[pdf] The Occult Sciences: Sketches of The Traditions And Superstitions of Past Times, And The Marvels of The Present Day

Back in 1975, prog-rock virtuoso Rick Wakeman, at the time also an ‘on-off’ keyboardist with the group Yes, released the third of his solo albums. Like the previous two albums (The Six Wives of King Henry VIII (1973) and Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1974)) it was not short of ambition, planning to tell, in musical form and mood, the story of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table…

Award-winning composer and music theoretician Roman Berger is widely respected for his stand against political repression in Eastern Europe during the last century. Most of the works on this recording are dedicated to the members of The Berger Trio, one of Slovakia’s leading ensembles. They include a commemoration of the composer’s late wife and other aspects of parting. The composer himself has written ‘…for me expressionism is neither a style nor an aesthetic, nor an “anachronistic” fashion: it is the result of life experience. The drama of existence leads to drama in art.’