This man is dangerous

As I advance in years Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius touches me more and more. Elgar was a devout Catholic and the oratorio's chilling story of a soul's journey through death to judgement is, of course, a setting of Cardinal Newman's poem of the same name. Newman was the Anglican vicar of St Augustine's Oxford before converting to Catholicism in 1845 and he wrote his paen of praise to mystical Catholic theology, The Dream of Gerontius in 1865.

Another of Cardinal Newman's work, his 1845 essay Development of Christian Doctrine in which he justifies his conversion to Catholicism, was a major influence on one of the least known and most fascinating religous figures of the twentieth-century, a figure whose progressive views on homosexuality, feminism and inter-faith communities could hardly have been more distant from the prim Victorian world of Elgar and Newman.

Bede Griffiths was born Alan Richard Griffiths into a British middle class family at Walton-on-Thames, English in 1906. He read English and Philosophy at Oxford and he became a life-long friend of the writer and scholar C.S. Lewis before participating in an early experiment in communal living with two male friends in the Cotswolds. While training for the Anglican ministry Griffiths read the Newman essay and this affected him so profoundly that he too converted to Catholicism and joined the novitiate at Prinknash Abbey, which featured on these pages two years ago.

He was ordained Father Bede in 1940 and became prior of Prinknash's sister house at Farnborough Abbey where I was privileged to hear Vespers celebrated in plainsong while writing this article. Griffiths had been introduced to Eastern philosophy, yoga and Indian Scriptures by a Jungian analyst, and while at Farnborough met Fr. Benedict Alapatt, an Indian priest born in Europe, whose vision was to start a monastic foundation in India. In 1955, Griffiths travelled with Fr. Benedict to Bombay and settled first in Kengeri and then in Kurisumala for ten years.


In 1968 Bede Griffiths moved to an established ashram at Shantivanam in southern India with two other monks and it was here that he undertook his pioneering studies of Indian thought and its relation to Christian theology. Shantivanam was accepted into the Catholic Camaldolese congregation and under Griffiths' leadership the ashram developed as a center of contemplative life and cultural and religous dialogue. As my header portrait shows Griffiths wore the saffron robes of a Hindu monk and he took the name Swami Dayananda and intermingled elements of Hinduism and Catholicism in his celebration of the Mass. The photo above is a general view of Shantivanam while the lower image shows the temple where Hindu chants were mixed with the Catholic liturgy. In the foreground is the 'cosmic cross' that was one of many controversial features of the ashram.

'Going native' created tensions with the Catholic hierarchy as did Bede Griffiths' remarkably progressive views. These included believing that homosexual love was "as normal and natural as love betwen people of the opposite sex". He advocated inter-faith communities and wanted a Church that was more concerned with love than sin. He realised that God was feminine as well as masculine and was one of the first advocates of married clergy and ministries for women. Like that other great Catholic mystic Thomas Merton who also travelled to the East Griffiths believed that meditation should take a central place in worship.

More than a decade after his death Bede Griffiths' teachings are still creating controversy. The headline for this article is taken from a February 2005 article in the National Catholic Reporter which opens with these words:

'This man, Bede Griffiths, is dangerous. That the Benedictine monk died at his Shantivanam (Forest of Peace) ashram in India in 1993 at the fine age of 86 does not alter the fact--except to the extent his death intensifies our understanding of our own situation.

Griffiths, this Hindu sannyasi (ascetic), a Catholic priest, elegant in his writing, in person charming, in death could too easily be diminished into icon-only status. His is a pleasing lithograph of shoulder-length flowing hair, neatly trimmed swami beard, handsome face, kindly if penetrating eyes bordered by haloes and swirling smoke of incense.

His writings belie the image. They are danger-daring prods, cautions, lures, inducements, challenges, barbs, warnings and reassurances from a man who found nature first, and through nature God, and through God Catholicism, and through Catholicism Benedictinism, and through the monastic life, Eastern mysticism.'

Although heresy for some post-Vatican 2 Catholics Bede Griffiths views were remarkably in tune with the zeitgeist of the late 60s. He was, apparently celibate, and said that 'when I was young I might have been a homosexual' but towards the end of his life formed close relationships with several female students. His progressive views found an audience and in the 1980s he became a leading figure in Christian-Hindu dialogue and often visited the U.S. where his talks drew large audiences. He died at Shantivanam in 1993 and his work is continued today by the Bede Griffiths Trust, part of the Camaldolese Institute for East-West Dialogue based in California. Visit their website for related audio files, there are audio interviews with Griffiths on the BBC website.

Shirley du Boulay's excellent biography of Bede Griffiths, Beyond the Darkness, from which my header portrait is taken, is now available in paperback and is highly recommended. Like Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain Bede Griffiths' early autobiography The Golden String became a best seller and is again recommended although the more comprehensive du Boulay biography is my first choice.

There are fundamental differences between the teachings of Bede Griffiths and those of the Taizé Community in Burgundy, France. But they both share a commitment to inclusiveness in religous celebration, a commitment which has increased in relevance in the twenty-first century. This is confirmed by the fact that my two articles on the Taizé Community from 2006 continue to be the most visited of any posts On An Overgrown Path, read them here and here.


