Author: jerobear
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Phil Collins: The Singles
It’s Phil Collins. It’s the singles. What more do you need to know? Avuncular Phil has drawn a stickman (sticksman?) playing drums on the cover to pretend it’s not just a hits package coming out before Christmas. The collection shows why Collins is vastly under-rated as a talent: if the Press hadn’t mocked him so…
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Frank Martin: Ein Totentanz zu Basel
We’ve been enjoying this varied and surprisingly light piece, considering it’s based on death (Amazon translates the title as dance macabre). This is not the death of modern times. He’s more the death of Terry Pratchett, a sympathetic person who takes people off to the next world with a grin, albeit skeletal. The work is…
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Idina Menzel: Idina
If you’ve got small children, you’ll know all about Menzel: she’s the voice of Queen Elsa in Frozen and of course sings Let It Go. Oh, how parents wish they could. Before being Frozen she rose to fame playing Maureen Johnson in the Broadway musical Rent. She won a Tony award nomination in 1996 and…
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Copland: Appalachian Spring / Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
The themes of these two pieces are almost opposites yet the music is quite similar — presumably why they have been paired — both pieces being bouncy and crisp, the liveliness of the speakeasy life portrayed in the first piece (Hear Ye!) matching the crispness of the pioneer life in Spring. Hear Ye! Hear Ye!…
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Mozart: Serenades For Wind Instruments
The Press notes for his new album, played by the European Union Chamber Orchestra (conducted by Santiago Mantas) open by saying “Mozart’s wind serenades need little introduction as … true works of genius,” describing the performance as “fine”, all but making a review redundant. It’s Mozart, it’s played well, what more is there to say?…
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The Head and the Heart: Signs of Light
Fans of The Head (as we hope they’re called for short) are rather critical of this, saying it’s a sign the Seattle folk-rockers have sold out. Some reviews even use the dreaded M-word. Yes, Mumfords. All we can say is that a member of the Review Corner had an early Head CD which was a…
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Haçienda Classiçal
Hooked On Classics was the album that gave the rock/classical crossover a bad name, classical hits over a lame dance beat. It didn’t deter people from mixing rock and orchestras; Metallica’s S&M (Symphony and Metallica) sold lots but was divisive. It always seems a bit of a flawed idea (unless you’re Jeff Lynne, in which…
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Karin De Fleyt: Hohler Fels, New Music For Flute
This experimental flute music is for those who like the flute and want to hear some technical playing but care little for melody (or pleasure, if we’re being harsh). The opening song is Rolf Gehlhaar’s Grand Unified Theory of Everything, which stems from a lecture Gehlhaar attended. It opens with a lone piano key and…
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Amy Duncan: Undercurrents
This is a gentle and refined pop/folk album that seems to go on too long. If you like her voice, you may find it caressing your ear throughout and never tire, but otherwise the good moments are left stranded between the overly saccharine or bland. She’s a talented musician: she plays guitar, piano and double…
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Robin Sarstedt: Tu
There’s going to be a lot of people who like this — people with a fondness for acoustic guitar and singer-songwriters doing it well. There’s nothing laboured about Sarstedt’s music, no shoe-horning words to the tune or trying too hard. It may not be breaking any new ground and despite skirting around topics one might…
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