Music

Average customer rating:

Harmonic and deep
'Harmony Of The Spheres'-Various Artists(Drunken Fish) 2-CD
An entire music festival all in one place...
as influential as No New York...

Harmony of the Spheres
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Drunken Fish Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Lo-Fi | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Indie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Compilations | Rock | Styles | Music
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Ticket Crystals
Bufo Alvarius Amen 29:15
Flying Saucer Attack
Nowhere

ASIN: B000034DIY
Release Date: 1999-12-28

Tracks:

Sangh Seriatim-BArdo Pond
Since When (One)-Flying Saucer Attack
Since When (Two)-Flying Saucer Attack
Since When (Three)-Flying Saucer Attack
Since When (Four)-Flying Saucer Attack
22:30-Jessamine
Fantasia On A Theme By Sandy Bull-Roy Montgomery
Flames-Loren Mazzacane Connors
The Gathering-Loren MazzaCane Connors
Revolt!-Loren Mazzacane Connors
Fand (A Tear)-Loren Mazzacane Connors
Naked In Our Deathskins-Charalambides

Album Description

Reissue of 1996 release, originally issued as a limited edition (3,000 copies only) triple vinyl LP box that sold out immediately! All tracks are exclusive to this title & each is over 18 minutes long! Includes cuts by Flying Saucer Attack, Roy Montgomery, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Jessamine, Bardo Pond and Charalambides. 12 tracks total. Double slimline jewel case. 1999 release.

Customer Reviews:

Harmonic and deep.......2005-08-20

I really enjoyed Harmony of the Spheres when I first listened to a song on the CD through Yahoo music called "Jessamine". After reviewing the entire CD I can say that the music is a little 'out there' and maybe a little too much for me, however I do enjoy listening to it and it's kind of growing on me. I would recommend listening to some of the songs before buying, but over-all I am glad that I have such a CD for my collection.

'Harmony Of The Spheres'-Various Artists(Drunken Fish) 2-CD.......2004-12-28

'Harmony...' apparently was originally released as a limited edition 3-lp vinyl package that reportedly became out of print over night.The whole idea behind the exclusive triple record set was to give the fans,six(6) eighteen-minute plus singles of bands that could be obtained no where else.So glad this was reissued on a 2-CD pressing,as such.I liked the four-part "Since When" by Flying Saucer Attack(as I welcome all cuts that come from any source by FSA)and the Jessamine tune "22:30" the best.As for the rest,there are tracks by New Zealand export guitarist Roy Montgomery,Loren Mazzacane Conners,Charalambides and Bardo Pond.A total time of 2 hours and 25 minutes.A most recommended collection of some over the top lo-fi space rock,trippy experimental,etc.

An entire music festival all in one place..........2001-07-22

Given the hype around the original OOP LP version of this, I was surprised to only find one review posted. I think this collection is so solid that -- as stated in the other review -- it needs to be heard by many, rather than cloistered by a few. I have been lately getting into Bardo Pond, FSA, and Roy Montgomery. I also just picked up some Charalambrides at Other Music in NYC. In addition to rounding out my collections of such artists, this collection introduced my ears to Loren Mazzacane Conners. I find all of the music represented here hard to categorize. Space rock, experimental rock, avant rock, etc. Whatever you wish to call it, this music is transcendental, transportive (if that's a word), and trance-inducing. It's also very challenging (at times) and very rewarding. This "sampler" is also an easy/efficent way to jump into this type of sound. BTW, it's a double CD priced about the same as most single discs.

as influential as No New York..........1999-12-26

...and other legendary samplers which defined the scene and often outlived the scene itself. Harmony of the Spheres, when first released on vinyl only in a beautiful black box with substantial liner notes, was the hot item of 1996. Enamored does not even begin to describe how most of us felt about this collection--it was enough to make me pick up a new record player if that at all describes the excitement. Perhaps the album reaffirmed that after the wasteland of the 80's, the 90's really was a great time for music; not simply coincidence.