Now playing - The Kronos Quartet's and Asha Bhosle's homage to legendary Indian film composer Rahul Dev Burman. Elgar to Bollywood is a distinctly overgrown path even by my standards but hear me out. The form of Goan folk music known as deknii is believed to be a blend of Catholic and Hindu music (Goa's population is 66% Hindu and 27% Christian). One of the most famous deknni songs, Hanv Saiba Poltodi Vetam, was used by by Raj Kapoor in his Hindi movie Bobby. Which provides my path to the Kronos' wonderful tribute to Bollywood. While major labels such as Universal Music insist that the salvation of the classical music industry is a reincarnation of the Three Tenors (together with the shellac 78 presumably?), others, such as Nonesuch, agree with Philip Glass that 'World Music is the new classical'. Now wouldn't Bede Griffiths' life make a superb Philip Glass opera?


Image credits, header from Shirley du Boulay's biography, the two photos of Shantivanam from the Bede Griffiths Trust. 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

Peace symphony for presidential candidate

'When one is in one's twenties, one tends to see things in perhaps too simple a way. At the time I was very attracted to the peaceful aspects of Christianity - Dona nobis pacem, "turn the other cheek", and so forth. The United States was mired in the war in Vietnam and many churches were active in rallies and other projects of the Peace Movement. I somehow overlooked the history of the inquisition and crusades, and hardly anticipated the trend of very recent history towards church support of capital punishment and various military endeavours. Thus the "Mass without Singers" was for me an anti-war statement, and I chose George McGovern as my dedicatee, believing that his tremendous loss in the 1972 election, his campaign had given legitimacy to the cause of peace' - writes Arnold Rosner in the notes for the new Naxos CD of his post-romantic Symphony No. 5 'Missa sine Cantoribus super Salve regina' from 1973 played by the National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by John McLaughlin Williams.

The first ever recording of Rosner's "Mass without singers" is the latest release in Naxos' American Classics series, a project that is making a large amount of previously unrecorded and unfashionable music available. Ignore the condescending views of today's music pontiffs whose attitude has parallels in the Catholic Church's long history of prohibiting translations of the Bible to prevent the masses from making their own religous judgements. Low cost CDs from Naxos and others are disruptive technology in the tradition of the movable-type printing that made translated Bibles widely available and triggered the Reformation.

Forget whether Rosner's Mass is 'cool' or 'uncool' or first or third-rate. It deserves to be heard so listeners can make their own judgement. The coupling on this excellent CD is Nicolas Flagello's 1957 Missa Sinfonica. Flagello was a great artist, both in music and paint. Read more about him here.
Image credit medaloffreedom.com. 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

On the path of Stockhausen's teachers

In 1950 Karlheinz Stockhausen was accepted into Frank Martin's composition class at the Cologne Musikhochschule. The relationship was not a success, Stockhausen had only a few hours of tuition with Martin, and most of this was spent analysing his teacher's own compositions. More Frank Martin down this path.

Two years later Stockhausen started studying composition with Darius Milhaud in Paris. But once again Stockhausen was dissatisfied with his teacher, and after a few weeks he stopped attending Milhaud's classes. My photo above shows the house that Milhaud was born in at 4, Bd de la République, Aix-en-Provence. His birthplace, which I visited in September, is now the Hotel Artea and not a museum. There is a discount if you check-in after 8.00pm, which cannot be said for many composer's birthplaces.

Milhaud's other pupils at various times included Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Burt Bacharach. Alvin Curran was not among them, but there are connections. Aix-en-Provence supplied my recent Inner Cities photos, and from 1991 to 2006 Curran was Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. This Chair was endowed in memory of Milhaud who taught there after being forced to leave France in 1940 because of his Jewish backgound. Milhaud's Jewish ancestors had lived in the ghetto in Cavaillon. This town is close to Avignon, sometime home of the Popes, which is where Stockhausen's third teacher, the devout Catholic Olivier Messiaen was born.

Stockhausen's relationship with Messiaen more than made up for his failures with Martin and Milhaud. Stockhausen and Messiean shared the Catholic faith, and the young composer attended Messiaen's course in aesthetics and analysis in Paris twice a week for a year. Stockhausen later said: 'In many respects Messiaen did the opposite of what I wanted. He never tried to convince me. That made him a good teacher. He did not give instruction in composition, but showed me how he understood the music of others and how he worked himself.'

Olivier Messiaen was born on December 10, 1908. His birthplace Avignon is only a short distance from Milhaud's in Aix-en-Provence. In fact all my paths converge in Avignon as the city also has connections with Pierre Boulez, who was another pupil of Messiaen and a colleague of Stockhausen.

The work of Messiaen, Stockhausen and Boulez also converge in London in one of the highlights of 2008, which is, of course, Messiaen's centenary year. The event is the Southbank Centre's festival The Music of Olivier Messiaen - From The Canyons to the Stars. If anything was to tempt me to move back to London it would be this year long feast of twentieth-century music. Full details here, and below are some of my personal 'must attends'.

