On An Overgrown Path

In that famous image of Rubin's vase do you see the two faces or the vase in between? The faces are the perceived reality equivalent to the binary digits of 0 and 1. The vase is the void in between, which in fact defines the perceived reality of the faces. This void is manifest in the sunyata - emptiness - and bardo - state in between life and death - of Tibetan Buddhism. It also is central to the teachings of the twelfth-century Andalusian Sufi mystic, poet, and philosopher Ibn 'Arabi , who identified the voidness of the vase as barzah - the entity that differentiates between two things but, paradoxically, provides for their unity. Our binary culture conditions us to see the perceived reality of the faces, not the vase in the void. But not only is there much richness in that void, but also, as Ibn 'Arabi explained, the void actually defines the perceived reality. Today, the demands of instant gratification and the pressure to maximise backsides on seats mean that ...

East Anglia is currently in the grip of heavy snowfall and the extreme weather has brought the region to a standstill . What is particularly striking in our snow-covered Zen garden this morning is the total silence. Zen gardens were a particular influence on Toru Takemitsu (seen above), who once explained that 'I design gardens with music'. In his book In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music composer Jonthan Harvey wrote that: Toru Takemitsu was working in a Western musical language, but, like a Japanese novel translated into English, his compositions contain something different. Takemitsu said he only uttered 80 per cent of any idea, in what could be construed as powerful understatement; the rest is silence, the pregnancy of the unsaid, ma. Ma , a profoundly important concept in Japanese culture, is the silent understanding when friends are together, or when one is contemplating nature or art - when meaning is intense but nothing is expressed. Toru Takemitsu is just one of...

I don't believe in magic, I don't believe in I-Ching,I don't believe in Bible, I don't believe in tarot, I don't believe in Hitler, I don't believe in Jesus, I don't believe in Kennedy, I don't believe in Buddha, I don't believe in mantra, I don't believe in Gita, I don't believe in yoga, I don't believe in kings, I don't believe in Elvis, I don't believe in Zimmerman, I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me That litany of rejected influences comes from the track God on the 1969 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album. John Lennon dismisses two elements of Christianity, the Bible and Jesus, and five of Eastern traditions, I-Ching, Buddha, mantra, Gita and yoga. But intriguingly Lennon does not reject Islam as an influence. There may well be a simple explanation for this: namely that Vedanta and Zen Buddhism but not Islam were the esoteric traditions of choice for the the 1960s counterculture. But there is another possibl...

The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered. For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only when something can be said . Whereof one cannot speak, Thereof one must be silent. That photo of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing was taken by me a few weeks ago when driving home across the Somme battlefields in northern France. The Thiepval Memorial was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, and the quotation is from Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which was set as a motet by the architect's daughter Elisabeth Lutyens. Nicknamed 'twelve-tone Lizzie', Elisabeth Lutyens is another candidate who meets Alex Ross' criteria of "Instead of trying to invent a female Bach in prior centuries, let’s seek her in the present". Her Excerpta Tractatus Logico-Philosophic...

Noteworthy is the upcoming world première of a new work by Hossein Hadisi for voices, percussion and dance. Zahhák: the Dragon King of Persia celebrates the Persian minstrels' art of Naqqáli by re-enacting the ancient myth of Zahhák from the Persian 'Book of Kings'. Hossein Hadisi studied composition with Michael Finnissy and his works include Places I'd Take Michael Finnissy To Visit If He Was Ever Going To Come To Iran for piano. Currently a research associate at Cambridge University studying the traditional Persian improvisation school of Avaz , Hadisi's work spans rock and contemporary music and Bang the Bore XI: Psychobabble based on the Muslim rite of prayer can be sampled here . Zahhák: the Dragon King of Persia is performed by leading contemporary music ensemble Exaudi with dancers from London Contemporary Dance School and the production features paintings by Iranian surrealist master Ali Akbar Sadeghi . Performances are at the RADA Studio Theatre,...

The appropriately young Alart Quartet from Spain has done classical music a big favour by making the first recording of Pablo Casals' early unpublished String Quartet. Composed when the cellist was seventeen, the Quartet has been recorded using a performing edition created from a manuscript in Pau Casals Collection in the National Archive of Catalonia . It comes coupled with Casals' uncompleted Sonata for Violin and Piano played by Josep Colomé and Katia Michel on a CD from Spanish independent label Klassic Cat made under the artistic directorship of North Carolina trained and Barcelona resident Mac McClure . Production values are excellent and the LP quality packaging by Barcelona based Mandaruixa Design deserves a mention, although the transposition of timings for the Quartet and Sonata did slip through unnoticed. Made for media discoveries of lost masterpieces are currently trending . So let's make one thing quite clear at this point, Pau Casals' String Quarte...