With all of that said, Harmony of the Spheres is not a flawless collection. The Flying Saucer Attack material feels forced and WAY over extended--the one contribution I could do without, while Loren Mazzacane Connors seems somewhat out of place amongst the far more cosmic artists included here. Yet, when Harmony of the Spheres does work--notably the Bardo Pond, Roy Montgomery and Charalambides tracks--it ranks among the best material by those artists. Also, don't miss Jessamine's continued improv moog fest that seems to borrow a little from Can.

Some have been dissapointed that Drunken Fish did not keep their promise, turning Harmony of the Spheres into a collectors item worth hundreds in the up and coming years, but I for one think this is music that needs to be heard not hoarded and applaud the Fish for putting it out. I should add, in the second act of 1999 that puts Darren Mock and his crew on my list for altruistic record label of the year (the first being the Roy Montgomery singles reissue disc), Drunken Fish will actually mail you the original book that came with the vinyl release (or perhaps just a transcript?) if you ask very nicely.

The only other thing I could ask for this Christmas would be Siltbreeze's reissue of Charalambides' Market Square. Please?

Paul Hindemith: Symphonia Serena (1946) / Symphony "The Harmony of the World" (1951)

Average customer rating:

Excellent Performances
Disappointing volume in normally admirable series

Paul Hindemith: Symphonia Serena (1946) / Symphony "The Harmony of the World" (1951)
Janet Fisher , Tania Maxwell , Andrew Orton , Dennis Simons , and BBC Philharmonic
Manufacturer: Chandos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000000AT6
Release Date: 1994-05-12

Tracks:

Symphonia Serena: I. Moderately Fast - Animato - Broad - Tempo Primo
Symphonia Serena: II. Geschwindmarsch By Beethoven. Rather Fast
Symphonia Serena: III. Colloquy. Quiet - Fast - Scherzando - Fast
Symphonia Serena: IV. Finale. Gay - Slow - Coda. Fast
Symphony 'Die Harmonie Der Welt': I. Musica Instrumentalis
Symphony 'Die Harmonie Der Welt': II. Musica Humana
Symphony 'Die Harmonie Der Welt': III. Musica Mundana

Amazon.com

Symphonia Serena is the third of Hindemith's six symphonies. Composed in 1946, it's an athletic work, more along the lines of a concerto for orchestra. Hindemith, perhaps more so than any other composer, wrote his symphonies with a wide range of instrumental parts. (Some critics disliked the way Hindemith wrote roles for amateur players in a symphony orchestra. But if Symphonia Serena's only fault is its simplicity, then to hell with those guys.) Hindemith's Die Harmonie de Welt is a 1951 work that led to the 1957 opera of the same name. It's less moody than the Symphonia, but good nonetheless. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Performances.......2005-08-05

The music of Paul Hindemith is viewed by many as being "difficult" music. Perhaps this notion comes from Hindemith's evolving compositional style which went from Expressionism to Neo-classicism. He often added jazz and dance elements to his music but never compromised his stance that music had to be tonal. At one time Hindemith's symphony Mathis der Mahler was frequently played but since his death in 1963 his music has been unfairly eclipsed.

The Symphonia Serna was written in 1946 on a commission from the Dallas Symphony. It was written like a concerto for orchestra with a great diversity of instruments and textures. The symphony opens with a beautiful soaring melody that the orchestra develops and contrasts and concludes, gloriously, with the full orchestra a magnificent blaze of brass. The second movement is a series of variations on a march of Beethoven scored for winds and percussion. The third movement is broken into sections with a solo instrument marking the end of the section. It begins with a reflective theme played by the strings and concluded by a solo violin holding a conversation with an off-stage violin. The strings then play a pizzicato section and conclude with a solo viola. This movement demonstrates Hindemith's fertile imagination juxtaposing instruments in refreshing ways. The Finale begins with a flourish of brass and follows with cheerful themes played by the clarinet and then spread through the orchestra. This is Hindemith at his most appealing. . As I listened to this symphony it struck me how much joy there is the composition and how changing a note would have spoiled the music.

