Enjoyment of Music

As well known as the music itself is, the full background to Finlandia, the great symphonic poem composed by Finn Jean Sibelius, was unfamiliar to me until very recently. It turns out that Finlandia was originally part of a larger work that Sibelius composed in 1899 with the rather unartistic title "Press Celebrations Music". The seventh movement of that work, "Tableau 6, Suomi herää (Finland Awakes)", was later reworked into a stand-alone piece and became known as Finlandia, and this is how we have generally heard it performed since that time. It has become recognized as one of the most important national songs of Finland, but it is not the national anthem, that is Maamme ("Our Land").

When they released their debut álbum, Words Of Nostradamus, back in 2000, Nostradameus were little more than endowed students of the Swedish power metal school. And what is Swedish power metal, you ask? Well, take the Finnish power metal stylings of Sonata Arctica (minus the keyboards), mix them with the hard rock overtones of local heroes Hammerfall (minus most of the cheese), add a pinch of mid-period Helloween joyfulness and just a hint of Blind Guardian medievalism. Voilá! Swedish power metal, as seen by Nostradameus…

Andrew Lawrence-King ‎– Chorégraphie: Music For Louis XIV's Dancing Masters
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 277 MB | Full Artwork: 151 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # HMU 907335 | Country/Year: France 2007
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

"This is one of those albums that can be listened to on two levels: one for the enjoyment of the rich, heavily ornamented sound of Andrew Lawrence-King's Baroque triple harp (the term refers to the instrument's three rows of strings, a configuration that survives today in Welsh folk music), and one for the music involved and how it fit into the musical and cultural universe of its time. (…) The sound picks up every little detail of Lawrence-King's harp, some of which are as quiet as the sounds of a Chinese zither." ~AMG, 4,5/5

Eighteenth-century American harpsichord music isn't something you hear everyday, but the delightful sounds of Enlightenment in the New World can be appreciated by any keyboard lover. Using a French harpsichord built in 1774, Olivier Baumont performs lively (not to mention "enlightened") works by seldom-heard composers William Selby, Alexander Reinagle, Victor Pelissier, someone named simply Mr. Newman, and a few others. There's nothing monumental here–James Hewitt's "Yankee Doodle with 9 Variations" may be too silly to fully appreciate–but the playing is exquisite and there are some great discoveries.