* Opening concert February 2 - Messiaen Des canyons aux étoiles played by Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Susanna Mälkki
* February 7 - Southbank Gamelan Players followed by Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie with Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
* February 13 - Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
* February 15 - concert by Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble including Stockhausen Kontra-Punkte and Xenakis Jalons.
* February 17 - must be THE concert of 2008. Boulez Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna and Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum with London Sinfonietta conducted by Peter Eötvös (who is one of the conductors of Gruppen in my Future Radio webcast this Sunday Dec 16).
* May 1 - Ascension Day service in Westminster Abbey including the organ version of Messiaen's L'Ascension.
* May 11 - Pentecost Mass including movements from Messiaen's Pentecost Mass for organ, Gregorian chant and Victoria's Missa Dum complerentur.
* October 20 - organ recital in the London Oratory that includes a rare chance to hear the Kyrie from Satie's Messa des Pauvres, and movements from Tournemire's L'Orgue Mystique. The Satie fragment was composed for the church that the composer founded, and at which he was the only worshiper, the Eglise métropolitaine d'Art.
* Centenary concert Dec 10 - Messiaen Couleurs de la cité céleste and Sept Haïkaï, Boulez sur Incises with Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Pierre Boulez.

I'm just adding up how much a ticket for every concert will cost ...


Now playing - Messiaen's Des canyons aux étoile (From the canyons to the stars) on the double Apex CD with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, and Ensemble Ars Nova. The couplings are Messiaen's Hymne au Saint-Sacrement and Les offrandes oubliées, the sound is excellent, and there are decent sleeve notes. You can buy it from Amazon resellers for not much more than a Starbucks latte. What can I say, other than ask that seasonal roast chestnut? - is recorded classical music too cheap?

Header photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. 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

Catholic music for the mass market

Coverage elsewhere of Pope Benedict's musical tastes prompts a couple of back links. This one is about the Pope's visits to the wartime Salzburg Festival. While this one suggests the Holy Father could learn something from a green hill in France.
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

If you like Spem in alium try this …

Read next week's Proms picks by Pliable here.

Tuesday's late night BBC Prom by the Tallis Scholars includes a little known work by Alessandro Striggio. A search on Amazon.com for Thomas Tallis’ mighty forty part motet Spem in alium returns 43 results. But a search for Striggio’s motet for the same forces, Ecce beatam lucem, returns just 2 results. The popularity of Tallis’ masterpiece is perfectly understandable, but the neglect of its progenitor is something of a mystery.

Alessandro Striggio worked in Florence and Mantua in the 1550s, and developed a luxurious and opulent style of choral writing that culminated in a Sanctus for sixty voices that has sadly been lost over the intervening centuries. The motet Ecce beatam lucem was composed in 1561 as a celebration of Catholicism. It was written to mark the visit of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este to France where he was preaching against Protestantism, and uses forty voices organised in varying groupings through the course of the work.

In 1567 Striggio travelled to London where Ecco beatam lucem was received rapturously. It is thought that a request by Thomas Howard fourth Duke of Norfolk prompted Thomas Tallis to start composing Spem in alium in 1567 as a response to the popularity of Striggio’s motet. There are some striking similarities. They both use the same forces, share the key of G, and exploit the spine-chilling impact of forty-voice polyphony. Tallis however raised the game, Spem is more overtly sacred, and the technical writing and development is more accomplished.

But as they say on Amazon.com if you like Spem in alium you will also like Ecce beatam lucem. I have the first Huelgas Ensemble version directed by Paul van Nevel (photo below). This 1994 CD was recorded was made in the St Barbara Church, Gent, Belgium with the choir standing in their signature circle (photo above). The couplings are also well worth hearing, including some more little known Renaissance polyphony from Costanzo Porta, Josquin Desprez, Johannes Ockeghem, Pierre de Manchicourt and Giovanni Gabrielli, as well as Spem in Alium itself. The same forces have recently re-recorded Ecce beatem lucem for Harmonia Mundi in SACD surround sound. Despite these two fine versions by the Huelgas Ensemble there is still a real gap in the market for choral groups with forty top flight voices to fill, and some additional recordings of Ecce beatam lucem would make a real change instead of the 44th version of Spem.

* Now hear the similarities for yourself with this brief sample from the first Huelges Ensemble recording of Ecce beatam lucem, or listen online to both works complete for seven days after the concert.

If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Masses of early music on iPods
Image credits, Huelgas Ensemble Berliner Festpiele,
Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Going Buddhist with Lou Harrison

'That Pope John Paul II took the trouble in his books to attack Buddhism suggests that there might be something valuable here. Why else would he see it as a dangerous rival belief system? It offers hope to those of us who are hurt by the speed and aggression of the modern world, willing to look within to try to moderate our own aggressive pace and notice that we often run the gauntlet of purely imaginary dangers; or inhabit a fog of no-feeling' ~ from Going Buddhist by Peter J Conradi (Short Books ISBN 1904977014). I've just returned from a few days at the Padmaloka Buddhist retreat centre here in rural Norfolk. The accompanying photos were taken by me at Padmaloka, and, believe it or not, the shrine room below is a converted Norfolk barn!


Now playing is Joanna MacGregor's recording of the piano concerto by a composer with a deep commitment to Buddhism. Lou Harrison was born ninety years ago, on May 14 1917, and died in 2003. Here is an interview with him by Dr Geoff Smith, Head of Music, Bath Spa University which explores some of the Eastern influences on the composer's music. The interview is republished from Joanna MacGregor's excellent SoundCircus website.