The Symphony Die Harmonie Der Welt was written in 1951 and later the subject was turned into an opera of the same name in 1957. The story is based on Johannes Kepler, the astronomer and philosopher of the 17th century. Hindemith chose this subject, like Mathis der Mahler, because Kepler was identified with the coming to term of art in society. The direct focus of the opera is Kepler's notion of the harmony of the spheres that led to his excommunication from the Lutheran Church. The symphony is divided into 3 movements with each movement title referring to a musical division found in the writings of ancient authors. I approach the symphony as music alone without any kind of program. Die Harmonie Der Welt is Hindemith at his compositional best with contrasting melodies and imaginative orchestration.

The symphonies are nicely performed by Yan Pascal Tortielier and the BBC Philharmonic. The recording is superbly engineered by Chandos.

Disappointing volume in normally admirable series.......2005-03-26

Good to see Paul Cook reviewing this CD for Amazon.com; his articles on Hindemith in AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE during the early and mid-1990s made many of us appreciate for the first time what riches lie in Hindemith's hardly-played orchestral oeuvre. Alas, this volume in Chandos's normally admirable Hindemith series disappoints (despite impressive engineering and even more impressive comments in the booklet notes). The reason is soon obvious: string playing that varies from just-OK to downright bad. Not all the famed Chandos reverberation can disguise the fact that the strings here evoke Sir Henry Wood's deathless words: "the ensemble needs to be more together".

These are pieces demanding powerhouse technique in every section - the sort of performances which are not only virtuosic but curiously impersonal, like a conveyor-belt process. (Sir Georg Solti was born to conduct this music with the Chicago Symphony, and it is a great shame that he never did.) What they get on the present disc is appropriately brisk and in-your-face wind and percussion contributions, repeatedly needing to contend with violinists and violists who find Hindemith's demands just too much. Some of the solo violin and viola work in the SERENA's third movement can only be described by that expressive monosyllable "ugh".

Nothing in THE HARMONY OF THE WORLD's upper string writing punishes the BBC fiddlers quite as severely as SERENA's most exposed passagework, if only because HARMONY OF THE WORLD tends to be a glorified brass concerto anyhow. But nothing sounds really right either. No, stick with the rival version of this same coupling from Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony on the London/Decca label.

Better still, buy Chandos' beautiful companion CD containing the SYMPHONIC DANCES (surely one of Hindemith's four or five greatest inspirations?), the PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY (pretty dull at first, yet with a grand-slam finale), and the truly gonzo RAGTIME. That recording's annotations are inferior to this one's - the SYMPHONIC DANCES / PITTSBURGH / RAGTIME note-writer, apparently obsessing over the American market, litters what seems like every second paragraph with references to Charles Ives - but in every other respect it's an excellent release.

Average customer rating:

Hindemith: The Harmony of the World

Manufacturer: Koch Schwann (Germ.)
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00004TYMC
Release Date: 2000-11-14

Tracks:

Sym: 'The Harmony Of The World': I. Musica Instrumentalis
Sym: 'The Harmony Of The World': II. Musica Humana
Sym: 'The Harmony Of The World': III. Musica Mondana
Sinfonietta in E: I. Schnell/Fast
Sinfonietta in E: II. Adagio Und Fugato
Sinfonietta in E: III. Intermezzo Ostinato. Presto
Sinfonietta in E: IV. Rezitativ Und Rondo

Average customer rating:

Not easy to understand, but worth the effort

Purcell: Hail, Bright Cecilia!

Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Anthems | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Odes | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000057EW
Release Date: 1995-10-17

Tracks:

'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: Sym: Introduction: Canzona-Adagio-Canzona-Adagio-Allegro-Grave... - Gabrieli Players/McCreesh
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Hail, bright Cecilia!' - Jones/Wilson/Brocq/Harvey
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Hark, hark, each tree its silence breaks' - Wilson/Pott
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Tis Nature's voice' - Charles Daniels
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Soul of the world' - Gabrieli Consort
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Thou tun'st this world below, the spheres above' - Susan Hemington Jones
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'With that sublime celestial lay' - Wilson/Brocq/Purves
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Wondrous machine!' - Peter Harvey
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'The airy violin' - Julian Podger
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'In vain the am'rous flute and soft guitar' - Daniels/Brocq
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'The fife, and all the harmony of war' - Charles Daniels
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Let these amongst themselves contest' - Harvey/Purves
'Hail, bright Cecilia!' Z.328: 'Hail, bright Cecilia, hail to thee!' - Wilson/Podger/Daniels/Harvey
'My beloved spake' Z.28: Verse anthem - Podger/Daniels/Pott/Harvey
'O sing unto the Lord' Z.44: Verse anthem - Jones/Podger/Daniels/Harvey/Purves

