On An Overgrown Path

Spent much of this holiday weekend at a performance of all Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues. The Russian pianist Elizaveta Kopelman played them magnificently, and the venue was the beautiful St Mary’s Church in Suffolk, a part of the world that time, but fortunately not good music has passed by. This has been a year of cycles, the Tchaikovsky Quartets in January, a wonderful cycle of the Beethoven Quartets by the Borodins in March, the Ring at Longborough, and now the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues . It has also been a year for music in churches, most memorably a Rachmaninov Vespers in St Peter’s Mancroft in Norwich. But what has this to do with birds? An earlier posting talked about wanting to recall every fork and path that led me to a masterpiece such as the 24 Preludes and Fugues . Well I can recall the path precisely. I was staying in an old house by a river after one of the not so good periods coming back from the worst ever visit of the black dog, and trying to sort out

Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world?... Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here?... Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get in this big enterprise called actuality? Is there no manager? To whom should I make my complaint? From Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard

And that brings us to the problem of Wagner, whose epic musical journys must form part of An Overgrown Path . Many writers far better qualified and more talented than me have written about him, and there is very little left to be said. All I can add is that two of the most profoundly moving experiences I have had in a theatre occurred in the last twelve months, and they were both while under the spell of Richard Wagner. Last December it was that most profoundly disturbing of his works, Parsifal. I challenge any balanced person to explain the reason why (supposedly) civilised and educated people like me remain infatuated by this opera, given the horrendous baggage it brings with it. But Anthony Negus' reading with the Welsh National Opera left me in doubt that this is one of the most important, and probably the most disturbing, works of music theatre. In July I went to Longborough Opera to see their abreviated Ring. I must say I went a sceptic about this particular production. Just

Road at Chantilly by Paul Cezanne Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost Robert Frost on his own poetry: "One stanza of 'The Road Not Taken' was written while I was sitting on a sofa in the middle of England: Was found three or four years la

So we start coming to the real question - what is this site really about? Trying to describe it for some blog listings set my mind going along the following paths. I've been interested, used, and worked on the peripheries of Collaborative Filtering . Amazon.com/co.uk's Recommendations are both maddening and very useful, and I have to say I've bought or borrowed from the library many recommendations. Most of my knowledge of, and passion for classical music has come from the serendipity of switching on BBC's Radio 3 (before it was dumbed-down to the commercial benchmark), hearing a piece, and following that thread onwards. Like many I came to Mahler through the serendipidity of Visconti's Death in Venice in the early-70's, and the fact that the Mahlerian style was digestible to a graduate who had been living with the Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the Moody Blues for a few years. That's why I'm interested in musicplasma.com which I mentioned in an early po

When I think of God, I think of the earth as a very small thing. Then I think of myself as hardly a speck. Then I see there is no use for this tiny dot to spend its small life doing things for itself. It might as well spend its tiny amount of time making the less fortunate specks in the world enjoy them selves. A 14 year old Joen Baez writing in her autobiography And a Voice to Sing - recommended

Connecting the abstract and the everyday is a challenge. Have started reading Toby Faber's book Stradivarius The extraordinary thing is the violins that Amati, Stradivarius and others made in 17th & 18th Century Italy have never been equalled, yet alone bettered for sound quality. No computer simulation, no CAD programmes, but we can't get anywhere near them for beauty of sound, or functional excellence. Antonio Stradivarius was a genius, and he had a thirst for the absoute. A thirst for another world, for truth and beauty - see how the overgrown path connects to the Mystery of the Monks thread above? In his book Wired Life Charles Jonscher describes how that the world's best computer software cannot derive from a photograph of a room a simple description of its contents; chairs, tables, pets, people. And even when software does manage to acquire this apparantely simple ability...it will still have no idea of the significance of the presence of the ob

We need to get back in touch with the real world a bit don't we? Yesterday afternoon I visited a Residential Home for disabled folk. The residents seemd to be a mix of both degenerative and injury related conditions. The Resident Manager, one of those folks who just leaves you speechless with their positive and irony free approach, had just had an internet connection installed. Wants a course for residents on using the internet. Build a small goal oriented project (note how the jargon creeps in) on the fly. The residents have a Japanese pal who worked at the home, and has now moved back to Japan. Suggest sessions creating an email to him, including some photos. Great reception from the manager, first session next week. Find it difficult to pitch my attitude with projects like this. Am I really doing it because I want to help? Am I doing it because I think it is the socially right thing to do? Am I doing it because it is a slightly more subtle ego trip than upgrading to this year&#

How many times do we hear the question? Well, perhaps we should just have the confidence to say: they serve no purpose. Not even that of hoarding the treasures of civilisation. They have never really thought about it. They recognise that they are removed from the worries of this world. Monks serve no purpose. They serve a person. From the guide to L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux

This is the only poem I can read I am the only one can write it I didn't kill myself when things went wrong I didn't turn to drugs or teaching I tried to sleep but when I couldn't sleep I learned to write what might be read on nights like this by one like me Leonard Cohen 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

After days of rain a sunny morning. The thread of the monastic life will recur. It's 08.41 and Orlando Gibbon's Second Service is playing. The literature for Le Barroux says... The Mystery of the Monks The monks built Europe, but they did not do it intentioanlly.Their adventure is first of all, if not exclusively, an inner adventure, whose only motive is thirst. A thirst for the absoute. Thirst for another world, for truth and beauty.

Currently I'm on a Mozart binge. Started with the (augmented) Grumiaux Trio recordings of the String Quintets. Apart from being sublime music these are wonderful recordings. Some of the best string sound around, and its analogue. Although I'm told the sound quality is not so much the technology as the playing. Moved onto the String Trios yesterday. Again Grumiaux Trio. Discovered the Mozart Preludes and Fugues, how have I never heard these before? On the reading front coming to the end of Iris Murdoch's The Bell. A thought provoking book, but one that could be taughter in its construction. But the monastic theme is one of those threads I will be returning to. Fun day yesterday teaching for three hours learners how to use a web site that just happened to be down that day. But an interesting discovery in the evening - www.musicplasma.com One of those (many) ideas I had a while back. Only seems to be pop (and a little jazz) at present but very interesting concept.

EXECUTIVE SESSIONS OF THE SENATE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS ========================= VOLUME 2 __________ EIGHTY-THIRD CONGRESS FIRST SESSION 1953 STATE DEPARTMENT TEACHER-STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM [Editor's note.--The composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990), whose works included Billy the Kid, Lincoln Portrait, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1944 and an Academy Award in 1950. Because he had gone to Italy on a Fulbright scholarship in 1951, the subcommittee questioned him about his past political associations. His oral history, published as Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis, Copland, 1900 through 1942 (New York: St. Martin's, 1984), and Copland Since 1943 (New York: St. Martin's, 1989) acknowledged that he had been a ``fellow traveler'' in the 1930s because ``it seemed the thing to do at the time,'' but stated that he had never joined a political party. Fo