I'd like to start by asking you about living and composing on the West Coast of America as opposed to the East. What are the differences between the two, and why have you chosen the West?
Well, why would anyone choose the East? The division in the United States is no longer between North and South, it's the Rockies. As I like to point out, starlings and Lyme Disease (a very dangerous disease first found in East Lyme, Connecticut) have both made it to California from the East. The Rockies are the great divide. California is a very different part of the United States - it's a very special civilization. In between the East and California is, from my point of view, the real America, that is to say the four states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. That to me is America, the rest is peripheral - shore stuff.

How would you describe 'West Coast' music? What would you say is its essence?
Well, there's no one 'is' about it. I have defined it as being freer. We're not bound up with industrial 'twelve-tone-ism' quite so much as the East seaboard is, and also we're not afraid out here if something sounds pretty. I don't see that increased complexity is any solution at all. We also have a very strong connection with Asia. People in New York commute to Europe all the time, and that feels strange to me. I habitually go to Asia. This is Pacifica, that's Atlantica. They're different orientations. I don't think that there is a composer in the West who is not aware of that. We're all aware, from Seattle and Vancouver down to San Diego, that we're part of Pacifica. For some of us it feels more natural than for others. I came to my legal maturity (I've never really grown up) in San Francisco, where every week I went to the Cantonese Opera. I constantly heard Asian music. I heard my first gamelan in the middle of San Francisco Bay, and half of my friends go back and forth to Indonesia and Japan all the time. I mean, gee whizz, yesterday morning I finished one of my boxes of Kellogg's Ken Mai flakes. You can't get them in this country - my Japanese friends send them to me. So we have a regular transit across the
Pacific.


Going back to West versus East, how is your relationship with European tradition changed? Was it always so clear to you that you were looking East?
Well, I lived in Manhattan for ten years and had a breakdown at the end of it, which revealed to me that I was not a true New Yorker. So I moved back here, with an intermission of a couple of years at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, which was very pleasant. After I got back, my parents wanted to give me a little place to work in. Just a couple of doors from here was a place they had looked at. I looked at it, and it was just like my studio at Black Mountain College, so I said, 'That's it.' That was I954, and that's why I'm here. Also, Harry Partch was in San Francisco at that time, and we stayed friends till he died in San Diego. John [Cage] was here for a long time too, but that was early on, in the late 1930's. But there's a tradition in California. For example, Mills College, the Centre for Contemporary Music has been going for a long time- Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley. Cal Arts has been a lively place, as has La Jolla in San Diego. There's a centre in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle is a hotbed. But it also goes along the whole coast and includes Mexico and Vancouver too.

What is it about living in the country that appeals to you?
Well, as I said, I 'did' ten years in Manhattan and finally had a breakdown. Three days in a city now and I'm quite flipped. There's too much noise. I just can't do with it. But these days a fax can come in from anywhere in the world, books and records can be ordered from anywhere. When I first moved here, to Aptos, there was very little: no real bookstores, the university was not here, neither was Cabrillo College. It was really rural. Then it gradually piled up, and now it's a classy metropolitan area. I used to go to San Francisco almost monthly, not only for sex but for books and galleries. Now there are lots of bookstores, galleries, craftsmen and intellectuals. There's a Shakespeare festival and the Cabrillo music festival every year. I see no reason why anybody has to live in depraved surroundings, in deteriorated air etc. Be yourself. If you want a calmer life then take it, for heaven's sake. The mind doesn't stop.


You studied with Henry Cowell first, then Schoenberg. What did they give you?
Lots. Cowell gave me an enormous amount of 'how to' knowledge, including how to write a serial piece before I went to Schoenberg. Also an immense stimulation about world music. He was an absolutely fascinating man, because of his knowledge not only of world music but also of how to do different things. His book New Musical Resources continues to be very stimulating, as does the symposium that he put out years ago, American Composers on American Music. From Schoenberg, oddly enough, I learned simplicity. I got myself into a corner one day, so I took the problem to him. He extricated me by saying, 'Only the salient. Only the important. Don't go any further. Just do what is going ahead and in its most salient form.' In short, no complications - strip it. I've sometimes wondered whether, when I write a Balungan for a Javanese gamelan for only five or seven notes, it might have something to do with Schoenberg's admonition. When I left he said that I was not to study with anybody, that I didn't need that. He said, 'Study only Mozart'. That was his admonition - simplicity. He was a wonderful man, incidentally, quite unlike the image a lot of people seem to have of him as some sort of German militarist. I mean, he was Viennese! His liquor bills were very high and he smoked too much. His fingers were iodine-coloured. But he also had a good sense of his own virtues and faults.

Could you tell us something about the American gamelan, and how it differs from the Indonesian gamelan?
Firstly, the shapes and forms are different, because for the most part we do not do bronze, which is a very difficult metal to deal with. We use aluminium and/or iron. On the West Coast, Bill Colvig pioneered the use of aluminium (he's built two very large gamelans) and on the East Coast, Dennis Murphy and his pupil Barbara Benary used iron in a more or less traditional way. This country is flooded with gamelans - about one hundred and fifty or so - and a fair proportion of them are American-built. Bill's first gamelan was pipes and slabs, and it was his discovery that an aluminium slab resonated with cans soldered together that first stirred the enthusiasm for building, both in Berkeley and San Jose.

