abdalqadir as-Sufi as a controversial figure. Did you find him controversial? </b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: I think he was always controversial before and after Islam. That was part of his attraction circa 1970/71. He was 10-15 years older than most of the group (the greater Habibiyya that is) and had an educated charm and could certainly talk the talk and convinced us that we would change the world and that we were the selected few to do it! He was a great actor and in many ways the magician character in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/apr/22/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm.derekmalcolm" target="_blank">Fellini's film 8½</a> in which he plays Maurice the Mindreader. Fellini usually accurately typecast his actors. The drama of the film seemed to often replay in Dallas's subsequent life. The film was about the launch of a spacecraft that never actually happens and it ended with Maurice, Pied Piper-like, leading the cast on a dance around the film set.<br />
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This presaged much of his projects in later life which were ambitious and radical but too often collapsed leaving people stranded and traumatised. Despite this his communities still survive <a href="http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/" target="_blank">in Norwich, Granada and Cape Town</a>. But like him, they are strangely disconnected from mainstream Islam. The same could be said of his books which never appear in the bibliographies of the many books published in the Muslim world. He had real appeal at the outset but his latent anti-family Marxist outlook mixed with the destructive psychology of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/01/mentalhealth.society" target="_blank">RD Laing</a> began to tarnish his reputation. It's what happens when teachers set themselves up as guides without the authority, the knowledge and the necessary training. It's not just controversial, it's lethal. This is how I see it and it only comes from what I was witness to. Others may disagree.<br />
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But in the period while the old shaykh was still alive, Ian Dallas was at his best and did his job well as the area organizer of the Habibiyya order. This is when he was able to explain to us what we needed to hear, coming out of the self taught mysticism of the late 60s and its confusion. He certainly had a knowledge of Islam, but from the beginning I had suspicions of his confrontational style and his wish to anathematise just about everyone from the Jews, the Church, the Freemasons to rival Sufi groups like those of the Nasqashabandis and the Mariyamiyya of Martin Lings who weren't with him.<br />
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The community started to take on <a href="http://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/mt.php/2004/08/22/othman_the_italian_resurfaces" target="_blank">cult-like qualities</a>. I believe now that when he embarked on his Murabitun World Movement project in 1978 he began to disavow Sufism and present himself as a political activist/agitator. I'm not sure what was behind this. It could have been disappointment with his spiritual journey or his love of, and extreme lack of, money. On the plus side I have to add, to be fair, that he brought to our attention and initiated many important translation projects and attracted many to Islam by his various initiatives. There were many good ideas but they always lacked consistency and continuity. Rushing on to the next big thing was his hallmark. He was a catalyst but not an exemplar. The 1970s was a difficult time in England economically and socially in general and the problems that beset that first community were not just of its own creation.</span><br />
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</b> <span style="color: black;"><b>BS: Ahmed Peerbux's documentary film <a href="http://www.thestrangers.co.uk/" target="_blank">Blessed are the Strangers</a> has received considerable acclaim. The followers of Abdalqadir as-Sufi were closely involved in its production, and the <i>dhikr</i> - remembrance of God - scene in it was shot at the <a href="http://muslimsofnorwich.org.uk/" target="_blank">Ihsan mosque in Norwich</a> which is closely associated with the Murabitun movement. I believe you had some peripheral involvement in the film, but your view of Ian Dallas seems to be at the best ambivalent. So give us your take on Blessed are the Strangers. </b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: I saw the first version of this film in which I was interviewed and was eager to help with at the time. Unfortunately I lost the link to this more developed version. But I did see the trailer which I'm afraid put me off wanting to watch it. I can only comment on the earlier version which I had hopes for: Ahmed Peerbux seemed to be an intelligent director who was asking the right questions. It is an interesting subject and a story that needs telling...but truthfully. Unfortunately and disappointingly this first film turned into a one-sided puff for the Murabitun (although not named) and Norwich and ignored the real story which is filled with successes and failures, rapid community growth followed by social collapse and distressing family break-ups. Life is light and shade, and the first film (and the second by all accounts) was a kind of whitewash which ignored the big picture and the difficult details. It was an attempt to create a sterilized version of the history that I remembered and had witnessed close up. I do hope the second version was better. At the root of it was a failure to confront the real story of Ian Dallas/Abdal Qadir as it was his genius that created the community but also by his doing that it split so viciously in the early 1980s and left so many people traumatized and in some cases leaving Islam altogether. Only by examining closely who he was, his writings, his scholarship (or lack of), his style of leadership, lifestyle and so on do you start to understand what really happened. No one dares go there or speak about it. Like an <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=omerta" target="_blank"><i>omertà</i></a>. As I said earlier he was a catalyst and not an exemplar. There was good and there was bad. My inclination now is to leave it all be, as I don't think much will ever change. <br />
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<b>BS: Ian, If Man But Knew is clearly rooted in Sufism, the album used an eclectic selection of instruments including the koto, shakuhachi and mandola. It has been credited together with Brian Jones' almost contemporaneous but very different <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/04/revisiting-master-musicians.html" target="_blank">Pan Pipes at Joujouka</a> as launching the World Music genre. How did If Man But Knew come about?</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: Myself and Roger Powell were contracted to produce an album without a clue of what we were to do. So we dabbled out of necessity and without knowing very much about where we were going. The two Californians [<i><a href="http://www.rockboar.com/bands/626/Folk-rock/Habibiyya" target="_blank">Susan and Conrad Archuletta</a></i>] who had been playing on one of the Jug of Love tracks started to play with us and they were the ones who added the exotic instruments like the koto and homemade shakuhachis. We needed them. I think Ian Dallas put a lot of pressure on us one way and another. The dynamics and politics of this embryonic community affected us in different ways. There were some resentments and probably some envy as we had money, but we just had to ignore it. At least no one was saying we shouldn't do it.<br />
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If Man But Knew has been described as the first World Music album but we had no preconceptions at all. It had a kind of chaotic inevitability about in that it just came out of our situation. I wanted more instrumental fusion using pianos etc but Dallas's pressure was unrelenting. I think we got what we wanted in the end but Ian Dallas was always edging in on things trying to influence. On the other hand without his influence it might not have had the same resonance.<br />
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<b>BS: Abdalqadir as-Sufi wrote the original liner essay for If Man But Knew, and his essay has been <a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the_habibiyya/if_man_but_knew/" target="_blank">described on a forum</a> as "hysterical mumble jumble pomposity". The <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Habibiyya-If-Man-But-Knew/release/1416645" target="_blank">2007 Sunbeam Records reissue</a> of the album dumped his liner notes and restored five tracks that were cut from the original LP release apparently at Abdalqadir as-Sufi's request. Why were the tracks omitted from the original release?</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: As I already explained nothing was planned and we just produced several hours of music which then needed drastic editing. What finally appeared on the album we must have had some consensus about. There obviously wasn't room for it all. But in true Mighty Baby fashion nobody was really pushing too hard. As far as the the liner notes went it would have been hard to re-use anything written by Ian Dallas as no one remaining in the group had time for him any more. Yes the notes were a bit pompous. That was his style.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><b>BS: In my introduction I mentioned that decades after its release If Man But Knew achieved a kind of iconic status. What is your reaction to that retrospective accolade?</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: Somewhat puzzled as I'm too critical of it myself. I know it was used for sampling by DJs in the US but I've never heard examples of such things. I think deep down one had secret hopes it would sell, but knowing at the same that it would never sell in a month of Sundays. It's an oddity as it's not classical Andalusi music. I have been approached at times to reform the group for festival appearances. But it was impossible to recreate that moment in time. One of the group has since died, the two Californians had divorced. It would need the right combination of musicians living in proximity with the motivation. It just isn't going to happen. The world has changed.<br />
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<b>BS: Ian, let's move on from If Man But Knew. I mentioned that you have contributed to several recent recordings of Islamic sacred music. Tell us how they came about.</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: You must be referring to the <a href="https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/timothy-winter" target="_blank">Tim Winter</a> [<i>Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad</i>] recordings. Rawdhat ash-Shuhada’ was really his project and it took some courage on his part to produce it. I was really just a hired voice. I'd never done anything quite like it though I’m familiar with the musical ideas he has been developing for the last few decades. I had to sing a cappela some verses in English to a Celtic tune which I was to learn off YouTube! The five singers had one day of rehearsal and the next day to record it. It was certainly unusual. I managed my piece in one or two takes. The most effective thing on the album is <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/11/classical-musicians-brave-journey-from.html" target="_blank">Ali Keeler</a>’s Qur'an recitation in a Celtic musical mode. Quite beautiful I thought. The way to go. I think this kind of recording is for a very specialized audience. The other project was Tim's <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sufi-Songs-Andalusia-Alatar/dp/B06XTW62PZ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1501184285&sr=8-1&keywords=sufi+songs+andalusia" target="_blank">Andalusian Sufi Songs album</a> in which I sung but in which I was suffering from bronchitis at the time and could barely sing. I think the material sung in Spanish is very innovative. I still need to hear the final mix.<br />
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Apart from the singing of qasidas - Andalusian Arabic spiritual poetry - as a private practice, my own creative musical directions are in a more universal music which can resonate outside the Muslim world maybe taking some its ideas along with it. Yusuf Islam, who I have worked with in the past has taken this line as well. I understand why. The burgeoning Muslim music market place has also created for itself a kind of dumbed-down commercial style which is in my opinion isolated itself in a cultural bubble.</span><br />
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</b> <span style="color: black;"><b>BS: You say that you worked with Yusuf Islam, who of course had a stellar career as Cat Stevens. Tell us about working with him.</b> <br />
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<b>IW</b>: I didn't know him as Cat Stevens in the 1960s though I used to work often in studios with bassist Pat Donaldson and drummer Gerry Conway who played regularly with him. I did meet him in the 1980s when he appeared as Yusuf Islam in London and slowly moved into the Muslim community. He entered Islam with some pretty strict Muslims who put him off playing any music for around twenty years. I did some graphic work for him when he started Muslim Aid in the 1980s but not until he created Mountain of Light did we start anything serious. We developed things like logos, ads and a string of books. I had learnt a lot working for the <a href="http://www.its.org.uk/" target="_blank">Islamic Texts Society</a> in Cambridge about book design and this I put into practice with Mountain of Light as best I could. We got into CD packaging and finally into recording when he conceived the Bosnian album in 1997 which became <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/i-have-no-cannons-that-roar-mw0001127558" target="_blank">I Have No Cannons that Roar</a>. [<i>Ian's contribution to this album as Abd al-Lateef Whiteman can be heard via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R99qpR92jlk" target="_blank">this link</a>, and the artwork for Yusuf Islam's Prayers of the Last prophet album seen above is by Ian</i>.] That was a kind of watershed for me and Yusuf, as he was gingerly testing the waters of music once again. For me it was creating difficult music in the public eye once again after doing little for 20 years. <br />
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I didn't suffer too much from the effects of Yusuf's fame as I was out of the music world when records like Tea for the Tillerman became so well known. So I knew him more just as Yusuf, the bloke, and I knew very little about his songs apart from the really old hits like Matthew and Son and I Love my Dog which were from a long forgotten world. Some people found him difficult to work with, but like me he was a perfectionist and liked to control the details. Most of all he is an artist and very gifted at writing lyrics and turning them into songs. He always had ideas and the financial clout to realise them, good or bad. I often saw him relaxed and talking about old music stars he knew. <br />
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To me he was someone who needed help and honest counsel, not bowing and scraping to. For him it was a slow and painful process of breaking this idol of who he feared he had become and returning to natural life..... all along I think he was dying to pick up his guitar again but was too nervous of those who wanted him to be something they wanted him to be. The curse of fame and position alas. I met with him last about 10 years ago at his wedding anniversary at which he told me a lot about the 12 string guitar his wife had ordered specially made for him by the Martin company of Pennsylvania. At the time I wondered what it all meant. I learnt a lot working with him and got to really appreciate him and his enormous talent. I do hope our paths cross again.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><b>BS: Islam continues to dominate the news, and too often for the wrong reasons. Your personal faith seems to embrace a fairly open-minded interpretation of the faith. How do you view fundamentalist interpretations?</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: I'm no scholar and it's a big subject. From what I know, the <a href="http://www.islamicity.org/9647/khawarij-a-history-of-violence/" target="_blank">Khawarij</a>, literally ‘the ones who left’, or fundamentalists if you like, have been there from the beginning and the Prophet himself strongly warned of them. It's a phenomena that has beset all faiths when its adherents follow the word but not the spirit of the teaching and always with dire and fatal results. For six centuries the Ottomans kept theses Kharijites mostly in check, locked up in the Eastern deserts, the Najd, but the British used them to help create the Arab uprising and the Saudi monarchy in order to destroy the Ottoman Empire—for its own economic ends but bringing on themselves a curse that would last for generations.<br />
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The present Wahabi movement dates from around 200 years ago which was a revival of the original Kharijite impulse. They emerged from the desert at that time and wrought havoc across the Arabian peninsular killing all who disagreed with them and destroying sacred sites wherever they went. The present regime are their heirs, no matter how much they deny it, and they are supported by the perfidious British who support them uncritically with their arms sales and oil purchases. Wiping out Isis militarily is a part solution but the ideology and their perversion of a true religion remains. That’s how I understand it.<br />
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<b>BS: Ian, let's end by returning to the music. You've been involved in the music industry for half a century. What is your take on today's music industry?</b><br />
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<b>IW</b>: My connection with the music business right now is zero apart from small royalties that come in now and then. I'm at a loss to know where one fits into all the genres and the marketing madness that surrounds it all. I do wonder if it’s worth putting out music anymore even though I am still compulsively writing and recording music and have been for the last 30-40 years. Right now as of a July 2017 I'm considering just releasing music that I've made in my garden shed, warts and all, with the sound of birds singing and water flowing in the background. But after so long I just don’t know if the music is any good.<br />
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Even though I can record a whole album myself I know that the alchemy of a group of musicians is always going to be better. But my computer allows me to make music rather like an author writes a book. Why not? An author isn't expected to read his writing in public although some do. I know my way round synthetic music but I mostly prefer to use actual instruments as they just sound better. If I could squeeze a grand piano into my shed I would, as long as it was a Bosendorfer. I spent years sourcing the best sampled piano sounds I could find and I’m happy I don't have to deal with tuning a real piano all the time. Ironically I think when I record drum or bass tracks I'm subconsciously playing how my fellow Mighty Baby companions use to play as I knew their art so well. Singing is still at the centre of the whole music experience but I've never thought of myself as a solo singer, but I’m learning.<br />
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<b>BS: In his infamously opaque essay for the first LP release of If Man But Knew, Ian Dallas described how Sufism is a journey along a spiritual path and went on to describe the album as "music for travelling". Ian, you have combined travelling along the Sufi path with a similarly inspiring musical journey. Many thanks for sharing your rich experiences with us.</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Additional sources include:<br />
* <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/western-sufism-9780199977642?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank">Western Sufism</a> by Mark Sedgwick<br />
* <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/sufism-in-britain-9781441112613/" target="_blank">Sufism in Britain</a> edited by Ron Greaves and Theodore Gabriel<br />
* <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Sufism-and-Politics-in-Morocco-Activism-and-Dissent/Bouasria/p/book/9781138776111" target="_blank">Sufism and Politics in Morocco</a> by Abdelilah Bouasria<br />
* <a href="https://ianwhiteman.blog/2015/03/16/the-diwan-a-new-translation/" target="_blank">The Diwan of Sidi Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib</a> in the Editorial Qasida edition<br />
* <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Richard_Thompson_Strange_Affair.html?id=rkWEkgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Richard Thompson, Strange Affair</a> by Patrick Humphries<br />
* <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Memoirs_of_a_Dervish.html?id=5HnrT6hecfkC" target="_blank">Autobiography of a Dervish</a> by Robert Irwin<br />
* Liner note by David Biasotti for the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Habibiyya-If-Man-But-Knew/release/1416645" target="_blank">2007 Sunbeam Records CD transfer</a> of If Man But Knew.<br />
* Since this article was first uploaded Ian Whiteman's memoir <a href="https://ianwhiteman.blog/2021/07/16/average-whiteman/" target="_blank">Average Whiteman</a> has been published<br />
Photo credits: Photos 1, 2 & 4 <a href="https://petersanders.com/" target="_blank">Peter Sanders</a>; photo 3 <a href="http://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-m/mighty-baby/" target="_blank">Nostalgia Central</a>. <br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">First published <i>On An Overgrown Path </i>2017. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-85014536247187485042023-07-26T07:50:00.000+01:002023-07-26T07:50:01.510+01:00I know nothing about music but I know what I like...<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGf4mi69VN-iPR9yoOgVxQz3_jVdrz8Cl7z-XaALeXOJeMi-_vv7t3E-HQPjgwSb4ty17yRyM90OUAE20OgRuZq8oLq24vS7b1nyCY-f7jP2BQjXRxpq5p3-G3D6-8Uxa2M_XQEUye3d4WWMRk9bExu5PkgyB_bcoBRCyKNtygkb-DNbmX2-893g/s1504/Rubbra%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGf4mi69VN-iPR9yoOgVxQz3_jVdrz8Cl7z-XaALeXOJeMi-_vv7t3E-HQPjgwSb4ty17yRyM90OUAE20OgRuZq8oLq24vS7b1nyCY-f7jP2BQjXRxpq5p3-G3D6-8Uxa2M_XQEUye3d4WWMRk9bExu5PkgyB_bcoBRCyKNtygkb-DNbmX2-893g/s600/Rubbra%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><b><i>'People say, sometimes, timidly: I know nothing about music but I know what I like. But the important questions are answered by not liking only but disliking and accepting equally what one likes and dislikes. Otherwise there is no access to the dark night of the soul...
