Challenge The Wind

Japanese Edition with Bonus track.
The Italian symphonic power metal institution Rhapsody Of Fire returns with their album Challenge The Wind, presenting us with another instalment of their Nephilim saga, which began in 2019 with the album The Eighth Mountain.
Epic orchestral arrangements, bombastic choirs, fast and melodic guitars, a gripping story… These are all attributes that we have come to appreciate and love about Rhapsody Of Fire, and that's exactly what we get on Challenge The Wind.

Aside from skill, soul, and wonderful melodies, the wind chamber music of Carl Reinecke has nothing to offer the listener. And as this splendid 1992 recording re-released by Naxos in 2008 shows, that is more than enough. Performed by members of the Boston Symphony, Reinecke's Wind Octet, Op. 216, and Wind Sextet, Op. 271, are light and airy works with bouncy rhythms, buoyant tempos, warm harmonies, memorable tunes, and an enviable grasp of form and proportion. Used to playing under a conductor, the Boston Symphony musicians' poised and attentive performances prove they are entirely capable of producing balanced interpretations on their own.

It is rare to find a disc as creatively programmed as this BIS release. Enhanced by lovely performances, played with great devotion to the memory of the recently-deceased Japanese master, the repertoire was chosen by conductor Tadaaki Otaka and producer Robert Suff, who organized it not only in the most effective succesion, but in a manner that illustrates the works’ individual meaning and illuminates Takemitsu’s career. All but one of the compositions are from Takemitsu’s late period. The other, the Requiem for Strings, is one of the earliest works to win him fame. Fantasma/Cantos II, for trombone and orchestra, is among the last Takemitsu compositions. Both it and the Requiem provide considerably more forward harmonic motion than the other four works, which are in Takemitsu’s typical “Japanese garden” meditative style, a kind of revival of French impressionism using harmonies that are more like Messiaen’s than Debussy’s.