Emerson

The Emerson String Quartet makes its PENTATONE debut with a recording of Schumann’s three string quartets. Penned in the summer of 1842 during an exceptional peak of creativity, these quartets formed the beginning of a six-month surge during which most of Schumann’s best chamber music saw the light. Inspired by the example of Beethoven, Schumann’s quartets display a mastery of traditional forms, combined with typically Schumannian fantasy and lyricism, particularly in the inner movements. As such, they underline a new level of maturity in Schumann’s artistic development, surpassing the fantastical aesthetic of previous years.

Don't be fooled by the Bee Gees-esque cover photo, Love Beach is not really ELP gone pop. True, many of the songs are more concise and accessible than those on previous albums, and there are a couple of Greg Lake-dominated "romantic" tunes, but those had always been part of the deal. They're still classically rockin' along on "Canario," and half the album is dominated by the 20-minute epic "Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman," reminiscent of such long-form ELP classics as "Trilogy."

After the heavily distorted bass and doomsday church organ of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album, the exhilarating prog rock of epic proportions on Tarkus, and the violent removal of the sacred aura of classical tunes on Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, ELP's fourth album, features the trio settling down in more crowd-pleasing pastures. Actually, the group was gaining in maturity what they lost in raw energy. Every track on this album has been carefully thought, arranged, and performed to perfection, a process that also included some form of sterilization. Greg Lake's acoustic ballad "From the Beginning" put the group on the charts for a second time. The adaptation of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" also yielded a crowd-pleaser…

EMERSON LAKE & PALMER (ELP) reformed for the first time since 1998 to headline the High Voltage Festival on Sunday July 25th 2010. 2010 marked the 40th anniversary of the creation of Emerson Lake and Palmer, the band that was formed from King Crimson, The Nice and Atomic Rooster. They became the first true prog-rock Super Group and defined an era…

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. Well, such is the idea for an Emerson, Lake & Palmer compilation, but this one does tend to fall a bit short, literally. After all, since it was originally released as an LP, the disc comes in at less than 40 minutes. Certainly with a catalog as rich as Emerson, Lake & Palmer's it is extremely difficult for one CD (especially a short one) to truly capture the essence of the group. This one fails both as a chronological compilation and as the best-of that it is billed as being. That said, there are some good points here. "Lucky Man," "Peter Gunn," and "Still You Turn Me On" are all essential Emerson, Lake & Palmer cuts that truly work well here.

A new concert film and album documenting the May 2016 tribute show honouring the late Keith Emerson…

Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album, made up of keyboard-dominated instrumentals ("The Barbarian," "Three Fates") and romantic ballads ("Lucky Man") showcasing all three members' very daunting talents. This album, which reached the Top 20 in America and got to number four in England, showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly – with the exception of a few moments on "Three Fates" and perhaps "Take a Pebble," there isn't much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here. "Take a Pebble" might have passed for a Moody Blues track of the era but for the fact that none of the Moody Blues' keyboard men could solo like Keith Emerson.