So the main difference is in the material they're made of?
Also the tunings and the range. Some gamelans in the United States have wider ranges than the Balungan instruments; instead of six or seven tones, they have maybe two octaves. All Bill's gamelans have two octaves. They run from five to five in both pelog and slendro. Predictably, there are melodies that will not work unless you have those extra tones. That's why they're there and, sure enough, some of my best music requires them. So it's range and tuning- some of us use just intonation of various sorts. In fact, the slendro part of the gamelan C Betty (which is one of the gamelans that Bill made, dedicated to Betty Freeman) is, to our great surprise, tuned to a schema attributed to Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD in Alexandria. I thought I'd invented it, but it's hard to invent anything these days.


Was there a point in your career or a particular piece where you felt you'd found your own voice?
Well, some day I probably will!

Is your music performed in Indonesia?
Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm astonished to find that there may be a retrospective of my work in Jakarta. Well, what Western composer would have a retrospective in Jakarta?! So yes, I'm well-known. In fact, I am told that my Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Javanese Gamelan is required listening in the state conservatories.

How did Harry Partch inspire you?
When the first printing of Harry's book came out, Virgil Thomson was sent a review copy because he was writing for the New York Herald Tribune. He gave it to me the following day and said, 'See what you can make of this.' Of course I was utterly fascinated and within the week I'd bought a tuning wrench for the piano, and I've been doing it ever since. The piano in here, which used to be a favourite of Percy Grainger's and was given to me by the Cowells, is tuned in Kirnberger Number Two, as is my Piano Concerto, and I keep it that way. Harry and I had a very close relationship which went on for years. Betty Freeman was his patron. She set him up in houses, underwrote his work, and gave him money if he wanted to do a big thing, which he often did. There was a movement to make copies of Harry's work and put the original instruments in the Smithsonian Institute. That's been going on for ever. When I last saw Danlee Mitchell, a few years ago, he and some friends had reconstructed some of the dilapidated instruments but with new and more durable materials. They sounded better, as a matter of fact. Harry wasn't a luthière, you know. He was, as he said, a musician seduced into carpentry. So some of them could profitably be rebuilt in more resonant and more durable materials. He accepted a large psaltery I had built - it's part of that instrumental collection and he gave me a set of instruments too, bamboo things. So yes, we exchanged instruments, ideas, and pleasantries- and he made wonderful mint juleps too!

You're written some of your texts recently in Esperanto.
Yes, a few. It's a language I like. And I'm having the astonishing discovery that when I practise sign language now, occasionally in my head I slip into the Esperanto version. This morning I had an insight from reading this month's Scientific American, which is devoted to the brain and the linguistic centres. I suddenly realized that my recent interest in sign language is not only because Bill and George (a close friend) are getting deaf, but also because I had heart surgery three or four years ago and the first thing I noticed afterwards was that my linguistic centres were screwed up. I'd been doing spoonerisms like 'I don't want to work and work and die in my salad' instead of 'saddle'. Clearly, my interest in sign language is partly in getting into my linguistic centres again to try to remedy that.


Do you use European models for the structures of your pieces?
I'm mad for one European form, the medieval estampie. I've written too many of them, in fact; my latest symphony is the last one, and I'm not going to go any further. I like ABAs and rondos too. I'm particularly fond of the French rondo with no variation - not the Viennese rondo with its transposition of the subject, as in Mozart and Haydn. I also like some of the contrapuntal forms - passacaglias and things like that - though I use them less. I have quite a good historical background in European music.

Did your studies of Indonesian forms throw up whole new ways of working?
Indonesian forms are different from European forms. It knocks you numb when you first realize what the formal range is in Indonesian music. ABA would be simple-minded in Indonesia. There are forms whose first line lasts, say, eight counts and there are forms whose first line lasts, say, 385 counts. Then they go through a process known as irama, which is tempo layers. If you take a form of ten lines of 385 counts, for example, take one ten times that, and then shift it to the fifth irama - which means that it would expand by five geometric times - you get some idea where you're going. There's also the practice of using certain instruments to mark off where you are. It's a little bit like the chords: you know that you're not at the tonic when you're on V or IV- those are subsidiary cadences. Similarly, you know when you come to the great song, which is the equivalent of the tonic. So the shape, tonally, is very controlled, and it's instrumentally indicated. Its size, its interconnections and what you can do are breath-taking, that's all I can say. I will never, for the rest of my life, be bored as long as there are gamelans and players around. And writing too. If I write now, just out of my head, there are only two things I really like to do. One of them is harps and other tuned instruments playing modes, usually from the antique world but sometimes made up. And the other is gamelan compositions. I instinctively write Balungans now, which is the skeleton line for a gamelan piece. Up on Mount Hamilton, we just premiered my Gending in honour of Max Beckmann. It eliminates the pitch two in pelog, which makes a fascinating mode. The next one is in honour of Munakata Shiko - the other great artist of the century, I think.

Do you have any specific way of working, like so many hours per day or certain times?
They don't let me. The phone or the fax or visitors or whatever are happening all the time, and I do well if I get a half an hour in during the day. I have a load of work that I can never really accomplish. I've also been designing my own type fonts - I made four last year and my book of poems uses two of them. I now have a subsidiary career as a poet! I'm also sending slides of my paintings and drawings to the Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art, which is originating an exhibition that's perhaps going around the world.


