Lisa Guyer Band

Duality is at once sacred and playful. It is both dark and light, organic and refined, masculine and feminine. Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard partners with Pieter Bourke, formerly of Aussie band Eden, to create this compositional dance of partnership that is classical, ancient, and thoroughly modern. Gerrard's voice is multitracked at times, conjuring a cathedral choir and the droning chants of monks. Drums and synth snake from desert to brilliant stormy sky to shaking earth and the bodies that inhabit those spaces. There are lush multiple layers of strings, bagpipe drone, and, quite literally, the laughter of children. The vocals sans "real" words and multicultural instrumentation will be familiar to Dead Can Dance listeners. Yet there is something more exclusive, more womblike about the music of Bourke and Gerrard; rather than two distinct bodies making music, like mother and in utero child sharing blood and breath, they are mutually dependent.

Lisa Wahlandt has been enchanting her enthusiastic audience for many years. With her fascinating voice, she stages jazz and pop classics, German-language songs or German-language songs or even exciting original compositions into a personal, almost private chamber play. Whether Bavarian or Portuguese, whether Bossa Nova, world music or Jazz - with Lisa Wahlandt and her band, all of this blends as if it were a matter of course to a musical feel-good experience.

Even on its first record "L'Escapade" (1974), Mona Lisa appeared as a dedicated follower of the theatrical, emotional and melodramatic rock created by Ange. The emphasis, the sensibility, the vocal subtlety of Dominique Le Guennec goes beyond the usual style. He "lives" his lyrics and surprises the listener by performing an expressive and suggestive music that evoke Genesis. The group got better with each album.
"Grimaces" (1975) exhibits a more extroverted colorfulness, even aiming at the build-up of merry-go-round atmospheres in many places. If Pierson's use of organ and synthesizers in the debut effort was close to a "B"-horror movie with heavy Gothic undertones, now the keyboard layers and solos tend to become festive…

After the success of Gladiator, it wasn't unusual to see director Ridley Scott turn to Hans Zimmer again for the score to Black Hawk Down, his fierce adaptation of Mark Bowden's account of the tragic 1993 American military intervention in Somalia. What was more surprising was the schedule Scott imposed on the German-born composer: 15 days to write, arrange, and record the film's nearly two hours of music. The results of Zimmer's miraculous two-week musical campaign not only belie those constraints; they instantly take their place alongside The Thin Red Line as some of the most compelling music he's produced. The gambit here is simple–portray the combatants as two warring tribes, with their native musics locked in a tense dance for domination.

Even on its first record "L'Escapade" (1974), Mona Lisa appeared as a dedicated follower of the theatrical, emotional and melodramatic rock created by Ange. The emphasis, the sensibility, the vocal subtlety of Dominique Le Guennec goes beyond the usual style. He "lives" his lyrics and surprises the listener by performing an expressive and suggestive music that evoke Genesis. The group got better with each album. "Avant Qu'il Ne Soit Trop Tard" (1977) is a success for this band, given that it mixes the vocal emphasis with the theatricality of its music, and it also goes beyond this thanks to a great instrumental variety and truly captivating and powerful melodies.

This survey of Vivaldi kicks off with a gutsy yet articulate performance of the Concerto for two trumpets RV 537, featuring flamboyant playing from soloists Andrea Di Mario and Jonathan Pia; it serves as a thrilling overture that leads directly into the spectacular trumpet-laden aria ‘Con palme ed allori’ from Teuzzone (which features some extraordinary embellishments by Kristina Hammarström). A broad range of Vivaldi’s theatrical output for Venice, Mantua and Verona is represented by a pleasingly varied selection of six arias from four different operas and another two arias by Giacomelli from the pasticcio Bajazet (including the striking lament ‘Sposa son disprezzata’, perhaps the recital’s sentimental highlight).

Marcello Di Lisa presents three cantate con stromenti that explore the anguish of abandoned lovers; his erudite booklet-note discusses the literary tradition behind the stories of the shepherd Aminta (a stock Arcadian character with roots in Hellenistic poetry), Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, and the forsaken Olimpia (heroine of cantos 9-11 of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso), and also provides a penetrating commentary on the musical content of Scarlatti’s cantatas.

There is certainly no shortage of recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, but this version by a veteran American performer and teacher has something to offer to the interpretation of this work with so many facets and such a complex structure. Lisa Goode Crawford, a longtime professor at Ohio's Oberlin Conservatory and a performer on historical instruments since long before it was fashionable, plays a powerful harpsichord (apparently a copy of a Dutch Ruckers instrument, although this is not specified anywhere). It allows her to differentiate sharply among the variation types that make up Bach's massive edifice. Tempos in general are on the slow side, allowing the listener to luxuriate in the varied textures.