Amazon.com

Purcell wrote several odes in honor of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, for annual concerts in London on St. Cecilia's Day. Hail, Bright Cecilia is the largest of them, with chorus, orchestra, and a larger-than-usual group of soloists depicting a competition between various musical instruments for supremacy. (Naturally, the organ, which legend held Cecilia to have invented, wins.) Paul McCreesh's performance here and Philippe Herreweghe's account on Harmonia Mundi are equally fine: Herreweghe is mellower and a touch more elegant, while McCreesh has a thrilling energy. --Matthew Westphal

Customer Reviews:

Not easy to understand, but worth the effort.......2004-05-30

As well as the St Cecilia ode this disc contains two superb biblical 'verse anthems', the second ending with a lovely and most unusual quiet Alleluia. The disc is thus excellent value in terms of the amount of music provided, the performances have authority and scholarship stamped all over them, the performers are totally accomplished professionals in music of this period and the recorded sound is very good in a discreet way. The piece I am having difficulty with is the Ode itself, or at least its opening number. I was not expecting Handelian extroversion from Purcell, but what is the connexion between minor-key harmonies and a solemn bass solo on the one hand and on the other the sentiment 'Hail bright Cecilia, fill ev'ry heart/With love of thee...' etc? Purely as music it is fine stuff, but it would not have come amiss as a setting of, say, Quid sum miser in a requiem mass. This may be a simple failure of comprehension on my part, and I betook myself to the liner notes for guidance. To my frustration these read like rather amateur advertising copy telling us what to admire (everything, basically) and how to admire it. A certain amount of e.g. 'McCreesh's unforced command of the Ode's wide expressive range' or 'it conveys an arresting grandeur' or 'McCreesh...eschews detached historicism...and brings a fresh and vital approach' is fair enough, and I have to admit that my spirits were lifted when 'the tessitura becomes stratospherically high' and Mr J Freeman-Attwood soars in sympathy into the empyrean with 'Daniels caresses each new graphic image with a magical sense of of gradually unfolding the music's captivating charms'. For this disclosure I am grateful indeed though probably not in the way the author intended, but it's a wasted opportunity when this is all there is.

The text of this St Cecilia ode is by one Nicholas Brady, reasonable workaday stuff but obviously not in the Dryden class. The liner notes do not go into the obscure association of St Cecilia, an early martyr, with the art of music -- legend has her as the inventor of the organ, which she had no more chance of inventing than the saxophone. This is a topic I shall go into when I have got my ideas clearer on the Ode. My unreserved recommendation of this disc does not have to wait for that.

Average customer rating:

Beethoven Barber & Thuille

Manufacturer: Eroica
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000CAF2FG
Release Date: 2005-05-10

Average customer rating:

Jazz/Rock supreme!

Harmony of the Spheres
Neil Ardley
Manufacturer: Universal/Polygram
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Contemporary Big Band | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00004SQUC
Release Date: 2000-02-16

Tracks:

Upstarts All
Leap in the Dark
Glittering Circles
Fair Mirage
Soft Stillness and the Night
Headstrong, Headlong
Towards Tranquilty

Customer Reviews:

Jazz/Rock supreme!.......2002-11-07

I actually had this recording and Kalidescope of Rainbows back in the seventies. There is more interesting synthesizer work from Neil on this recording. John Martyn (English folk writer/player) does some wonderful electric guitar work on this record. The songs are more humble than anything on Kalidescope and this is my favorite of the two Neil Ardley recordings that I know of. Somewhat ahead of it's time. Some interesting grooves-all instrumental.

Music:

Music