Many thanks to SoundCircus and Dr Geoff Smith for the Lou Harrison (photo above) interview. Now read about Lou Harrison's straw-bale studio
Photographs of Padmaloka Centre taken by Pliable May 19 2007 and (c) On An Overgown Path. And yes, I know that Padmaloka is run by the Friends of Western Buddhism, and I'm aware of the baggage. 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 other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

France's right in retreat

Today's Guardian reports: 'Nicolas Sarkozy is not one to shut himself away. But he is planning to go on a three-day post-victory retreat to an isolated corner of France, perhaps a monastery'.

This would continue the interesting association between the Catholic Church and right-wing parties in France that I have written about here before. And, yes, I have been on retreat at a French monastery reportedly frequented by far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. Which should give The Agonist something else to get wrong.

He was in every sense a good man

Cormac Rigby (second from left above), who has died aged 67 of cancer, had two distinct careers: as a BBC radio announcer, and later as a Roman Catholic priest. Both called for an easy mastery of the spoken word, and to both he brought a naturally cultivated talent.

As presentation editor of Radio 3 from 1972 to 1985, Cormac set the tone of the channel, supervising the work of established announcers such as Patricia Hughes and Tom Crowe, engaging younger ones (among them Tony Scotland) and himself taking a full share of the announcing and presenting load. After leaving the BBC in 1985, he trained for the priesthood, served first in Ruislip, Middlesex, and then in Stanmore, north London, where he was specially happy and very well liked.

He was born in Watford, Hertfordshire; his mother had been born Grace McCormack, and his first name was a conscious recollection of her Irish maiden name. Baptised on May 21 1939, he was to be ordained on the very same day, 49 years later, by Cardinal Basil Hume in Westminster Cathedral. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' school, Northwood, Middlesex, and read history at St John's College, Oxford.

But the church beckoned, and in 1961 he went to the English College, in Rome, to train for the priesthood. There, however, he found the regime unacceptably narrow-minded, and returned to Oxford to complete a doctoral thesis on Edward Thring, the 19th-century preacher and headmaster of Uppingham. In 1965, he became an all-purpose announcer at the BBC, working for the Home Service and the Music Programme, which then preceded the evening Third Programme.

In due course he was permitted to announce for the Third Programme, and by 1968 Cormac was also engaged as a planner for that network. Here, he first tasted blood when an internal conflict arose over the relative artistic and financial merits of Solti's Die Meistersinger, from Covent Garden, and Goodall's The Mastersingers, from the Coliseum. Cormac's championship of the latter won the day and he confessed himself "jubilant". (All of us who were privileged to attend Goodall's Mastersingers can only confirm how right Cormac was - Pliable)

In 1969 the BBC published Broadcasting in the Seventies, a document that heralded the "dumbing-down" of the Third Programme. Early the following year, 134 BBC staff members - all in breach of their contract - signed a letter of protest to the Times, and Cormac's name was, characteristically, among them. In 1972, he was nevertheless appointed presentation editor of Radio 3, where his regime was distinguished.

Cormac expected his colleagues to be cultivated personalities, at ease with musical terminology and correct pronunciation in whatever language was called for. He asked that their delivery be measured and accurately stressed. And he set an admirably urbane example.

He was also fiercely loyal to his staff and, as I discovered during the musicians' strike over the BBC plans, eventually dropped, to disband five orchestras in 1980, heart-warmingly supportive of those in conflict with the Philistine tendency. In 1985, he introduced his last Last Night of the Proms for television, on which he was seen regularly, then left the BBC and began, for the second time, to train as a priest.

Apart from his faith and his skills as a broadcaster, Cormac had a passion for ballet, in which he was knowledgable and discriminating. During the 1970s he devised and presented a Radio 3 programme, Royal Repertoire, which complemented the current programmes of the Royal Ballet. He also wrote for Dance and Dancers, using the pen-name John Cowan. Even after his ordination he contributed to Dance Now, and he was always glad, a friend remarked, "to get his dog collar off and go to the ballet".

In three attractive books of sermons, The Lord Be With You (2003), Lift Up Your Hearts (2004) and Let Us Give Thanks (2005), he related without self-pity how his prostate cancer had spread and he felt obliged to give up his Stanmore parish. During a longer-than-expected remission, he went to Ireland and enjoyed "the most beautiful reprise of some of my happiest journeys up and down the Irish fjords". He was in every sense a good man.

A wonderful obituary, by Robert Ponsonby in today's Guardian, of a truly wonderful man. Cormac Rigby was an inspiration to all of us involved in broadcasting - paragraph 6 says it all. Read an interview with Father Cormac here. The header photograph, with Cormac Rigby second left, was taken in the Broadcasting House control room at Christmas 1971. (There is a less flattering photo of me on the same site, taken a few weeks later just after I joined the BBC.)

Now listen to Cormac Rigby's 'easy mastery of the spoken word', this is what radio can be -

And now visit the Carmelite monastery where Cormac Rigby had his Christmas cards printed.
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How political leaders indulge their ambitions

Political leaders are invariably ambitious, and that ambition comes at a cost. In the early 16th century Albrecht of Brandenburg pulled off a series of political coups that left him as the head of the church in the German empire. But his ambition came at quite a cost, he was in debt to Pope Leo X and the great medieval banking house of Fuggers to the tune of 29,000 gulden.

