Daniel Bell The Coming

Daniel Lentz - The Crack In The Bell (1987) {Angel Records CDC-7 49180 2}
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© 1987 Angel Records / EMI | CDC-7 49180 2
Classical / Modern Classical / Post-Minimalism / Experimental

The Crack in the Bell is a collection of five of Lentz's pieces which concentrate on his writing for voices, synthesizers, and, on the title piece, orchestra; no rubbed wineglasses to be found here. They walk a fine line between genuine, exuberant effervescence and a slightly heavy-handed earnestness. "The Crack in the Bell" uses the e.e. cummings poem of the same name for some lilting vocalese by Jessica Lowe over burbling synthesizers and an orchestra conducted by John Harbison, whose work this somewhat resembles in its cheery evocation of Americana.

Brett Dean is not shy about revealing what his music is ‘about’. Whether inspired by certain individuals (as in Epitaphs), or by an ecological or human disaster (as in his String Quartet No. 1, on the now all too topical plight of refugees), Dean’s works are usually – perhaps invariably – driven by extra-musical narratives. Rather than tease out any innate structural puzzles or tensions, his music typically falls into short little dramatic narratives – no movement on this disc lasts as long as eight minutes, many of them rather less than five. The most obviously successful work here is Quartet No. 2, ‘And once I played Ophelia’, effectively a dramatic scena. Its soprano soloist is no mere extra voice (as in Schoenberg’s Second Quartet) but the leading protagonist. Allison Bell’s genuinely affecting performance is backed by the Doric Quartet’s expressionist scampering and sustained harmonies, the strings occasionally coming to the fore in the manner of a Schumann-style song postlude.

Originally released on double vinyl some months after The Circus, thus its title, The Two Ring Circus is a time-killer release that actually stands very well on its own. Collecting remixes as well as re-recordings and live tracks, it at once makes for a good alternate take on the previous album as well as showing off further strengths of the duo…

Roots 'N Blues: The Retrospective 1925-1950 is a four-CD box set released on Columbia Records in June 1992. The set features five hours worth of early blues, folk/country and gospel recordings from a variety of American artists. Many of these recordings had never previously been issued in any medium.