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Wednesday, December 01, 2004ReviewsRecent listening experiences... Music from a farther room This is one of the latest violin crossover albums - is it pop? is it classical? is it tolerable? Glad to say, this is one album that mostly works. Lucia Micarelli has a nice touch and does what you are supposed to do with a violin: communicate emotion. In several of the pieces, Micarelli's violin wails along less like a stately old classical instrument than the voice of a tired bluesman. The effect is charming, particularly on "She's like a swallow," a duet with Leigh Nash in which the violin truly sings along. However, the "Nocturne/Bohemian Rhapsody," though nicely arranged and very well done, may try those who remember the original Bohehian Rhapsody. Love Angel Music Baby Here it is, the debut CD from Gwen Stefani of No Doubt. How is it? Umm... The biggest problem with this album is that you are constantly reminded you are listening to Gwen Stefani - by name, by in-jokes, by recurring themes that don't quite measure up to being called motifs. There is, in short, a self-congratulatory air, most likely the result of nerves about whether there'd be anything anyone else would offer congratulations for. Now, an artist - one who brings imagination and innovation to craft - doesn't need this shtick. The product should stand on its own. What's unfortunate is that parts of the album do stand on their own - at least until they're undermined by the "look at me" factor. On the up side, the first track, "What You Waiting For?" is sharp, sassy and refers back to the artist as she lives, not as a pop-culture figure. And it works. As does "Rich Girl," a send-up of "If I Were a Rich Man." "Bubble Pop Electric" - "Tonight I'm gonna give you all my love... in the backseat" is as delightfully ridiculous a bubble-gum pop take-off as one could hope for. But throughout the album, we run across a few bits - "Vivian Westwood," "L.A.M.B." (the album title's initials) and the "Harajuku Girls" who even have track 7 devoted to them that turn this techno-pop album (there's nothing quite as wild as "Trapped in a box," nor as raucous as "Just a girl") into... a rap album? That's the feel I get. Sure, she's not from the 'hood, but this CD is less a musical experiment than a vehicle for creating and playing off a persona. If all you've got is rhymes and attitude - Eminem, call your office - that's fine. But both her past work and the best moments in this album show that Stefani ought to have something better to offer. Abii ne viderem Granted, this is a 1995 album. But the first piece, "Morning Prayers" has been floating through my mind for the last week or two, so I pulled it out. Kancheli is one of those composers who, left to make sense of the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the reappearance of hope for their native lands, produced something, alas, far better and more beautiful than what history brought to their new countries. Kancheli, from Georgia, moved to Germany and created these three alternately meditative and frenzied pieces - Morning Prayers, Evening Prayers and Abii ne viderem. The experience is somewhat like watching a Buddhist monk resting calmly, till unable to take it he suddenly rises up and tries furiously - but fails - to strike the fly which has been walking across his nose. If you're the Buddhist monk. If you're in the mood for something light, something tranquil, something oh-so-classical, this isn't quite it. But to experience the hoping, praying mind as it vacillates between divine inspiration and mortal care, have a listen. Symphony No. 3 - Sorrowful Songs by Gorecki This is a beautiful, terrible, marvelous and mammoth piece. One sometimes hears discussion of an architecture to music. Listening to the opening movement of Gorecki's 3rd, one can see a cathedral being erected, stone by stone, till it shimmers before you, an edifice of sound. And then things quieten, and a soft voice comes in with the first story, a woman asking after her son, surely lost in the war. The second and third movements, too, create walls of sound, walls within which two more stories are told. The stories - the texts - are proper to Gorecki's Polish heritage - a 15th c. lamentation, an inscription found in a Gestapo cell and an old folk song - but go beyond to the universal themes of suffering and oppression. This particular recording is the first I heard of Gorecki's 3rd. Dawn Upshaw is, as always, superb, and her performance makes the album worth buying. The conducting, by David Zinman, is appropriate to the music and makes this probably the recording to have of this piece. 
posted by gbarto at 11:12 PM |
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