But the wily Albrecht had a solution. He authorised the sale of papal ‘indulgences’ in the form of certificates guaranteeing the remission of sins in the regions under his control. The practice of using indulgences to offset sins was well established. Leading theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, supported it with the explanation that the church in Rome had the equivalent of as a spiritual bank account that was substantially in credit, and this spiritual credit could be offered to mortal sinners. Initially indulgences were earned by spiritual endeavours such as taking part in a crusade, or visiting relics or shrines. But by the 16th century indulgences were being openly sold in a tawdry trade. They may have simply left the purchaser with a worthless piece of paper, but they offered an attractive way for Albrecht of Brandenberg (picture above) to pay off his papal credit card.

Meanwhile last week, following press criticism, Tony Blair tried to restore his green credentials by announcing he would offset carbon emissions from his family holidays, including their Christmas stay at Bee Gee Robin Gibbs' Florida villa. To offset the indulgence of his long-haul short break it is calculated that the prime minister will simply need to purchase carbon credits to the value of £90. In support comes today’s announcement that carbon offsetting is getting the 21st century equivalent of papal approval. The UK government is to define criteria for offsetting schemes that use certified credits. And in a remarkable reminder that there is nothing new under an increasingly strong sun, the UK government scheme introduces a gold standard for carbon offsetting, neatly reflecting the 29,000 gold coins that Albrecht of Brandenberg was in hock for.

Of course, Albrecht’s sin offsetting scheme ended in tears. While his chief spin doctor was giving a media briefing in Brandenburg he crossed paths with a troublesome activist called Martin Luther. It was obvious to Luther that the indulgences being sold by Albrecht made promises far beyond what was realistically practical. Martin Luther was so incensed that he wrote his Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, and then, like any good activist, he posted them on the the 16th century equivalent of the internet - the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.

The rest is history, or more correctly the rest rewrote history. Luther’s stand against indulgences in October 1517 sparked the Reformation, and his proselytizing against Rome was taken up by Calvin in Geneva, and by Zwingli and Bullinger in Zurich. The first great split in the Christian Church had been the schism in 1054 between Rome and the Orthodox congregation, and the Reformation in the 16th century sparked the second great split, this time between Rome and the Protestant Church. This split changed the political map of Europe and the religious map of the world forever, and sparked wars and conflicts that continue today. As well as creating a religious movement, Martin Luther (left) also created a cultural movement that stretches from Bach’s St Matthew Passion to Benjamin Britten’s 1962 War Requiem. And it all happened because a greedy leader decided that indulgences were a cool way to finance his ambitions.

Now read how the Pope has another Regensburg moment
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France says "No" - with help from Father Joe

So the French referendum has rejected the EU constitution, and the pieces of the jigsaw that make up Europe are once again thrown up into the air. Political bloggers such as Clive Davis are better qualified than me to analyse the implications of the "No" vote, but I cannot let the result pass without some personal comment. In a few days time I depart for my annual extended stay in France. It is a country I love, but also find deeply puzzling. The "No" vote seems to be more of a vote of no confidence in the Chirac government than a rejection of the new EU constitution. France is a fascinating mixture of traditionalism and extremism, and this is nowhere better illustrated than in the French attitude to religion. Although the national constitution makes France a secular state, Catholicism is still a strong force in society.

I had written the post below a few days ago ready to upload while I was on the road south to the Vaucluse next weekend, but I am posting it today as the referendum result reverberates around Europe and the world. The "No" result was determined by a large number of centre-left voters rather than the small extremist groups such as the royalists and Le Pen's National Front party which I mention. But the story of L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine at le Barroux is an interesting example of the tensions between traditionalism and extremism that make France unique.

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The death of Pope John Paul II brought out the best and worst in people. One prominent British playright said the Pope 'meant nothing to me.' This struck me as a supremely silly comment. Whether you are Catholic or not the impact of Catholicism on society, politics, architecture, music and the world in general is imeasurable. I would be the first to agree the impact is most definitely not all for the good, and much has been written about, for instance, the Catholic Church's role in the spread of Aids in Africa, and the Catholic support for Franco in the Spanich Civil War. But without Catholicism classical music would not exist in the form it does today, and we would not have the inspitational legacy of sacred architecture, and much, much else.

I am not a Catholic, nor am I a candidate for conversion. Two of my paternal great grandparents were Scottish Catholics, and I was brought up in a vaguely Anglo-Catholic household. And as I have travelled on the overgrown path called life I have been awestruck by the magnificence of the cathedrals of Reims and Chartres, the power of monastic ruins such as Castle Acre and Llanthony, the humility of Mother Teresa, the beauty of the Requiems of Cristobal de Morales and Tomas luis de Victoria, the striking relevance of the fifteen hundred year old year old Rule of St Benedict, and the power of the the pre-Vatican II liturgy when sung in Gregorian Chant as restored by the monks at Solesmes Abbey.

