On An Overgrown Path

Charles Ives , Umberto Giordano , Osvaldo Golijov , Paul Hindemith and Alban Berg all wrote music for accordion. So did Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; in fact he wrote a score that calls for four diatonic button accordions. Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 2 for Orchestra is not as well known as the Suite No. 4 'Mozartiana' . Which is surprising: as they say on Amazon, if you like Tchikovsky's ballets you will like his Suite no. 2. Or is it because, as they say in the music director's office today: - if your score needs four accordions don't expect us to programme it? I have Michael Tilson Thomas' recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra; which also includes 'Mozartiana' . The performance is excellent as is the sound. The latter is explained by CBS sub-contracting the recording to EMI. The venue was Abbey Road Studio One in 1981 with EMI's Neville Boyling at the mixing desk. My research indicates that this CD of the two orchestral suites is currently only ...

ECM has responded to the chill winds blowing currently blowing through the music market with some unmissable bargain re-issues. No matter what other gems hit the stores in the coming months, the 3 CD box The Codona Trilogy is certain to be among my CDs of the year. The line up for Codona was African-American trumpeter Don Cherry , Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos , and Collin Walcott on sitar, tabla, hammered dulcimer, sanza, timpani, and voice. The band took its name from a circus trapeze act of the early 20th century called the Flying Codonas, and this CD re-issue captures the musicians performing their creative high-wire act without a safety net in sight. The Codona Trilogy sets were laid down between 1978 and 1982, and Steve Lake's seventeen page booklet essay tells it far better than I can: Weaving together melodies and rhythms from everywhere - North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe - Codona presaged the surging advent of a pan-cultural 'world musi...

"This book comes on like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch" - Thomas Pynchon Promotional blurb on cover of Richard Fariña's 1966 novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me . More on Richard Fariña soon. He was married to Joan Baez's sister Mimi. So in the meantime here is a link to Joan Baez's (or, actually, Lloyd Stone's ) take on Sibelius . 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). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Marjane Satrapi's exquisite animated film Persepolis was made in France, where Satrapi has lived for twenty years, and where the autobiographical graphic novel on which the film was based, was first published. Satrapi was born in Iran and the film hauntingly portrays Satrapi's life during and after the 1979 Iranian revolution , the 30th anniversary of which is currently being celebrated , and her time in exile in Europe after the revolution. The film has generated protests from the present Iranian government. But it also highly critical of the previous regime and alledges that the torturers employed by the Shah were trained by the CIA, and claims that both Iran and Iraq were financed by the West in the war between the two countries. Approaches from Hollywood studios to participate in the production were rebutted, but distribution is handled by Sony Pictures . The classical music world has also been involved in the shadowy world of Iranian politics. In a recent article I told ...

"The fact that John McLaughlin Williams (above) doesn't have an orchestra of his own is a disgrace," says musicologist, critic and producer Walter Simmons , who employed Williams on CDs devoted to the little-known American romantic Nicolas Flagello . How can a conductor as obviously talented as Williams remain hidden in plain sight? The answer has to do with his relatively late start and the circuitous path he took to the podium, the unusual repertoire he has chosen to champion and the vagaries of a business in which the best musicians don't always get the best gigs. "It's really been a guerilla campaign," says Williams. "There's a chute that most conductors go through, but I came in through the side door. I missed certain contacts that help get to that next level. It's not that I won't get there, but it definitely takes more work." "How people react to me in a racial sense is completely subjective and something they keep to...

Overgrown Path readers agree that every picture tells a story. In last week's poll a clear majority of 58% said cover art affected their decision to purchase a recording, compared with 34% who said it didn't. 6% were non-believers who only buy MP3s. I'm not sure what happened to the remaining 2%; either they were lost in rounding by the Blogger software, or they buy 78s in plain brown paper sleeves. My two illustrations feature the CD Close Voices from Far-away released by Sony, for some inexplicable reason, only in the Czech Republic. The recording, which was made in the former Augustian monastery in České Lípě in 2006, is a collabaration between the Buddhist monks of Gyosan-ryu Tendai Shomyo from Japan and the Schola Gregoriana Pragensis from Prague. I have a feeling that a few readers will be seeking the CD out after seeing it here. But would they have done so if I had only run those fifty-five words of descriptive copy without the cover art? In the age of the file ...

Alsop’s interpretations and her Bournemouth orchestra’s playing are every bit the equal of those on the continuing Nonesuch series of recordings - review by Matthew Rye , The Telegraph, November 20, 2004 Mediocre? Give your view in the poll on the right-hand sidebar. Feb 16 - poll results here It's a question of balance . Marin Alsop photo credit Baltimore Symphony Orchestra . 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). Report errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk