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MUSIC REVIEWS
Classical Crossover

Acoustic Ensemble  |  The Classics, Reinterpreted  |  Synth Interpretations
Mystical Minimalism  |  Opera  |  Choral  |  Gregorian Chant
Piano  |  Flute

 
  Acoustic Ensemble

ANGELS OF VENICE
AWAKE INSIDE A DREAM
    Epiphany Records
Cello, flute, and harp make angels three. Where's the wedding, right? WRONG! This album really kicks...if I may be so crude...butt! The album opens with "Lionheart," a lusty early medieval piece inspired by the movie Braveheart; it gallops over hill and dale thanks to the gutsy violin of Eric Gorfain and percussion work of Greg Ellis. Here, the group's harpist and main composer, Carol Tatum, plays the Irish bouzouki, mandolin, and keyboards to add to the dynamic textures. "A Chantar Mer" is begins as a mesmerizing twelfth century French troubadour song featuring the haunting voice of Azam Ali. It steps up the pace with the squeeky sounds of the hurdy gurdy (Ethan James), cymbals, drums, chimes, and the sassy recorder work of Susanne Teng, the group's flautist.  The chant element continues -- amid rolling thunder, lonely church bells, spooky winds, and wolf howls -- with "Nana," a gypsy-sad piece written by Manuel de Falla. "The Sins of Salome" is a Middle Eastern tour-de-force featuring the powerful voice of Mamak Khadem, an oud, zils and percussion, and dynamic bow attacks and sensual lines of the group's cellist Peggy Baldwin. Whew! Reminds me of Dead Can Dance, but without their sometimes artificial ambient loops. The second half of the album brings the pieces to more intimate and poetic levels, but with plenty of refreshing textures and nature sounds. The toothy sounds of the harpsichord on "The World Beyond the Woods" was balanced by sensual siren singing and owl hoots. I'm drunk and heady all over. Highly recommended!  - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice

  The Classics, acoustic interpretations

TIM STORY, BELA FLECK, PHILIP AABERG, and others.
A DIFFERENT MOZART: A Contemporary Collection
    Imaginary Road Records
I remember back to a time when a group of friends argued about which composer was the ultimate: Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart.  A pointless exercise...these guys aren't called "classics" for nothing. A DIFFERENT MOZART, produced by Dawn Atkinson with Will Ackerman, presents thirteen exquisite modern interpretations assembled with a master programmer's brilliance. (Hint: play the whole album!) All pieces honor not only Mozart's melodies, but the purity of his musical structures. The traditional piano, chamber ensemble, glass harmonica, flute, trumpet, oboe, English horn, mandolins (and also Bela Fleck's banjo!), clarinet, and guitar form the core, with keyboards, bass, sax, and other modern instruments taking Mozart's lead to the next dimension. I will resist temptation to slather praises for every piece or I would be writing 'til it be 'morrow. This album's a winner, folks! I got goosebumps. Artists include: Tracy Scott Silverman and Thea Suits-Silverman (violin, flute), pianist Henry Adam Curtis, pianist Richard Schonherz, guitarist Steve Erquiaga, Val Gardena, cellist Eugene Friesen, the Modern Mandolin Quartet, trumpeter Chris Botti, Todd Boekelheide (the glass harmonica piece with soprano Kirsten Falke), Bela Fleck, Paul McCandless, pianist Philip Aaberg, and Tim Story. Story's piece ends the set a treatment that reminded me of the final piece of Holst's The Planets. It seems to go "To Infinity....and Beyond!!" Instruments: Piano, chamber ensemble, acoustic, some keyboards...CLASSIC!  - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice

J.S.BACH/YO-YO MA
THE CELLO SUITES Inspired by Bach
    Sony Classical

If you watch public television at all, you were undoubtedly exposed to the “Yo-Yo Ma Inspired by Bach” series based on Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. These unique collaborative interpretations arose from dance (Mark Morris), ice skating (Torvill and Dean), nature (Julie Moir Messervy’s “The Music Garden”), architecture (director Francois Girard’s interpretation of the architectural fantasies of Giovanni Battista Piranesi), Kabuki dance (Tamasaburo Bando), and dramatic film (Atom Egoyan, director). I studied cello for three years as an adult, and tilted my bow at the suites with flailing (and cowed) abandon. Even a beginning student can approach the pieces because the melody is so accessible. But these deceptively simple pieces are actually pinnacles of polyphony, challenging the player to simultaneously maintain both melody and bass lines. No doubt, cellists take their tattered scores with them to heaven, hoping to master their intricacies. Each dance suite is divided into similar sections: a somber Prélude (No. 2’s is especially heartbreaking), a broad and sweeping Allemande, a mincing Courante, a deeply bowing Sarabande, a two-part Minuett (or Bourree or Gavotte), and a lively Gigue. The films, with their intriguing visuals and documented rationales, allowed the viewer/listener the chance to inhabit alternative perspectives. When the Morris dance piece was finally performed, the camera was allowed total access to the dance space. Even when the camera focused on only the sweep of one dancer’s flowing costume, I imagined how the rest of the Morris dance universe continued to swirl. Although these interpretations were collaborative feedbacks, the purity and charged emotion of Yo-Yo Ma’s recordings offer the listener equal opportunity to engage infinite imagination. (The liner notes offer comments on the video films; the CDs are music-only.)  - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice

STEVE ERQUIAGA
CAFE PARADISO
    Imaginary Road Records
These luscious and tasty classic/jazz crossovers are arranged and played by guitarist Steve Erquiaga, who you may have heard on his Windham Hill album ERKIOLOGY or on the IRR compilations A DIFFERENT MOZART and A WINTER’S NIGHT. Among the standouts in my vinyl collection (in storage) is a rare direct-to-disc recording by a group called the Guitar Quarvetten. I don’t know if I spelled their name right, but I sure remember the smoothness of their sound and the pulsing vitality of their arrangements. Through layers of recording, Erquiaga’s captured a rare essence: silken sounds and a wellspring of soulful phrasing that polishes the classics to a contemporary sheen. “Presto,” from Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 (see review above of Yo-Yo Ma’s collection of Bach’s cello suites) begins the album with a flurry of notes, Morse Code in their intensity; Eraquiaga gradually strings up melody fragments, until the sonata’s opening arpeggio bursts open like a flower. Bach’s “Prelude in C Minor” from the “Well-Tempered Clavier” has the complex voices of an organ work. Most of the pieces have a velvety, romantic flair: Faure’s “Sicilienne” and “After a Dream,” two preludes by Chopin, Rachmaninof’s passionate “Serenade,” Ravel’s “Pavanne for a Dead Princess,” and two themes from Ennio Morricone’s “Cinema Paradiso.” Two Erquiaga originals have Latin passions; the smoldering “Under the Tuscan Sun” would woo any gal’s heart. Sound quality? Impeccable. Ravishing album! INSTRUMENTS: Solo acoustic guitar, with overdubs.  - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice

  The Classics, synth interpretations

GERALD JAY MARKOE
BAROQUE ANGELS
    AstroMusic
 Classically trained Gerald Jay Markoe has often used Baroque themes for his "Angel/Pleiades" albums. Here he goes all-out-for-Baroque, citing composer (Bach, Telemann, and Corelli), opus, and movement. Markoe's arrangements and synthesizer orchestrations replicate the original strings, guitar, harpsichord, oboe, harp, chorus, and organ, yet his pieces take flight. They seem to be both brushed with angel light and charged with a gutsy sensuality. In the stately "Preludio from Sonata #7" by Corelli, Markoe's angel choir seems to meld between organ and voice, while the stately dialogue of Telemann's "Sonata in G Major" rides on a warm cushion of bass. Bach's familiar "Air from the Suite in D Major" for harpsichord and orchestra is a real soul sweeper; the swoosh of the chimes is joyfully breathtaking. All pieces on the album are relaxing in the "largo" league. And just as I wondered what Markoe would do with a fugue, the final Corelli sounded a "fugue alert" and I ducked. Ooops, false alarm...no, there it is again at near the end, nine minutes in. Markoe cruises through the final fugue; slow is nice, but my foot kept stepping on the gas pedal. I love to get my head tangled in those things. (Well, maybe next time, eh, Gerald?) All in all, Baroque Angels is a lovely, soul-affirming album that both honors the masters and sparkles with Markoe's exuberant spirit.
Instruments: Synth that emulates orchestral instruments. - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice

Choral

JONATHAN ELIAS
THE PRAYER CYCLE
    Sony Classical
What kind of liturgical choral work, I wondered, would "star" rock angst vocalist Alanis Morissette? It didn’t take much listening to see the rationale, for what other female vocalist could match the power of the world's great ecstatic religious singers? In a mighty work that challenges faith in God amidst the devastation of war, angst is totally appropriate. Morrissette, singing in French and Hungarian, more than held her own in duets with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Mali's Salif Keita. She's outstanding, and now I'm hearing her other albums with new respect. Jonathan Elias's multi-lingual ten-movement work is constructed over a solid, soothing orchestra/chorus base performed by The English Chamber Orchestra/Choir and The American Boychoir. Soloists rail and blister against this pastorale setting as they searching for mercy, strength, compassion, grace, innocence, hope, faith, blessings, and forgiveness. Other soloists include Linda Ronstadt (Spanish), Richard Bona, Yungcho Lhamo (Tibetan), Mah Damba (Mali), Ofra Haza (Hebrew), John Williams (guitar), and Martin Tillman (cello). James Taylor offers the only English lyrics, the haunting "Father Won't You Carry Me" from "Grace." Portions of this gripping work are featured as the soundtrack for Peter Jennings' television series The Century. Instruments: Chamber orchestra, choir, boy choir, guitar, cello, world religious ecstatic singers.  - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice

Mystical Minimalism

ARVO PART
LITANY
    ECM Records
Arvo Part's liturgical music is not the fluff of cherubs and golden rays. Skeletal and raw, yet core and compelling, Part's music, called Mystical Minimalism, totally liberates sound. He exposes its marrow and stretches tendons connecting spirit and the void. A voyage into the world of Part is like having an edge-of-the-seat experience of soul-lost/soul-found, a breathless balance on the fencetop of  holiness. The album begins with "Litany," Part's "largest" work. Even with the Hilliard Ensemble, chamber chorus, and chamber orchestra, "Litany" (the 24 hourly prayers of St. John Chrysostom) is as airy as a fishing net, as piquant as lemon mists.  "Psalom" is a veil of strings; it ponders and weighs and tastes notes like a deaf person feeling his first sounds. Actually, there is almost no there there; few tones, extended notes, opportunities for rest. "Trisagion" offers more granite with ponderous thick chords placed like boulders at the foot of a cliff. Then like mist, notes vaporize from its surface and catch the sunlight. Now that is what I call "space music!"  Highly recommended. Featured are the Estonian Philharmonic Camber Orchestra Choir, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. Instruments: Chamber orchestra and chorus. - Carol Wright,  New Age Voice