I wanted to know more about the extraordinary power that drove these achievements. And I also wanted to understand how the same doctrine that created the Abbey at Cluny, could teach that condoms are ineffective in preventing the spread of Aids. As part of my journey down an overgrown path I spent a week last autumn in the remarkable Benedictine community at the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine at le Barroux in southern France (see my post Pliable's Travels). The Abbey and Monastery at le Barroux are an extraordinary achievement, and can be seen in my header photo. It is Romanesque in style, but was in fact built in the 1980's. There are various local rumours about where the funding came from. Word has it that one of the wealthy cognac dynasties bankrolled construction, and that a former Abbot was a member of the Calvet family who control a major Bordeaux wine brokerage. The monks are traditionalists in their approach to the liturgy and use of Gregorian Chant. There are suggestions that the monks come from wealthy families and are Royalists (souverainiste). American in France Ruth Philips on her blog Meanwhile here in France has alleged right-wing connections, and the support of National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. The new 'conservative' Pope Benedict XVI also has links with Sainte-Madeleine . (It all sound like good material for a novel) But as a French family living close to le Barroux wrote to me in response to a question about the alleged political links of the monks ............. ...

"Where does it all end?!! Have a glass of cognac and enjoy the Gregorian chant and don't vote Le Pen! The Abbey is certainly a very beautiful place and was built by "Compagnons", very skilled tradesmen, who are certainly not extremists. Have you heard of the Compagnons? (See the footnote at the end of this post for more information on Compagnons - Pliable) Young people wanting to learn a trade can join and do a "tour" of France, staying in lodgings where a "mother" looks after them for the time they are there learning skills from experienced artisans. They then move on to another town, all this lasts a year and the rules etc are very strict and it is not open to just anyone. At the end of the year they make an objet representing so many hours of work showing what they have learnt in their year. There are museums that collect and show these objects, little roofs, stairs etc. I do not know much about them but I do know that anyone who has done his year is highly skilled in his trade and very serious about his work. I am sure this side of the monastery is more interesting!"

I am one of those obsessive people who tries to read and research as much as they can about a subject they are interested in. One of the things that struck me was the lack of accessible literature about the Benedictine way of life. Of course there is the Rule of St Bendict, which is readable, meaningful, and important. But I found other books such as the Genesee Diary largely impenetrable.

So I was intrigued by the publication of a new book called Father Joe. The prognosis looked unpromising. The author is Tony Hendra who progressed from Cambridge University (by one of those strange coincidences that are a feature on an overgrown path he went to St John's College which is where we saw Monteverdi in Cambridge) , through Monty Python to National Lampoon and Spitting Image. Along the way Hendra did two marriages, and moderate quantities of drugs and alcohol. Throughout his journey along this particularly thorny overgrown path he maintained a relationship with Father Joseph Warrilow, a monk in the Bendictine community at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight. Quarr Abbey was founded by a group of monks who fled from France in 1907 at a time of religous persecution.

Father Joe is the story of the remarkable relationship between Tony Hendra and the Benedictine monk. At one level the book is a fascinating semi-autobiography which avoids most of the pitfalls of the usual media personality best seller, although Hendra does take himself a bit seriously when expounding his views about creation. But at a deeper level Father Joe is a surprisingly useful, and accessible, primer to the Benedictine way of life. Tony Hendra has created a readable, relevant, and remarkably erudite portrait of why Bendictine communities are as relevant in the 21st century as they were in the sixth century .

There are concepts in this book that once again made me stop and think.... laborare est orare - to work is to pray, contemptus mundi - detachment (not contempt) for the world, and the disturbing questions 'Do you do the work you've chosen with joy and gratitude? Do you do it conscientously? Do you do it for others first, and yourself second?

I wish I had read Father Joe before I visited the Benedictine community at le Barroux. It is a rare insight into the continuing relevance of the contemplative way of life, and I recommend it.

If you enjoyed this post try The armchair pilgrim


Footnote from understandfrance.org: "Compagnonnage" is a French tradition which goes back to the Middle-Ages. Highly skilled workers travel and work in different places in order to acquire the knowledge of their specialty from a master ("maître") ; their field can be anything from carpentry to cooking, pastry, plumbing, ironworks, stone-cutting, etc... Moving from one employer to another, they make their "Tour de France" and progress from "apprenti" to "compagnon" and finally "master". This is a medieval tradition going back to the time of the builders of Gothic cathedrals. The Compagnons du Tour de France stay in specific hotels for young workers, called "cayenne", managed by a woman, "la mère" who takes care of them. To become a "master" of the Compagnons du Devoir (founded 1347), they have to realize a "chef d'oeuvre", which is something professionally very difficult, submitted to a college of masters. Needless to say that this is extremely close to freemasonry.
All famous chefs in French restaurants have been through this cursus and can use the title "Meilleur Ouvrier de France" which is its classical expression, but your plumber can also be a "Meilleur Ouvrier de France" and, in this case, you can be sure he is a good plumber. In Paris, you can admire a sample of very impressive "chefs d'oeuvres" in the Maison du Compagnonnage, 2 rue de Brosse 75004. Compagnonnage is a fascinating world of highly skilled professionals with very high technical and ethical standards grounded in a very ancient tradition. Each of them is given a name which includes his region and a moral characteristic (for instance : Tourangeau la Vertu or Périgord Coeur-Loyal).