</i></b><div><a href="https://ia800303.us.archive.org/1/items/silencelecturesw1961cage/silencelecturesw1961cage_djvu.txt" target="_blank">Silence; Lectures and Writings by John Cage</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Recent listening and reading:</div><div><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rubbra-Symphonies-Symphony-Orchestra-Adrian/dp/B07895ZVC1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WKTUTR4E4AIT&keywords=rubbra+somm&qid=1690189715&s=music&sprefix=rubbra+somm%2Cpopular%2C86&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Edmund Rubbra: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4</a> - BBCSO, Sir Adrian Boult & Edmund Rubbra</div><div><a href="https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/view/1934/circling-the-sacred-mountain" target="_blank">Circling the Sacred Mountain</a>, Robert Thurman & Tad Wise</div><div><a href="https://www.bgo-records.com/product/in-performance/" target="_blank">Oregon in Performance</a> - Oregon</div><div><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/357362/tales-of-protection-by-erik-fosnes-hansen/9781784706166" target="_blank">Tales of Protection</a> - Erik Fosnes Hansen</div><div><a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2023/01/why-i-will-never-stop-buying-cds.html" target="_blank">That Which Colors the Mind</a> - Ali Akbar Khan, Zakir Hussain, Indranil Bhattacharya</div><div><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062581/noplacetohide" target="_blank">No Place to Hide, Edward Snowden, the NSA & the Surveillance State</a> - Glenn Greenwald</div><div><a href="https://www.alia-vox.com/en/catalogue/oriente-lux/" target="_blank">Oriente Lux - Orpheus 21</a>, Hesperion XXI, Jordi Savall</div><div><a href="https://www.emptybowl.org/store/zen-roots-the-first-thousand-years-tr-red-pine" target="_blank">Zen Roots</a> - Red Pine</div><div><a href="https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/arnold-piano-works-0" target="_blank">Malcolm Arnold, Complete Music for Solo Piano</a> - Benjamin Frith </div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-53523956769994450232023-07-23T09:07:00.000+01:002023-07-23T09:07:30.559+01:00No one thought there was a market for the Beatles <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyUv9k5785Upb_mA-qiSInGQXPlF5c6TSQKxSDOhCA-HWbW-EYa75Qa1rWcalw95wUh1lZYe-hqiVZEZ2XHLCgMdl7zmcPM0hu0eoNN2G4Jb6atBZNLAobkggp90wcceDJjojQUg/s1600/David+Munrow+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="757" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyUv9k5785Upb_mA-qiSInGQXPlF5c6TSQKxSDOhCA-HWbW-EYa75Qa1rWcalw95wUh1lZYe-hqiVZEZ2XHLCgMdl7zmcPM0hu0eoNN2G4Jb6atBZNLAobkggp90wcceDJjojQUg/s640/David+Munrow+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: black;">David Munrow is best known as an early music virtuoso but his genius knew no bounds. His producer at EMI <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2016/04/happy-birthday-to-legendary-recording.html" target="_blank">Christopher Bishop</a> mentored both <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2005/06/reflections-on-philadelphia-orchestra.html" target="_blank">Riccardo Muti</a> and <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2019/02/this-is-what-i-will-remember-andre.html" target="_blank">André Previn</a> early in their careers, and therefore his view that had David Munrow not died tragically young he could have become a great conductor cannot be dismissed easily. That view was expressed by Christopher in the <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/12/exclusive-david-munrow-on-record.html" target="_blank">2007 radio interview</a> with me transcribed below - see footer photo taken at the time. There is a lot today's classical industry can learn from this interview: particularly Christopher's explanation that "I suppose we looked at [David Munrow] in a way that pop producers do. They don't ask 'is there a market for this?'; they say 'that's good, so we'll do it', and then the market is made. I don't suppose anyone thought there was a market for the Beatles when they first started; they just thought this is a great band and it took off". <br />
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Christopher Bishop is best known for his work with Sir Adrian Boult, and the interview touches on the recording he produced of the Brandenburg Concertos conducted by Sir Adrian with David Munrow and John Turner playing the recorder parts. That recording was reissued in the 2012 EMI Classics box '<a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2012/08/back-to-bach-of-1900.html" target="_blank">Sir Adrian Boult from Bach to Wagner</a>' which was lovingly curated by <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2013/10/rare-wagner-is-rescued-from-record.html" target="_blank">my EMI colleague Richard Bradburn</a>. In December 1978 with Richard <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/05/my-reputation-is-safe-in-your-hands.html" target="_blank">I attended Sir Adrian's last recording session</a>; Christopher Bishop was the producer, and the repertoire was Sir Charles Hubert H. Parry's Fifth Symphony and Elegy for Brahms. Richard Bradburn was a determined champion of British music and the Parry recordings were included in the 2013 Warner Classics anthology '<a href="http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/Feb14/Boult_complete_0192702.htm" target="_blank">Sir Adrian Boult: the Complete Conductor from Tchaikovsky to Gershwin</a>' that he also curated. Parry's achingly beautiful but mysteriously unfashionable Symphony from that compilation plays as I write. It is a poignant and painful reminder of what we have lost and continue to lose.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i>Bob Shingleton</i>: In the early 1970s the scores for the BBC TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elisabeth R brought David Munrow’s music to millions. His Pied Piper radio programme was broadcast four times a week for five years, he presented a successful TV series, and wrote music for several major feature films including Ken Russell's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066993/">The Devils</a> - together with Peter Maxwell Davies - and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070170/">Henry VIII & his Six Wives</a> directed by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0404014/">Waris Hussein</a>. David Munrow's interest in early music started when he taught in Peru before going up to Cambridge. He combined reading English at Pembroke College with independent studies of Renaissance and medieval music, and went on to form his famous Early Music Consort of London. Under his leadership the Early Music Consort became best-selling recording artists, and David Munrow’s records were considered so important that copies of them were <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2006/01/david-munrow-and-voyager-golden-record.html">sent to Saturn on board two NASA spacecraft</a> in 1976.<br />
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Today David Munrow is remembered by the records he made for EMI that started in 1971 with the LP Two Renaissance Dance Bands. He was brought to EMI by their double Grammy winning recording producer Christopher Bishop who produced Munrow's first records for the famous dog and trumpet label. Christopher who also worked with Carlo Maria Giulini, Charles Mackerras, André Previn, Yehudi Menuhin, Riccardo Muti, Sir Adrian Boult and many other great musicians, and I am delighted to welcome him to the <i>Overgrown Path</i> today. Welcome Christopher, and can you start by telling us how you first met David Munrow? <br />
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<i> CB</i>: It was rather strange, it wasn't as obvious or direct as you might think. I used to conduct a madrigal group. We'd done lots of different broadcasts of straightforward madrigals, and the producer Basil Lam said to me it would be very interesting to try doing some madrigals with instruments, and I thought oh... He suggested viols and other stringed instruments, and also recorders. And I thought "oh no" - I used to be a school master, and the word recorder has a horrifying significance for me. So I asked "must we?", and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Lam">Basil Lam</a> said there is this young man called David Munrow who is an incredibly good player - come and hear him. So I went along to a concert he was doing, and, of course, it was fantastic; so I said that would be great. So the first time I met David Munrow was at the BBC recording sessions. We did some madrigals with viols, and some without any instruments, and we got on very well indeed. He mucked about all the time; - he was great fun - and he also mucked about musically. One of the madrigals we did was 'Hark All Ye Lovely Saints' by Weelkes, where the choir sings the verse and fah lahs at the end - which are really instrumental in a way - were played by David and his group. We let him do that, and in the second verse he really goes to town and decorates it in a way that I am quite sure no singer would ever have done. <br />
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That BBC session was a very important occasion both for me and in a way for David, because he asked for a lift afterwards to the station. We were chatting about his programme and I said how much I enjoyed his playing. I think I took him about a mile and a half, and in that very short distance he managed to convince me that it would be a very good idea if EMI, where I was then a producer, made a record of his group, and I agreed. He had another record he had already made - I can't remember if it was released commercially - and I took that record around the company and persuaded people that it would be a good idea to use him. A year later we did actually make the first record; he was tremendous fun to work with, and, surprisingly, the record became extremely popular.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i>BS</i>: At that time there wasn't a great market for early music; in fact there was hardly a market at all. What convinced you to record what at that time must have been a very minority market?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: I think it was just that it was so very jolly and clever, and full of life. You know, it just had it; in a way I suppose we looked at it in a way that pop producers do. They don't ask 'is there a market for this?'; they say 'that's good, so we'll do it', and then the market is made. I don't suppose anyone thought there was a market for the Beatles when they first started; they just thought this is a great band and it took off. In a way David was like that: he was his own advertiser he did these broadcasts called Pied Piper that you mentioned, and he also went round performing all the time. He was never not working, and that sort of energy committed itself.