Tag: Congleton Chronicle
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Anthony Goldstone: The Piano at the Ballet
You get one piano transcription of orchestral scores and another two turn up. Like buses, piano transcriptions. A couple of weeks ago we had Enigmas, the work of Elgar; last week it was an excellent disc of performances of Mussorgsky, now this. On one hand it’s a charming piece of entertainment, in which complex music…
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Randall Thompson: Symphony No.2
Thompson is known as one of the most-performed American composers of choral music, notable for writing that is approachable to both audiences and choirs. The Second Symphony is “an excellent example” of what the composer was capable of when not composing for voices, say the sleeve notes. We say it’s ideal if you want to…
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Twelfth Day: Cracks in the Room
This slightly left-field folk album might take you unawares at first, as Twelfth Day play standard folk subtly melded with jazz and classical — some parts are more akin to chamber music – with added eccentricity thrown in. Twelfth Day is Catriona Price, a singer and fiddler from Orkney, and Esther Swift, singer and harpist…
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Booker T and the MGs, Carla Thomas, Stax Classics
Released as part of Stax Records’ 60th anniversary celebration, the Stax Classics series highlights some the label’s biggest stars from the 1960s and 70s, budget-priced albums offering a dozen songs that “transcend the obvious hits”, as the PR says. This week, we’ve got two to review. Booker T and the MGs were the house band…
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Elspeth Wyllie: Enigmas
This delightful album is out to coincide with Elgar’s 160th birthday on 2nd June, and it’s a recording of solo piano and chamber works, featuring Worcester’s most famous son’s own solo piano transcription of Enigma Variations. The Review Corner are big fans of Elgar, having lived in Malvern, not too far from his grave at…
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Bechara El-Khoury: Orages
We normally distrust modern music that opens with a discordant, explosive crash of instruments, as it’s usually the start of something “challenging”, that only the most arty can understand. In this case it’s OK, because “Orages” is foreign for “storms”, and El-Khoury is describing the storms of his native Lebanon. They must be big buggers.…
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Emily Barker: Sweet Kind of Blue
Barker has turned out a couple of folk/country albums that have been ok, but never enough to make the listener sit up and listen. Well-written songs, played well to be sure, but lacking that spark, with the exception of her Vena Portae project. (If you’ve never heard of her, she wrote the theme to BBC…
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Chris T-T: Best Of
We had this a couple of weeks before playing it. A bloke we’ve never heard of issuing a best-of package as he jacks it in after 20 years of limited success? What’s going to be good about that? A lot, it transpires. The man’s a genius at what he does, with an unlimited supply of…
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Aylish Kerrigan and Dearhbla Collins: Schoenberg Vocal Works
All those hours spent listening to experimental, modern classical music have paid off: we dipped our toes into the waters of Arnold Schoenberg and came up smiling, to mix metaphors. A couple of reviews said it was not for the faint-hearted; it’s true that it’s not for someone expecting the Cliff Adams Singers singing something…
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Various: Music from The American Epic Sessions
We thought Old Crow Medicine Show doing Blonde on Blonde live in Nashville was pretty cool but this is even better. The backstory is that it’s a television documentary on the early days of music. In the 1920s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies took to the road to find new…
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