To Alex Ross' growing list of Cage centenary events I would add Aldeburgh Festival's John Cage Musicircus curated by James Weeks and Exaudi on June 23. As the Aldeburgh Festival brochure explains - a plethora of Festival artists and others fling open the doors of the Hoffman Building and let the sound stream out. Centrepiece of the Musicircus is a repeat of Exaudi's performance of the John Cage Song Books . Their first performance at Snape of the Song Books provides my header image and an article here , while you can listen to James Weeks talking to me about Elisabeth Lutyens and more in an iTunes podcast here . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Header photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2012. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Turning up the bass from left to right are Christopher Austin, Gabriel Prokofiev, Tansy Davies and yours truly. The photo was taken after Saturday's (Oct 9) Snape concert at which Christopher Austin conducted the Azalea Ensemble in Tansy Davies' music . The Azalea Ensemble is a newly formed group of outstanding young musicians mainly from the Royal Academy of Music who specialise in new music. Their principal conductor Christopher Austin , who conducts Boulez-style without a baton, is building an impressive reputation for championing contemporary music including that of Elisabeth Lutyens . Both Azalea and Christopher Austin are names to watch. Azalea's Snape concert was part of an Aldeburgh residency during which they are recording a CD of Tansy Davies' music for Gabriel Prokofiev's Nonclassical label . Judging by the non-classical microphone positions at last night's gig and the tight sound that Azalea were making, the upcoming release should satisfy even t...

'Make the change by non-doing, not by doing' - Sir George Trevelyan Stonehenge is the setting for this photo of the exiled monks of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery blowing the Tibetan low horns known as tungchens . In his 2006 orchestral work Body Mandala Jonathan Harvey uses Western instruments to mimic the sound of tungchens . While composing Body Mandala Harvey, who is a Buddhist , travelled to Northern India and witnessed purification rites in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Although it could well be, the opening quote is not actually about Buddhism. Sir George Trevelyan (1906-1996), who was a leading figure in the movement for spiritual regeneration in Britain and a champion of the Findhorn Community , was not a Buddhist. He was, for a time, a disciple of F.M. Alexander , who developed the Alexander Technique , an alternative approach to physical stress management much favoured by musicians , and it is to the Alexander Technique that the quote refers. Somewhat surprisingly ...

This thread takes us from Odaline de la Martinez, who has featured in several recent posts , to the two women composers seen above. Ms. de la Martinez has just released a new CD of Elizabeth Maconchy's music for voices which links nicely to my recent appreciation of Maconchy's string quartets. The Cuban born but UK resident Odaline de la Martinez has been a longtime champion of British women composers whose numbers include Elizabeth Maconchy to the left of my collage and Elisabeth Lutyens to the right. Lutyens' music has also featured on the path recently and it was very rewarding to see the website of Conrad Clark linking to my portrait and podcast of Lutyens and describing them as 'an excellent intro to her'. Clark is a respected sculptor and designer. He is also Elizabeth Lutyens son. Now hear the podcast of conductor and composer James Weeks discussing Lutyen's music with me . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use",...

Vernon Handley died today at his home in Wales. He was born in 1930, and in his lifetime probably recorded more British music than any conductor, living or dead. He was an acclaimed interpreter of Elgar , Bax , Vaughan Williams , Finzi , and many other composers and worked as assistant to Sir Adrian Boult. I can remember a Dream of Gerontius conducted by Tod with his Guildford orchestra and choir in 1976 that was as good as any I have ever heard. But Tod Handley wasn't just a specialist in the English pastoralists. His cycle of the Robert Simpson symphonies (except No 11) for Hyperion is one of the great achievements of the gramophone. He has recorded Elizabeth Maconchy's music , and his cycle of the Malcolm Arnold symphonies for Conifer ( now re-issued on Decca ) is another great recording landmark. But his major achievements with British music were also a source of frustration to him as they resulted in his being pigeon-holed as a specialist in the field. Tod was also mag...

'The harmony can sometimes be simple, but it's very sensual. There's a real French sense of harmony overlaid onto what, in the English music history line, can probably be traced back to John Dowland and all the really great songwriters and musicians of the fifteenth century. There's an innate Englishness [to his work], but Nick was also somebody who listened to an awful lot of music. I mean, he had the Bach Brandenburg Concertos on his turntable the night he died' - pianist Christopher O'Riley on Nick Drake. Those words comes from Pink Moon by Amanda Petrusich , one of fifty-eight books in the iconic 33 1/3 series about classic rock albums. This publishing imprint really hits the spot by combining great writing, fine design and affordable prices. Petrusich's chapter on the award-winning 2000 Volkswagen commercial that introduced the Pink Moon title track to millions is an important insight into the volatile relationship between creative musicians and th...

'That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable...

In only six weeks more than a thousand people have visited the Overgrown Path podcast page on iTunes , and this week James Weeks talking about the music of Elisabeth Lutyens has been added to my David Munrow and Alvin Curran podcasts . Doesn't that level of interest in music from the long tail tell us something? Elsewhere there has been some good humoured discussion of Angela Hewitt world Bach tour T-shirts, with one defender of the Bach world tour marketing machine writing - ' I think you are missing the point here, which is trying to get new people interested in her, giving her profile in the press and recognition ... every interview, every talk show appearance is promotion.' Every talk show appearance may be promotion. But all promotion is not good promotion. And promoting serious music to mass markets is a risky business. There are very few examples of large, and loyal, new audiences being created by mass marketing. But there are numerous examples that ended in tear...

My article last year about Elisabeth Lutyens created a lot of interest. In it I recommended the new CD of Lutyens' choral music sung by Exaudi directed by James Weeks, and on my Future Radio programme this Sunday (Jan 13) James Weeks (above) joins me to talk about Lutyens and introduce some of the music from the disc, including her 1953 masterpiece the Motet ( Excerpta Tractati Logico-Philosophici ) which is usually known by the more memorable title of the Wittgenstein Motet. The interview will be available as An Overgrown Path podcast after the broadcast. James Weeks is also active as a composer and we will be playing one of his choral compositions on the programme. James is a champion of contemporary music, and he has just been appointed music director of the New London Chamber Choir . Pierre Boulez is patron of the NLCC, which has a reputation for pushing the new music envelope just about as far as it will go, and sometimes beyond. The choir was founded by James Wood , a...

The background rumble of trains on the London Underground passing beneath the hall can be heard on several of the great classical recordings made in the Kingsway Hall in the 1960s and 70s. I was reminded of this when recording the interview for my recent David Munrow on the record programme as I could hear the 21st century equivalent of Underground trains in the form of low frequency hip hop rhythms coming through the 'soundproof' window from the adjacent studio at Future Radio . I decided to ignore the breakthrough as it was not too obtrusive, and I was also mindful of the numerous potentially degrading links in the distribution chain that the programme would go through before reaching the final listener. But I was still thinking analogue, and had seriously underestimated the resilience of programme content in the digital domain. When I listened to the broadcast of the interview live from the audio stream on KEF monitor quality speakers at home the breakthrough could be he...

Adventurous programming of early and late music has reached new audiences via my Future Radio programme . My Inner Cities webcast , which was late both in terms of the work's year of composition and my bedtime, was just one example . From earlier times my David Munrow (photo above) feature was repeated by popular demand over Christmas, and it has just been made available as an iTunes podcast , as has my interview with pianist Daan Vandewalle, who played Alvin Curran's Inner Cities . And every week I am getting more emails at the station responding favourably to the programmes' eclectic mix of music. My sample size may be small, but it is no smaller than the focus groups used extensively by the BBC and by US presidential contenders . If I were predicting the future I would say that early music will be the 'big thing' in 2008, and that there is also a real opportunity for live concerts combining early and contemporary works. Pierre Boulez did it in his Domaine ...

Several interesting points came out of my 'In Conversation' event with Alina Ibragimova before last night's Britten Sinfonia concert. One of them was that, following her CD of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's music , Alina's next recording will be the two violin concertos of Mykola Roslavets. In his excellent A Concise History of Western Music (CUP ISBN 0521842948) Paul Griffiths writes that 'The past is not a path we and our predecessor's have travelled but a labyrinth, and a labyrinth forever in flux' , and Mykola Roslavets is an excellent example of how we are still exploring the labyrinth that is serial music. Received wisdom tells us that Arnold Schoenberg originated serial composition, but did he? Mykola (Nikolai) Roslavets (left) was born in Ukraine in 1881. Although he was influential in the early years of the USSR as a champion of progressive Western composers, his music was politically suppressed at the end of the 1920s. Due to this he spent mos...