On An Overgrown Path

Facebook scandals are now a daily occurence and yesterday's centred on allegations that the social network restricts the breadth of news feeds. The allegations, which have substance, prompted an explanation from Ramya Sethuraman , a product manager at Facebook, that their algorithms filter newsfeed content because “The goal of News Feed is to show you the posts that matter to you so that you have an enjoyable experience". Which given the pivotal role of Facebook and other social media in shaping people's worldview - 43% of US adults source news from Facebook - raises the important question of is there not more to life than enjoyable experiences? Having our culture shaped by algorithms coded by a bunch of nerds in Menlo Park to deliver "an enjoyable experience" is obviously very undesirable. For instance, are those closing minutes of Mahler's Ninth Symphony which leave the listener hovering miraculously between hope and anguish an enjoyable experience? I...

There is no doubt that classical concerts are becoming noisier. Concert recordings from the past, e.g. Sir Adrian Boult's Elgar First Symphony at a 1976 Prom - which I attended - or Bruno Maderna's 1971 Festival Hall Mahler Nine - I was at his subsequent Proms performance - with their quiescent audiences provide a stark contrast to the BBC Radio 3 relays of this year's Proms. Not only do we now have the the mindless dribbles of applause between movements, but coughing and other noises off have become de rigeur during the music as well as between it. Not to mention the frantic outbursts by Radio 3's talking heads immediately before and after the music. And on occasions, there are even contributions from mobile phones . A useful perspective on the balance between the music and the audience is provided in the French Canadian sitar player and teacher Michel Guay's memoir Devenir Invincible . As recounted in my post Are you addicted? Ravi Shankar had strong views ...

Current demands for a new London concert hall with 'state of the art' sound need to be put into perspective. One critic recently tweeted "Harder and harder to tolerate the acoustic at the Barbican. Did anyone hear the B[avarian] R[adio] S[ymphony O[rchestra] cellos tonight? 'Cos I didn't." Yes, the three main London concert venues, the Barbican, Festival and Albert Halls suffer from compromised sound . But how compromised is that sound in orders of magnitude? To help answer that question I am proposing a model comparing concert hall and hi-fi sound. This comparison has validity both because recorded sound is now the dominant way music is consumed , and because the critics demonising the sound of London concert halls also review recorded music using hi-fi systems. Stereophile magazine under the inspired editorship of John Atkinson has for decades provided an objective guide to recorded sound quality. Stereophile publishes an annual listing of the top 50...

In a Telegraph article about the 2017 BBC Proms the concert series' director David Pickard raises hopes for an possible important change in direction. Discussing the move away from Proms themed to TV shows, Pickard observes that "what we need to be thinking of is nurturing a long-term audience for classical music". This statement may be blindingly obvious, but it is important for two reasons. First, it is a welcome sign that somebody at the BBC has finally realised what many of us have known for years, that dumbing down classical music does not build a long-term audience . The second reason why his observation is important is because it is a much-needed admission that quality and not quantity of audience is what matters . In the past the spin-masters at the BBC have been eager to point out the numbers of first-time concertgoers at the Proms. For instance the number of 33,000 first-time concertgoers was trumpeted for the 2014 Proms season ; but drilling down below th...

Some really sparkling gems are back in the catalogue thanks to inspired dumpster diving by independent label Brilliant Classics . Rifling through the bins outside Universal Music's plush HQ has resulted in a clutch of important re-releases from the lean and mean Dutch label of material originally released by Deutsche Grammophon. The highlight for me is the CD above which captures four late works by Bruno Maderna . The Italian composer, who died of cancer in 1973 aged 51, is usually associated with the Darmstadt group of composers which includes Berio, Boulez and Stockhausen. But Maderna's large output was remarkably varied and included film scores and opera. He also edited early music and was a superb conductor - I have written here previously of how his 1973 performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony was a musical epiphany for me . Maderna's Quadrivium from 1969 takes pride of place on the disc. Like many of his peers Maderna was fascinated by numbers and Quadrivium is s...

This could indicate that the center of economic activity in classical music is no longer records but live events. On top, concert halls are the new recording studios and EMI LBO [leveraged buy out] was doomed from the start. That comments was added by Antoine Leboyer to What price Mahler ? Now Antoine is one of the few bloggers still writing what he thinks rather than what big music wants him to think and I can't disagree with his point. But the eclipse of the studio by the concert hall as a recording venue has many implications. Live recordings have been around for ages. But how many of your all time favourite discs come from concert recordings? A quick scan across my well-stocked shelves identifies only two, Richter and Gavrilov's Handel Suites and Bruno Maderna's Mahler Nine . Just recently a musician friend was lamenting the compromised technical, musical and emotional quality of the new generation of orchestra label live recordings. This guy has good ears and he ...

A critic writing a savage review of a concert is considered to be doing his job, not being anti-classical music. But a commentator writing critically of the BBC's output is considered to be an anti-BBC heretic. Which suggests parallels between the BBC and the established Church. Both have been flattered for decades by unquestioning believers. Both are now in terminal decline. And the loss of both will be a great tragedy. A regular reader from the States writes asking for comment on the latest reports of cuts at the BBC, a subject I have hesitated to cover for the reasons set out above. But, using the justification so often cited by the BBC - 'it's what the audience wants', here goes. There is currently so much bad news about the BBC it is difficult to know where to start. Within the last few days two major stories have broken. First came a damning report from the National Audit Office on the £100 million overspend on the rebuilding of Broadcasting House, which included...