<br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: That level of risk taking is something that is really disappearing now from the classical music scene. There is virtually no backing of hunched and those golden days of risk taking have gone presumably.<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Yes, that was the late 1960s and early 70s when we did that. It was a very different world indeed, and people don't dare do anything like that now, particularly in the large companies. I think all the adventurousness now tends to be in the smaller companies, but EMI in those days was a very adventurous company indeed. It made the first recording of the Elgar oratorios and that sort of thing, which, of course, have also been recorded by other companies since then. It was a very, very great company.<br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: Did you have a job of selling the concept of David Munrow to the powers that be at EMI? It was EMI UK that recorded him for presumably?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Yes, it was the British company, a man called <a href="http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Oral-history-of-recorded-sound/021M-C0090X0068XX-0500V0">John Whittle</a> who was a tremendous enthusiast. It was quite easy to make John enthuse; if you enthused to him he would pick it up, as would another chap called <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2013/08/this-tchaikovsky-is-cats-whiskers.html">Douglas Pudney</a> who worked very hard in the same way. I just played the record to him and he said "wow!" The record I played had on it the first piece we did for the 'Two Renaissance Dance Bands' album. It was called <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRYPZYUkyt0">La Mourisque</a></i>; it's a very noisy piece and I always think of David red faced and puffing away when I hear it <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: Christopher, in the studio you had been dealing with the conventional symphony orchestra and conventional chamber music and suddenly you were confronted with these extraordinary instruments that David Munrow suddenly introduced. Wasn't this all a bit of a culture shock?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: It was indeed; it was such a culture shock that at one stage in the game I said wouldn't it be a good idea if you did a record (in due course it turned out to be two) with samples of all these peculiar instruments - things like <a href="http://www.earlymusic.co/davidmunrow/index.php?topic=71.0">nakers</a> for example which are a percussion instrument, and various kinds of string instruments, and regals and crumhorns. I knew what a crumhorn was, but before working with David I had never seen one actually being played. One got quite used to all these things, and I used to say I can't quite hear the second crumhorn, can you just play it a little louder or move the mic and that sort of thing. It became a completely different world and eventually David did do a wonderful box set called Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which is a very po-faced title. I wanted to call it 'A Young Person's Guide to Old Instruments' but they thought that a little too populist. Nowadays I am sure they would have used that title; but remember, this was a long time ago when we were much more po-faced really. It was terrfific fun working with David, you can tell from the enthusiasm you can hear on his recordings.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i>BS</i>: What was David Munrow like in the studio? Did you have to restrain him? - I always get the impression of someone running away with all these weird and wild instruments and wanting to do extraordinary things. Did you give him his head in the recording studio, and what was the chemistry like?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: No, he wasn't like that at all in the studio. He was full of enthusiasm and so on, but he was so professional - he could never have done all he did if he hadn't been absolutely disciplined. He used to do ridiculous things like staying up all night writing out parts, and he wouldn't really trust anyone else to do his work for him. He did all the copying; think of nowadays what you can do so easily with <a href="http://www.sibelius.com/home/index_flash.html">Sibelius</a> (the music writing software), he used to do all that by hand, there were no mechanical aids at all. Nothing was printed; it was all written out by him and it really was an amazing experience working with him because he was so full of energy. It was terrifying, he used to put the music stands out, he'd appear early and put out all the music and the music stands, and he'd suddenly think he had got them in the wrong place and rush out and move them all again. Then we might ask him if he wouldn't mind moving a seat because, you know, we wanted to get nearer to a certain instrument which might be quiet, and he'd have to go out and reorganise it himself. <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: Listening to your recordings of the Early Music Consort I am struck by the freshness and spontaneity of it all. They sound almost improvised in fact. Did David Munrow come into the studio with a clear plan for the record? Did you know what he was going to record?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Oh, absolutely. Everything was completely organised - totally. But what you say about improvisation is actually true, because in some pieces he used to decorate. He and <a href="http://www.divine-art.co.uk/AS/johnturner.htm">John Turner</a> (the second recorder player), they used to fiddle around and decorate in the most delightful way. Whether they rehearsed the basic idea, or whether it was second nature to them I just don't know really, but it was extremely free. Some of the improvisation was very jazzy, I can't really believe some of the improvised rhythms were used in the 16th century. His music was improvised, because if you did two takes the second would be different to the first. Now that posed slight problems for us sometimes if we tried to edit between them, and it wasn't always easy. But as all the pieces were very short, if it went wrong he did it again. <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: So there was very little editing. We hear so many stories today about very short takes and it all been spliced together - was there very much editing required after those David Munrow sessions? <br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: No there wasn't - very little indeed. Because we really didn't need to: because they were so good and you could redo the whole piece if it only lasted two or three minutes. It's not like a symphony where you have to slice in a chunk. <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: There is this stereotype of David Munrow as being an early music specialist. But in fact this is not true at all. He was involved in modern music and he was involved in film scores. He was a much broader musician than this early music category wasn't he?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: He started with early music and moved on from there. In the same way I suppose that Neville Marriner started with 18th century music and moved on from there, and Raymond Leppard the same. But the fact that he was able to change his interest and his concept was fascinating.<br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: How important were the film scores? <br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Well, the only one that I had anything to do with was Henry VIII. That consisted almost entirely of old music except for one piece, which is the music for the joust where Henry VIII is sitting there looking jealous; there is sort of tortured music, he is sitting there looking at Anne Boleyn flirting with young courtiers. Then, eventually, that music is used on his deathbed. It is very effective; he says that it is aleatoric, which means it has been done by the throw of the dice. But I don't believe that is true at all: I don't believe he made it up, I believe he wrote it - but it is extremely effective.</span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i>BS</i>: That is very interesting. I hadn't heard he claimed it was aleatoric music; obviously there are connections there with John Cage and other contemporary composers like Alvin Curran, whose Inner Cities piano cycle <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/11/new-music-premiere-for-internet-radio.html">I broadcast on Future Radio recently</a>. It's amazing how all these threads come together; we are not talking here just about early and medieval music, it's much broader than that.<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Well I think it would have been. I think it had only just started, I'm not sure how much he would have known about John Cage in those days to be quite fair. But I think he had begun to develop into a different kind of musician from just the recorder player. Because he was so intelligent and had such a lot of energy, and the Pied Piper programmes were amazingly broad - he was quite happy to talk about Mahler and Wagner and so on - he was by no means narrow. Was he frantic to deal with? <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: Tell us about more about working with him in the recording studio. We get the impression of someone who was incredibly driven: you say he was working all night, he was working across radio and television and cinema, he was recording LPs, and, of course, performing in the concert hall. That was very unusual in the 1970s, he was a true multi-media artist.<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Well he was pretty terrifying to deal with, because he got himself into a pretty high-pressured state - I think his blood pressure must have been horrendous. But his face - partly because he played a wind instrument and of course he was puffing all the time - his face was usually a sort of red colour. He was very, very driven, that is a very good word for him. He was totally driven; he spent all his time working at music. I don't know what he did to relax; one never saw him relax; but then I only saw him in the studio and doing concerts <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: Some of the music David Munrow composed is quite extraordinary. If you played a piece like his music for the jousting scene from Henry VIII that we talked about earlier to someone without telling them who the composer was, I suspect they would never suggest it was by him.<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Well you are used to David Munrow the performer, and, of course, he wouldn't have performed that sort of music in his early music concerts. I produced the music for the film and I think the music was composed - by chance or otherwise - for the film and not the BBC programme, although I can't quite recall. I can remember the film appearing on the screen in the recording studio as it does, and you see little bits the wrong way round and think who on earth is that? - it is someone who has come in at the beginning and you hardly see again. It all had to be done in that highly complicated way, but he was completely on the ball about it and knew exactly what he was doing.