Author: jerobear
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Hoffmeister/Beethoven: Duos for violin and cello
Franz Anton Hoffmeister worked as both a composer and a publisher. In 1778 he was appointed kapellmeister to Count Franz von Szecsenyi; in his publishing job he was friendly with Mozart, and published work by Mozart and Beethoven. He also composed himself. We’d guess he was workmanlike rather than a great composer so his publishing…
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Septura: Music For Brass Septet Music 4
This is volume four in a series of CDs in which Septura imagine that four composers had written for brass. Featured on this CD are Italian composer and organist Giovanni Gabrieli; composer, organist and singer Tomás Luis de Victoria; Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Renaissance composer of sacred music, and Orlande de Lassus, a Franco-Flemish composer…
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Frightened Rabbit: Painting Of A Panic Attack
Last week we were wondering whether The Boxer Rebellion’s latest album would see them do a Snow Patrol and crack the big time, but noted it was hard to judge an album before and after greatness, because that greatness made you view it differently. Who knows? This latest from Frightened Rabbit is different: this is…
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Joseph Lanner: Viennese Dances
We’d heard of Mr Lanner — he invented formal Viennese waltz, taking a peasant dance and turning it to a refined art form enjoyed by high society — but we didn’t know that a “waltz” was the closed-hold dance position, which explains the sleeve notes (see below). We also didn’t know it was danced at…
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Max Raptor: Max Raptor
We’ve been getting Max Raptor material for some years and the raucous punk/rockers get better each time. The opener on this new album, Keep The Peace, is excellent: it sounded like they poured the ingredients of high energy punk into a tube of toothpaste and what came out was more intense and focused than what…
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Underhill Rose: The Great Tomorrow
This is not a ground-breaking album or anything new but it’s appealing and while it sounds modern they have a traditional sound too, with banjo, fiddle and pedal steel in there. It’s more to the folk side of country than the rock. Having said that, opener Our Time Is Done is the full band playing…
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The Boxer Rebellion: Ocean By Ocean
We had a couple of The Boxer Rebellion albums last year; they’re one of those bands playing finely honed pop music whose fans adore them but who mysteriously fail to get big (though as getting big means playing barns like the Manchester Arena and staying smaller means playing more personal gigs at the Apollo or…
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Phil Collins: Testify
After raving about Collins’ previous reissues (Face Value, Hello I Must Be Going, No Jacket Required, Dance Into The Light), we have to say that the songs on this are pedestrian at best; he’s reissuing all his albums so he’s got to do this one, but it’s a bit unmemorable. Maybe he has to be…
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Yeasayer: Amen and Goodbye
You know what you’re getting with the surprisingly long-lived Yeasayer — catchy dance / pop with that hippy vibe that seemed to surround them and bands like MGMT, who emerged at the same time. The last couple of Yeasayer albums have been a bit Bombay Bicycle Club: you knew they’d be good and you knew…
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Qigang Chen: Enchantements Oubliés
This is a remarkable album, successfully combining the sound of English pastoral music with traditional Chinese — from Vaughan Williams to the music from an arty martial arts movie — and played in a way that sounds alternatively intimate and imposing, and cinematographic in places. The end result is highly palatable, though we’d guess some…
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