Today's media section of the Independent devotes its front page and two inside pages to the party line on the Proms from BBC Radio 3 controller and Proms director Roger Wright . Today's arts section of the Independent carries no review of yesterday's BBC Prom, nor has the newspaper carried a review of any concert in the 2008 season. In the days when newspapers took classical music seriously and Promenade Concerts were more than a media circus a reviewer described a Prom given by the conductor in my header photo as '... both convincing and moving. In human, dramatic terms often very impressive ... the final pages were absolutely right' . I was in the Albert Hall for that unplugged Prom and it was an evening I will never forget. Read more here. Header image from Bach Cantatas . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright o...

Important article about the Bauhaus design school in yesterday's Guardian . The Bauhaus in Dessau was closed by the Nazis in 1932. Four years earlier the architect Walter Gropius had resigned, choosing to work outside Germany. In 1935 Gropius designed the building in East Anglia seen in my header photo. It is Impington Village College in Cambridgeshire, which was a design collabaration between Gropius and Maxwell Fry . It was Gropius' only major UK commission, and the Village College is still in use today . Gropius married Alma Mahler , widow of Gustav Mahler, in 1915. Their daughter Manon died of polio aged eighteen, and composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her. Gropius and Alma Mahler were divorced in 1920. The Bauhaus zeitgeist also found refuge in Dartington in Devon. Here the headmaster's house for the progrssive Dartington Hall School , seen in the lower photo, was designed by William Lescaze in the Bauhaus style, and the Ballets Joos from E...

Many musicians have wondered why Boulez used the German title Cummings ist der Dichter for a work based on an English poem. Here is the answer; "I was commissioned to write a piece for the festival at Ulm. I couldn't find a title for the work when they asked me what to print on the program. In a letter in German - my German was not very good at that time - I wrote: 'I have not chosen a title yet, but what I can tell you is this: Cummings is the poet.' A reply came from a German secretary who had misunderstood my letter: 'As for your new work, Cummings ist der Dichter.... ' I found that mistake so wonderful that I thought, well, then, that's a title given by the Gods" ~ from Boulez - Composer, Conductor, Enigma by Joan Peyser (Schirmer ISBN 0028717007) Pierre Boulez (above) will be one of the composers in my Overgrown Path webcast on Sunday August 19 on Future Radio . I am playing his Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna bookended by Bach. The opening...

If you are gay , black or female the good news is your chances of making it big in classical music are definitely improving. But the bad news is if you are the wrong side of 40 your chances of hitting the big time are not looking so good. Institutionalised age discrimination in classical music has been around for a long time. One of the most famous examples was the forced retirement of Sir Adrian Boult from the position of Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra when he reached the BBC's mandatory retirement age of 60 in 1949. But more insidious is the underground age discrimination that is now starting to appear. To get a buzz going about new classical talent they must be under 40, sport an iPhone and be on Facebook , play uptown venues without seats, and have hip-hop remixes on YouTube . The problem is all due to classical music's obsession with attracting younger audiences. (I wonder if rock musicians spend their time obsessing over how to attract older audiences?...

Henry Holland has left a new comment on the post " Boulez - Rituel In Memoriam Maderna ": Ah, one my favorite Paths of yours Pliable since I started to read OAOP two (three?) years ago. I love Rituel in Memoriam Maderna , I listened to it on my iPod a few weeks ago. I wish that there was more than one official recording of it or I could find some live versions on my usual file theft sites. I know Boulez is The Great Bogeyman of 20th Century music along with Schoenberg , and while I certainly don't like all of his pieces, there are some that are among my favorite pieces of music. I went to a performance of Pli selon Pli at the Concertgebouw when I was in Amsterdam recently and despite the excellent performance by the ASKO Ensemble and Barbara Hannigan I wasn't impressed by the piece all that much; I hadn't heard it in a while. I keep hoping that a performance of the amazing Repons will take place in the US so I can easily afford to travel to hear it but it...

Bruno Maderna was a close friend of Pierre Boulez . In 1958 Boulez and Maderna were conductors of two of the three orchestras in the fraught premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen , the third orchestra was directed by the composer. My picture above, from the Stockhausen archive , was taken at a rehearsal for the premiere in Cologne. Left clicking on the image will enlarge it. Stockhausen is conducting orchestra 1 on the left, Maderna orchestra 2 in the centre, and Boulez orchestra 3 on the right. The photo at the foot of the article shows Boulez, Maderna and Stockhausen in Darmstadt in 1956, and, interestingly, was taken by Hans Keller . . Maderna's relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was established before Boulez's period as the orchestra's chief conductor, and was one of the many fruits of William Glock's period as BBC Controller of Music between 1959 and 1972. Maderna made his debut with the orchestra in 1959 when he gave the first public perfo...

My recent post about the BBC Legends release of Bruno Maderna conducting Mahler's Ninth Symphony attracted a lot of readers. So it is good to see a new CD of Maderna's music on the Vienna based Col Legno label. The new release features Maderna's three oboe concertoes played by Fabian Menzel with Michael Stern conducting the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra . In my post I wrote: 'I can...express the hope that we may see a revival of interest in Maderna the composer as well as Maderna the conductor' . Looks like it could be happening. For more on Maderna on the path visit The Year is '72. Photo shows Bruno Maderna (centre) in 1958 with two other important contemporary composers - Pierre Boulez (left) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (right), credit Drammaturgia.it . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Re...