<br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: We are starting to move away from David Munrow as an early music performer. One of the interesting things is that he worked with such a wide range of musicians. He worked for instance with Sir Adrian Boult - David Munrow and Sir Adrian Boult is not a combination you would expect. How did that come about?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Well it came about through me I suppose. Because Adrian Boult was one of my artists and I thought what a wonderful thing it would be for him and John Turner to do the Brandenburg Concerto recorder parts - because they are really recorder parts and not flute - and I suggested it to Sir Adrian. I think I must have played a record to him and he said 'this is fantastic'. When David and John Turner came into the studio Sir Adrian was wonderful with them; he treated them perfectly normally, as if they were great artists, which of course they were. There was no patronisation at all, and John Turner said he was always terribly amused by the fact that Boult always said to him [imitates Sir Adrian] "Well, we will try that again and I am sure it will be even better", and the <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2012/08/back-to-bach-of-1900.html">result is a wonderful performance</a>. <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: The classical music scene today is divided very sharply between period and modern instrument performances. It must seem surprising to the younger generation that David Munrow, who in some ways was a pioneer of period instruments, performed Bach with a modern symphony orchestra. Were there any obstacles to that?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: No, it is strange now, but I think the thing was Boult was doing a set of Brandenburg Concertos, and therefore we had to have a recorder or flautist for numbers 2 and 4. I think that Boult was amazingly adventurous to accept the idea of doing it. But he immediately said 'that's a wonderful idea'. I think these days it would have been recorded by a tiny 'Bachy' type orchestra with Harnoncourt or someone. In those days <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/07/specialisation-is-damaging-classical.html">symphony orchestras did still play Bach</a>, and jolly well too.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i>BS</i>: Tragically David Munrow took his own life in May 1976. Presumably this came as a terrible shock to his fiends and colleagues. <br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: It did; but in a way, when you think about it afterwards, he drove himself so terribly that any emotional problem would have had a much greater impact on him than for someone who was on a more even keel. We were all absolutely devastated by it, particularly the peformers he worked with who saw him as a life force, and if a life force dies or kills himself it is simply terrible - it couldn't be worse. I know that it knocked some of them - the countertenor <a href="http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/a.asp?a=A75">James Bowman</a> for instance - absolutely for six. He couldn't sing for quite a long time afterwards; he was absolutely devastated by it, and i am not surprised.<br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: And the news of his death came totally out of the blue.<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Completely, one day I had a phone call from <a href="http://www.percius.co.uk/news/john-willan-awarded-royal-academy-of-music-fellowship">John Willan</a> who had taken over producing his recordings towards the end of his time, and John said: "You will never guess what has happened, the little blighter has killed himself" and I knew exactly who he meant. I said "you mean David" and he said "yes". It was really absolutely frightful.<br />
<br />
BS: He was just thirty-three when he died. If that tragedy hadn't happened what do you think he would have gone on to do?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Now that is a very interesting question. I think he would have become a very, very distinguished educator,and also conducting full-size orchestras. It is almost impossible to imagine, but his agent and I agreed always, if about nothing else, about the fact that he had definitely got the potential to be something more even than someone like André Previn. Previn was <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/11/art-of-animateur.html">a great populariser</a> and I think Munrow would have gone slightly deeper than that. I am not sure what repertoire he would have done, certainly opera and things like that, he would have loved anything that could have broadened his musical outlook. <br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: We can only speculate, but as a conductor, do you think he would have had a career across all categories and across all ages of repertoire. Would he have moved out of the early music and baroque category?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Yes, I think he probably would. You think of Daniel Barenboim, but his career followed a fairly straightforward path: he started off as a pianist - a great Beethoven and Mozart pianist - and he then went on to conduct - a not unusual course. But Munrow's world was absolutely different; I don't think I have ever come across anyone like that. Neville Marriner is a sort of parallel, someone who in early music, although obviously he was an orchestral player who played everything when he was at the London Symphony Orchestra; Neville's conducting career began with early music and gradually went into the modern era. I think David Munrow would have become a very great conductor and also a great populariser.<br />
<br />
<i> BS</i>: Christopher, we've heard how David Munrow was an extraordinary talent and extraordinary person to work with. How would you like to remember this extraordinary talent? What would be your abiding memory and the piece of music to remember him by?<br />
<br />
<i> CB</i>: Well my abiding memory really is, of course, of him in the studio. I can remember him so well coming rushing in to listen to takes, and on one occasion something wasn't very good. I said to him "David that's not really up to standard", and he said [angry voice]: "What do you mean, what do you mean not up to standard. What standard is it not up to, EMI's?" And I said: "No, it isn't actually. It's not up to <i>your</i> standard either". He said "Oh balls!" and went back into the studio and immediately played the whole thing perfectly.To rile him and to get him angry was a pretty sure way of getting him to perform perfectly. He was so proud; he was a very, very proud person oddly enough of his ability and of his standards. The music which makes me remember him most was <i>La Mourisque</i> from 'Two Renaissance Dance bands". I can see his red face puffing away at the crumhorn or recorder - I can't remember which - and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRYPZYUkyt0">that music captures him perfectly</a>.</span> <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-42028358517635346962023-07-19T08:35:00.000+01:002023-07-19T08:35:06.042+01:00There is no perfect <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0dDNUTrBRu7mG5AfZgh_UgYqv24abHRgO6PvUwTkHQ04wDZvwyQVGanj_kLNfv8_3nBR0o29w0VCDxCv_g9tSFWu5EL8NN-1MxGqPjL67DqnfH2raZV6euFcN1eQdBoCMN4BKKSApgSN-nYx_uu5NM2zXrPiC9VC36_d1eAx-XvaR7xBbtmWPdQ/s708/Tibetan%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="708" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0dDNUTrBRu7mG5AfZgh_UgYqv24abHRgO6PvUwTkHQ04wDZvwyQVGanj_kLNfv8_3nBR0o29w0VCDxCv_g9tSFWu5EL8NN-1MxGqPjL67DqnfH2raZV6euFcN1eQdBoCMN4BKKSApgSN-nYx_uu5NM2zXrPiC9VC36_d1eAx-XvaR7xBbtmWPdQ/s600/Tibetan%201.jpg" width="600" /></a>
<span style="color: black;">
<b style="font-style: italic;">'The Himalayas taught me there is no perfect - there's only balance with pain and bliss, sea-level and summits, hate and love, samsara </b>[wandering in different states of cyclic existence]<b style="font-style: italic;"> and nirvana. The path is our individual responsibility, and it isn't always pretty'</b> - Jane Marshall <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/603450/back-over-the-mountains-by-jane-marshall/9789384544379" target="_blank"><i>Back Over the Mountains</i></a> <div><br /></div>
Recent listening and reading: <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://stephanthelen.bandcamp.com/album/world-dialogue-featuring-kronos-quartet" target="_blank">Stephan Thelen, World Dialogue</a> - Kronos & Al Pari Quartets</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Gandhi/William-L-Shirer/9781451696059" target="_blank">Gandhi, A Memoir</a> - William L Shirer<br /><div><a href="https://www.harmonies.com/releases/17013.htm" target="_blank">Tibetan Plateau & Sounds of the Mothership</a> - David Parsons</div><div><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/439937/retreat-by-segnit-nat/9781529111309" target="_blank">Retreat</a> - Nat Segnit</div><div><a href="https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67468" target="_blank">Bach Transcriptions, Samuel Feinberg</a> - Martin Roscoe </div></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-61111407695401705822023-07-17T08:34:00.001+01:002023-07-17T16:11:10.830+01:00A conductor's job is to create joy and curiosity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: black;">Ethnomusicologist <a href="https://music.uchicago.edu/page/philip-v-bohlman">Philip Bohlman</a> has argued that "music affords power to those who search for meaning". Such is the power and appeal of the Western classical tradition that symphony orchestras now play in regions far distant from the art form's Judeo-Christian heartlands. When in North Africa recently I attended a performance of the Mozart Requiem with Olivier Holt conducting <a href="http://www.opm.ma/">l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc</a> (Philharmonic Orchestra of Morocco). Before the concert my expectations were not high: because there is no tradition of Western classical music in Muslim Morocco, and because Essaouira where the concert was taking place <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/05/castles-made-of-sand.html">evokes Jimi Hendix</a> more than Mozart, . But despite this, conductor Olivier Holt's mastery of his Moroccan vocal and orchestral forces resulted in a Mozart Requiem <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2016/05/good-conductors-make-good-orchestras.html">of notable power and intensity</a>.<br />
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That is Olivier Holt in the header photo with <a href="http://www.jeunes-talents.org/musiciens/1156/Axelle-Fanyo">Axelle Fanyo</a> and <a href="http://www.jeunes-talents.org/musiciens/1460/Edwin-Fardini">Edwin Fardini</a> at another concert in Essaouira. Olivier Holt will be unknown to many readers; he is one of the under-appreciated peripatetic conductors who work tirelessly and effectively to promote classical music without the <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/10/what-price-classical-musics-celebrity.html">rewards of the celebrity maestros</a>. He was born in Paris in 1960, studied at the <a href="http://www.hfm-detmold.de/en/">Hochschule für Musik</a> and his subjects included piano and percussion as well as conducting, and among his mentors were Leonard Bernstein and Charles Mackerras. . <br />
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Olivier Holt is particularly noted for his work in the opera house, he has conducted at many leading European houses including the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and has also conducted many European orchestras. In 2002 he conducted the world premiere of <a href="http://www.casadesus.com/famille/dominique-probst1.html">Dominique Probst</a>'s opera <a href="http://www.chambermadeopera.com/works/motherland/">Motherland</a> in Melbourne; he is a founder of <a href="http://www.orchestre-symphonique-europe.fr/">l’Orchestre Symphonique d’Europe</a>, a professional orchestra of young musicians from across Europe, and is also a composer of chamber and theatre music, and teaches at two French conservatories. In 2016 Olivier Holt was appointed artistic advisor to the l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc after working as a guest conductor with the orchestra for four years. That year our paths crossed in Morocco, and I was delighted that Olivier accepted an invitation to share his Moroccan experiences with <i>Overgrown Path</i> readers. But first I asked him about those famous teachers:<br />
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<i><b>Bob Shingleton</b></i>: Olivier, welcome to <i>On An Overgrown Path</i>. I know that many readers will be interested in the references to Leonard Bernstein and Sir Charles Mackerras in my introduction. So let's start by hearing about your contact with them.<br />
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<i><b>Olivier Holt</b></i>: I passed a competition to attend the Masterclass in Vienna with Mackerras in the summer of 1981. The classes mainly focused on extracts of Mozart’s operas. There were also young singers and a Bulgarian orchestra, I think. Mackerras was considered to be a baroque conductor at the time, he had us work a great deal on ornaments, cadences and appoggiaturas, and look at the manuscripts, which was very instructive for me. He often scolded me for my left hand, especially for accompanied recitatives... We also sang choral parts or secondary roles, which was very amusing. He had begun to talk to us about his interest in Janacek which was budding. What I retained from him is the absolute necessity in music to go back to the original writing. <br />
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It’s thanks to <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2012/01/music-making-oblivious-of-worlds-show.html">Alexis Weissenberg</a> that I met Leonard Bernstein. Alexis had come to one of my concerts at Salle Pleyel in Paris and offered to recommend me for the Schelsswig Holstein Festival where Lenny was conducting and teaching. It was in July 1987. I’ll try to be brief because there is a lot to say. It was a memorable encounter. He greeted me in a special way because of his passion for France and because he knew I was related to Robert Casadesus with whom he had often played in the United States. [<i>In the photo below from 1987 Bernstein is with Olivier Holt and his cousin <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-gaby-casadesus-1126866.html">Gaby Casadesus</a>. She was married to the acclaimed French pianist <a href="http://www.robertcasadesus.com/en15pages.php?req_lang=en">Robert Casadesus</a> and was herself a celebrated teacher and pianist. Photo (c) Olivier Holt</i>]</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Lenny's joy and passion for music and people was contagious. He was very available for everyone. At the same time he was finishing up a tour with the Concertgebouw, I remember his Schubert’s Symphony no. 5 as light and joyful. I was backstage waiting with his assistant who handed him a lit cigarette, and the Maestro walked onto the stage blowing out the smoke right next to the double basses... Despite it all he was tired and wouldn’t show up for class some mornings. We spoke quite often about painting and literature. He had a burning passion for European culture. And he introduced me, aged 27, to whisky.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: I have mentioned your work in opera; what are your latest projects in the opera house?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: I toured in France and Martinique with a rarely played opera by Gluck, Merlin's Island or The World Upside-Down, and last month I conducted Carmen in Rabat with l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc and Chorus with an entire cast of French singers. <br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: This is your first year as artistic advisor to the l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc [OPM] which is based in Morocco's capital Rabat.. How much time will you spend with them?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: As much as possible. The OPM puts on six programmes per season and I am conducting three this year. <br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Morocco was a French protectorate until 1956 and French is widely spoken. But Morocco is part of North Africa with strong links to both sub-Saharan black Africa and the Arab world, and its indigenous population of 33 million has no tradition of Western classical music. In fact Morocco is celebrated for its ethnic music from brotherhoods such as the <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2016/05/music-should-be-dangerous.html">Gnawa</a> and the <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/05/discord-among-master-musicians.html">Master Musicians of Jajouka</a>. Despite this l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc was founded in 1996 and is flourishing. Who founded the orchestra and why?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: The OPM was founded by <a href="http://www.bladi.net/farid-bensaid.html">Farid Bensaïd</a> who is also the leader of the first violin section. His secretary-general is Yassine Matjinouche, who is also a violinist. They both studied music in France. The orchestra’s mission is of course to communicate, share and educate but also to professionalize Moroccan musicians. <br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Tell us about the first time you conducted in Morocco. What were you expecting? And how did the reality match your expectations?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: I came for the first time in 2012 to accompany the piano competition. I discovered a group of enthusiastic musicians. My first impression was good because the OPM was performing a programme that the musicians knew pretty well. Our second programme together for Beethoven’s Symphonies no. 6 and no. 4 was more difficult. It wasn’t a question of the notes but more what lies between the notes that the orchestra needed to watch out for and getting them to hear a poetic style.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Funding is currently a big issue for symphony orchestras? How is l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc funded?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: The OPM is mainly funded <a href="http://www.opm.ma/galerie/partenaires/">by private partners</a>.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Tell us about the make up of the orchestra. How many of the players are Moroccan , and how many come from Europe and elsewhere?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: When full-size the <a href="http://www.opm.ma/orchestre/musiciens/liste/">orchestra has 60 to 70 Moroccan musicians</a>. There are also one Bulgarian, one Hungarian, one German and two French players who are local, and depending on the programme 3/4 French players who come over to play.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"> <i><b>BS</b></i>: It is impressive that more than 80% of the musicians are Moroccan. Quite understandably it is <a href="http://www.opm.ma/orchestre/musiciens/chefs_orchestre/">mainly European conductors</a> who are currently working with the orchestra, although I know <a href="http://www.rachidregragui.com/liens/biographie.html">Rachid Regragui</a>, who is a graduate of the Moroccan National Conservatoire in Rabat, has also conducted some concerts. Looking to the future, will there be more opportunities for Moroccans and other non-European conductors to work with the Orchestra?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: Of course, all these opportunities are possible. The administration continues to consider them as well as exchanges with South America and Asia. I would like to find the time with the orchestra to run masterclasses open to all young conductors, so I can also scold them about their left hands...<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: The orchestra's programmes are very much rooted in the mainstream classical tradition. Do you see that changing and the repertoire widening?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: We are at the intersection of two ideas: a need to develop our sound, to continue to work our repertoire more and more, and the need to open up. Here are some of our upcoming projects: Mahler, Stravinsky, Sibelius and Wagner! As for 20th and 21st century works, they will come gradually.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/05/unlocking-music-of-maurice-ohana.html">Maurice Ohana</a> was born in Casablanca in 1913. Are there any plans to perform the music of this seriously underrated Moroccan-born composer? Or is that a step too far?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>:... yes, like <a href="http://www.graciane-finzi.com/index.html">Graciane Finzi</a>. I like Ohana but it’s too soon. His compositions require too much solo work, style and modern ways of playing that we haven’t had the time to explore together or individually. Playing 20th century music poorly is like disfiguring baroque music with a keyboard.... <br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: The orchestra's programmes do not include fashionable fusion projects such as concertos for kora. What are your views on that kind of blending of classical traditions?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: There have already been projects like that. The orchestra has often played mixed programmes with specially orchestrated Andalusian music. There is something in the works soon with Scheherazade.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: I mentioned that you conducted the world premiere of Dominique Probst's opera Motherland. Are there any notable living Moroccan composers that you would like to programme?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: Yes, <a href="http://www.brunel.ac.uk/BICMEM/composers/ahmed-essyad">Ahmed Essyad</a> [<i>seen in photo below</i>] who was born in Salé in 1938 and was a student of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Deutsch">Max Deutsch</a> in Paris, who himself was a student of Arnold Schonberg. What an impressive heritage!</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"> <i><b>BS</b></i>: I couldn't help but notice at your concert in Essaouira that there were very few women players in your orchestra. Do you see that changing?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: The new generation is on its way, because the orchestra is involved in the <a href="http://www.ftc.ma/mazaya/">Mazaya project</a> and the balance is 45% girls. We will need to wait another 8/9 years before bringing them into the orchestra. <br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: What is the most amusing culture clash that you have experienced in your time with the l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: The orchestra has the same tendencies as other orchestras around the world. It slows down in the same places, and speeds up when it shouldn’t.... When something wasn’t working right the musicians would say to me "<i>Inch'Allah</i>" (if Allah is willing). After a while I explained that I didn’t want to hear "<i>Inch'Allah</i>" any more during rehearsals, that God had other things to do besides worry about us, and that we needed to work... Now we don’t say "<i>Inch'Allah</i>" during rehearsal any more, but always outside after the work is done, just for laughs!<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: I was very impressed with that Mozart Requiem in Essaouira, despite the town's Salle Omnisports not being an ideal venue for Western classical music. How do the other auditoriums the orchestra plays in compare?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: The orchestra is very familiar with its five or six venues in Morocco, but like a teenager it sometimes has a hard time finding the right sound, its identity, in the different acoustic environments. It’s a problem all musicians face when touring around the world, like pianists who have a new instrument in every concert hall.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Does l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc tour outside Morocco?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: Not for the moment, but last February they came to Paris to play Verdi’s Requiem with other musicians from North Africa. The orchestra played by the name of l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maghreb. <br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: To conclude let's take a wider perspective. At the start I talked about your work founding l’Orchestre Symphonique d’Europe, a professional orchestra of young musicians from across Europe. Attracting a wider and younger audience for classical music in Europe and North America is the hot topic. What do you think is the key to reaching new audiences?<br />
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<i><b>OH</b></i>: This is a vast area for work but in the world of classical orchestras progress is under way. Remember Bernstein and New York in the fifties (and all North American orchestra). In France we have been slow to open up to diverse cultures in this field and reach out to young people. Now all organizations are doing it. Fortunately, in Morocco this effort has been made from the start. The keys are education, performances for schoolchildren, blending cultures and repertoires. We owe it to ourselves not to leave anyone behind. That’s our mission, to always strive to touch people, not only with Bach through all the rest, to delight the musicians and the audiences, to provoke curiosity, joy and sharing.<br />
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<i><b>BS</b></i>: Olivier, your observation that the conductor's mission should be to provoke curiosity, joy and sharing is so important and so true, but it is so often forgotten today. We also forget too often that great music is being made not only by the prestigious ensembles of Western Europe and North America, but also by a diaspora of committed musicians like you working in often challenging conditions around the globe. Thank you for taking time out of your busy itinerary to talk to me, and I look forward to hearing more of your music-making in Morocco, <i>Inch'Allah</i>!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZt57pEs2x9VSg7Sd-Z9jS69CaqGVjlbkAB1VtwOwJtxKe-je1UychAtDRdfJv3rBDolyE1_WaYO9QHtgBZChYb7xyqe1Eq7SrxKG9S2fauFrE3VicjEzXGK4lTND1fhgtBLyE2w/s1600/Olivier+Holt+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZt57pEs2x9VSg7Sd-Z9jS69CaqGVjlbkAB1VtwOwJtxKe-je1UychAtDRdfJv3rBDolyE1_WaYO9QHtgBZChYb7xyqe1Eq7SrxKG9S2fauFrE3VicjEzXGK4lTND1fhgtBLyE2w/s640/Olivier+Holt+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">First published <i>On An Overgrown Path</i> 2016. Photo credits: header <a href="http://lobservateurdumaroc.info/2015/05/20/axelle-fanyo-jouer-du-gershwin-est-un-sacre-challenge/">Soufiane Bouhaliu</a>, Bernstein photo is (c) Olivier Holt, Ahmed Essyad via <a href="http://blog.blanee.com/marrakech/evenement-marrakech/hommage-ahmed-essyad-3364">Blanee</a>, photos 4 & 5 via <a href="http://www.le360.ma/fr/culture/lorchestre-philharmonique-enchante-leglise-de-notre-dame-21977">le 360</a>. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-14320413509436759222023-07-12T11:14:00.003+01:002023-07-12T11:19:23.846+01:00When Elgar met Pink Floyd<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIk29MGeeqvn2ZElmsRYXfTh_Wb4ktxSs4evHwfbkapQEjYlC_JGLlWySwQUU17-k32gVXEJ_izSTSlaq19Y7dqfgoKq9nG_kULAXB7GJfRDyLEyQw-aJQCGdJu9rBJPHLr3i721qe-Ngn3BL7NNeKLCigJFnrBuoR7e2X8yk5qu-lEFj4yCoeCA/s650/Peter%20Bown%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="500" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIk29MGeeqvn2ZElmsRYXfTh_Wb4ktxSs4evHwfbkapQEjYlC_JGLlWySwQUU17-k32gVXEJ_izSTSlaq19Y7dqfgoKq9nG_kULAXB7GJfRDyLEyQw-aJQCGdJu9rBJPHLr3i721qe-Ngn3BL7NNeKLCigJFnrBuoR7e2X8yk5qu-lEFj4yCoeCA/s600/Peter%20Bown%201.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">During my <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2023/06/elgar-remastered-and-renewed.html" target="_blank">recent listening session</a> with the <a href="https://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/12/exclusive-david-munrow-on-record.html" target="_blank">celebrated recording producer Christopher Bishop</a> a fascinating anecdote emerged about the legendary <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/11533858-Sir-Edward-Elgar-Sir-John-Barbirolli-Janet-Baker-Richard-Lewis-3-Kim-Borg-Hall%C3%A9-Orchestra-Sheffield" target="_blank">EMI Barbirolli/Janet Baker Dream of Gerontius</a>. For the sessions in 1964 the producer was <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/837497-Ronald-Kinloch-Anderson" target="_blank">Ronald Kinoch Anderson</a> with Peter Bown as balance engineer. Peter Bown was highly-skilled at the mixing desk and more of that anon, but his experience and expertise was mainly in rock music. Which meant he would struggle with reading Elgar's score for the oratorio. <div><br /></div><div>So Christopher Bishop, who had just joined EMI to start his career as a producer, was delegated to sit with Peter Bown in the depths of Manchester's Free Trade Hall to interpret the score. Christopher was full of praise for Peter Bown's work at the sessions; which is confirmed by the 1964 recording remaining today as the definitive version of Elgar's masterpiece.</div><div><br /></div><div>That is Peter Bown (1926-1997) in the photo above. He was one of the renowned trio of EMI 'pop' engineers together with <a href="https://soundofthehound.com/2015/05/01/memories-of-emi-malcolm-addey-on-move-it/" target="_blank">Malcolm Addey</a> and <a href="https://mccartney.com/?page_id=5059" target="_blank">Stuart Eltham</a>. (The latter also crossed between <a href="https://ontherecord.co/category/top-engineers/top-engineers-stuart-eltham/" target="_blank">classical</a> and rock, with considerable success in both fields.) Among Peter Bown's credits are engineering for Phil Spector <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/03/23/mixing-editing-ive-got-a-feeling-dig-a-pony-one-after-909-i-me-mine-across-the-universe/" target="_blank">on the Beatle's <i>Let It Be</i></a>. But his most famous achievement was <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/recording-pink-floyd-s-atom-heart-mother/" target="_blank">working with the then-unknown Pink Floyd</a> on their breakthrough album <i>The Piper at the Gate of Dawn, </i>for which he is credited with masterminding the famous Pink Floyd sound. He went on to work on the Floyd's <i>Atom Heart Mother</i> and <i>Meddle</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>At a time when homosexuality was frowned on even in the creative industries, Peter Bown was unashamedly gay. When a suit, white shirt, and tie was the standard uniform for EMI production staff - see <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/beatles/comments/hkdj9w/george_martin_vibing_on_the_sgt_pepper_sessions/" target="_blank">photo of George Martin at the Sgt Pepper sessions</a> - he dressed and acted flamboyantly. It is thought that this flamboyance was why the hugely-talented Peter Bown, who brought together Elgar and the Pink Floyd, never progressed to become an EMI producer. <br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-5784096965927945692023-07-10T09:36:00.001+01:002023-07-10T11:38:34.632+01:00Music celebrating the right to be wrong<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3mfnNdJr8pYwtnkR6vOURBWiBbxYcKsneVR-JLLjQtek51ciWyuK7w6SSkehTHXvgSKwAG5OXoYGeym34IjWPaiJ6hY1WU0nLBT_gGKBMuLjPB40ZblY1YgfBst2ocldB3pHwYX_BtycJaUlweu2SUXB35K9HXF-cwqvkAYpiNKYQqEXEwvJ97Q/s1049/Gandhi%201.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1045" data-original-width="1049" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3mfnNdJr8pYwtnkR6vOURBWiBbxYcKsneVR-JLLjQtek51ciWyuK7w6SSkehTHXvgSKwAG5OXoYGeym34IjWPaiJ6hY1WU0nLBT_gGKBMuLjPB40ZblY1YgfBst2ocldB3pHwYX_BtycJaUlweu2SUXB35K9HXF-cwqvkAYpiNKYQqEXEwvJ97Q/s600/Gandhi%201.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">'Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err and even to sin. If God has given the humblest of His creatures the freedom to err, it passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight other human beings of that precious right' - from Mahatma Gandhi's statement following </i><a href="https://upscwithnikhil.com/article/history/the-gandhi-irwin-pact-of-1931" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Gandhi/Irwin Pact of 1931</a><i style="font-weight: bold;">.
</i><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div>Recent listening and reading:</div><div><a href="https://bis.se/performers/helsinki-chamber-choir/kaija-saariaho-reconnaissance" target="_blank">Reconnaissance: Kaija Saariaho Choral Music</a> - Helsinki Chamber Choir Nils Schweckendiek</div><div><a href="https://wisdomexperience.org/product/together-under-one-roof/#:~:text=In%20Together%20Under%20One%20Roof,and%20the%20myriad%20ways%20our" target="_blank">Together Under One Roof: Making a Home of the Buddha's Household</a> - Lin Jensen</div><div><a href="https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/shankar-homage-to-mahatma-gandhi" target="_blank">Homage to Mahatma Gandhi</a> - Ravi Shankar</div><div><a href="https://www.ashlingam.com/single-post/2016/12/27/the-trail-to-kathmandu-on-amazoncom" target="_blank">The Trail to Kathmandu (1970's</a>) - Ash Lingam</div><div><a href="https://ecmrecords.com/product/robert-schumann-zehetmair-quartett/" target="_blank">Robert Schumann, String Quartets 1 & 3</a> - Zehetmair Quartet</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-83846332161277510482023-07-07T17:53:00.000+01:002023-07-07T17:53:53.840+01:00All you need is love and music<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLpm-iodCpMqYsh92FdEwXwwfOFmfQh4ctToJbe0NOn5xjhneXumeYRf8rl_dG63-K6apiZHlde4LPc-vnmzvwnps5mbMFjLFa6F3gSMFobpBmp0Qhq-RtqwJkL7vc5rTtUEEww/s1600/jordi5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLpm-iodCpMqYsh92FdEwXwwfOFmfQh4ctToJbe0NOn5xjhneXumeYRf8rl_dG63-K6apiZHlde4LPc-vnmzvwnps5mbMFjLFa6F3gSMFobpBmp0Qhq-RtqwJkL7vc5rTtUEEww/w640-h480/jordi5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: black;"> That photo was taken when <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/05/jordi-savall-and-just-in-time-interview.html">I was interviewing Jordi Savall</a> for a radio programme in 2008. The interview may have taken place fifteen years ago, but the messages in it - particularly the final paragraph - are, sadly, more true today than they ever were. <br />
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<i> BS</i> Welcome to the 15th century church of <a href="http://stpetermancroft.org.uk/">St Peter Mancroft</a> in Norwich, and to <i>An Overgrown Path</i> special that celebrates one of the truly outstanding musicians of our time. The viol player, conductor, composer and early music champion Jordi Savall was born in Catalonia in 1941. He started his musical training at the age of six before going on to study at the famous <a href="http://www.scb-basel.ch/index/117099">Schola Cantorum Basiliensis</a> in Switzerland. He founded the early music ensemble Hesperion XX with his wife the soprano <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/12/paz-salam-and-shalom-for-montserrat.html">Montserrat Figueras</a> in 1974, and has made more than one hundred highly acclaimed recordings. In 1998 he founded his own record label <a href="http://www.alia-vox.com/aliavox.php#rao">Alia Vox</a> which has gone on to pioneer new methods of presentating CDs to fight back against the record industry move to file downloads. Jordi Savall is also well-known for his work in the cinema, and his soundtrack for the film <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103110/">Tous les matins du monde</a></i> featuring the music of Marin Marais and Sainte Colombe has sold more than a million copies. <br />
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Although known as an early music specialist, Jordi Savall's music making ranges far, and his latest recording includes music by the contemporary composer Arvo Pärt. If that was the whole story, Jordi Savall would be a name to rank alongside other leading musicians who have used early music as a springboard to reach a wide audience. But what makes Jordi Savall truly priceless is his commitment to, and these are his words, "sharing musical experiences with musicians from other cultures and religions". His success in using music for spiritual communion has led to his being appointed an intercultural ambassador for the European Union, and Jordi Savall is here in Norwich tonight to perform a programme of music from the East and West in a celebration of diversity. I am absolutely delighted that he has been able to find time in his hectic schedule between rehearsal and concert to join us tonight.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"> <i>BS</i> Jordi, welcome to <i>On An Overgrown Path</i>. We are here in Norwich to hear a concert of music from East and West. Can you start by telling us a little about the programme and how it came about.<br />
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<i>JS</i> The programme is the result of a dialogue between our music from the Occident, conserved mostly in manuscripts and medieval books, and Oriental music conserved by oral tradition. In Spain different cultures and religions lived together from the 7th to 15th centuries, so we have a long tradition in Spain of this dialogue which stopped in 1492 with the expulsion of the Jews and the end of the Reconquista. There are many paintings and miniatures where you see Moorish, Jewish and Christian musicians playing different sorts of instruments. We have to be inspired in this context to establish a certain dialogue with music from Israel, from Morocco, from Afghanistan, from Greece, and from different traditions combined with Occidental music. The result is very interesting because you never feel a big break, a big separation between the first instrumental music for instance from the British Museum manuscript from the 15th century and pieces we are playing from the Andalusian tradition of Jewish tradition. It's the same language, there are different rhythmic concepts, different harmonic scales and different modes, but the speed is the same, because until the 14th century the same monodic style was used and it is very close to the art of improvisation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"> <i>BS</i> In my introduction I talked about the work you have done in cross-cultural communication. Do you see it as your mission to use music to help create this communication and reconcile humanity?<br />
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<i>JS</i> I think music is, in the first instance, something that communicates with people. Music was used from very ancient times to communicate with God and with the spirits. Music is the art of memory, music is the art of dialogue, and I think it is the best training, the best school for everybody to learn how to establish a dialogue with other people and with other cultures. Because, when you are making music with people with who you have a sympathy, normally you have to respect them, you have to use the same tuning, you have to listen to them like music,and this is the best school for any dialogue between people holding different viewpoints.<br />
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<i>BS</i> I mentioned your work with contemporary composers, and Philip Glass once said that <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2006/10/philip-glass-world-music-is-new.html">world music is the new classical</a>. Many would see <i>Orient-Occident</i>, which we are to hear tonight, and othe rof your projects as world music. Would you agree, and is world music the new classical?<br />
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<i>JS</i> I think world music was probably one of the most important musical discoveries of the 20th century, and it was a discovery that put corrected an imbalance. For many hundred of years it was thought that music was in constant evolution; even <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/stendhal.htm">Stendhal</a> said in the 19th century that Mozart and Haydn were really great composers who had bettered all the preceding composers. This is a mistake, I believe the essential quality of music is to bring emotion to a person. You can be so touched by a simple voice accompanied with a lute or similar instrument, there can be as much emotion in this simple combination as in a big vocal ensemble with a hundred singers and a big orchestra with a hundred musicians. The quality of the art and the quality of the emotion has nothing to do with the loudness of the sound, the size of the orchestra or the complexity of the music. Of course we have in the Occident, at the centre of our art, the B minor Mass and the Beethoven symphonies and other masterpieces. There are no comparable works in the Orient, but there is still the quality of the emotion and of the art.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"> <i>BS</i> <i><a href="http://www.alia-vox.com/cataleg.php?id=53">Occident-Orient</a></i> and other recent releases are on the Alia Vox label - your own record label. Can you tell us a little about why you started your own label? What is the background to the decision?<br />
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<i>JS</i> The background to the decision was more than twenty years working with other companies, mainly doing the things we liked to do. But ten years ago we started to feel that when working with the major companies, it was impossible to create innovative projects that introduced the risks associated with unknown repertoire. This convinced us that we had to be free to make our own decisions, and had to be free to give decisions about the music priority over commercial decisions. This was the starting point for Aia Vox; it is a very small group of people, Montserrat Figueras my wife, myself, an editor, a person who prepares the editions, an export manager, and that's all. Which means we work in the best conditions, because musicians take all the decisions, from conception until the record is finished. Probably Alia Vox is the only record company in the world where musicians are controlling everything. This means we can create projects with the very highest sensibility for the sound, for the repertoire, for the presentation including texts and background history. We are trying to create CD/books that are collectable, and that do not simply exploit the possibilities of the internet; with the texts and background history and graphics making our recordings are physically appealing. This is our way to work, and it opposes the movement towards making music a non-physical commodity available only over the internet.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><i> BS</i> Your latest release <i><a href="http://www.alia-vox.com/cataleg.php?id=73">Invocation à la nuit</a></i> includes music by Arvo Pärt, and you commissioned a <a href="http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/04/it-is-impossible-to-live-without-inner.html">work by Pärt to commemorate the terrible Madrid terrorist bombings</a>. Do you see early music as a limiting label, and will contemporary music be an increasing part of your future plans?<br />
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<i> JS</i> I think the term early music is not appropriate. If you listen to one of our recent releases <i><a href="http://www.alia-vox.com/cataleg.php?id=70">Estampies & Danses Royales</a></i>, you will see the manuscript in the booklet. You will see that only around twenty percent of the music we play is conserved in the manuscript. If we only play what is in the manuscript, a piece that on the CD lasts six minutes would only take around one minute or one minute thirty seconds. All the rest is creation, it is re-creation, it is contemporary music we are making. Of course we are making contemporary music, but we are also respecting the style of the time while still spontaneously creating new music. For this, I think the gap between real new contemporary music and contemporary music re-created from early music, will become smaller and smaller. In the piece we asked him to compose, Arvo Pärt used a very old Gregorian chant <i>Pacem Domine</i>, this, in a sense, makes his music at the same time modern and ancient. I believe that there is a renaissance of music in the 21st century, because we are awakening and bringing back to life music that has been forgotten for many hundreds of years. This will mean modern composers will be more influenced by this renaissance, and Arvo Pärt and many others are examples of this.<br />
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<i> BS</i> I am afraid Jordi Savall must leave us now to perform here in the church of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich. Jordi, thank you very much for finding the time to join us <i>On An Overgrown Path</i> before tonight's concert.<br />
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<i> JS</i> Thank you, before finishing I would like to say we live today in a time of terrible tragedy, with terrorism and other problems in many countries. To live in peace in such a problematic global environment is very difficult, but to live in peace without peace in your own heart is impossible. And music and love are the best way to recover inner peace.</span> <br />
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