It's great to see the music of Nino Rota getting so much attention. He was a wonderful composer, and the ballet suite from La strada may be his orchestral masterpiece (just a quick note: the French language title identifies this as a suite from the eponymous film; it is in fact the more familiar arrangement of the later ballet). There are now four competitive recordings of this piece, the least interesting of which is on Chandos with the Teatro Massimo orchestra: not bad, but not as well played or recorded as either Muti's slightly stiff version with the excellent La Scala forces, or Atma's brilliant recent release featuring the Greater Montréal Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. All of the couplings differ in various ways, though Muti also has the dances from Il gattopardo (The Leopard).
Pioneering early-70's Spanish progressive band, Granada was the musical project of multi-instrumentalist Carlos Carcamo.
For their third and final effort 'Valle del Pas', Carcamo got rid of his previous partners and recruited four new ones: Carlos Basso (guitars), Julio Blasco (bass), Antonio Rodriguez (drums & percussion), and Joaquin Blanco (bagpipes and other Northern Spanish woodwind instruments). Blanco's presence is mostly due to Carcamo's interest on exploring the Northern Spanish folklore, in order to add its peculiar Celtic spice into Granada's prog style: this is particularly noticeable in tracks 4 and 7, which are expressions of successful progressive rock translation of folk joie de vivre. But that is not to say that 'Valle del Pas' is your regular acoustic folk album. This is a prog rock album…
Patrick Gowers' score for the Grenada Television series about A. Conan Doyle's consulting detective has become almost as closely linked to Sherlock Holmes in the minds of fans as star Jeremy Brett (1933-1995). But those with no interest in Holmes can also enjoy this recording. Gowers' musical eloquence is richly displayed in these widely diverse, yet cohesive, tracks. Gowers begins the recording with "221B Baker Street," the vivacious theme (performed on Holmes' instrument, the violin, by Kenneth Sillito) that brings to mind Holmes' classic alarm call, "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word!" The cohesiveness of the album comes from Gowers' variations on this theme found throughout the rest of the recording. But the diversity within this cohesiveness is what is remarkable.
Make a cover album is always a risky exercise. I would say more extreme: play with material already walking the recesses of the brain of the listener can pave the way or condemn a brainy game outright rejection revision. Over eighteen years ago, one of the greatest singers of all time was a machete forget to Cohen and raised the maximum voltage level one piece, coated vocals and layers, would rock the annals of the twentieth century: "Little Viennese waltz" became "Omega", thanks to the duo Enrique Morente and Largatija Nick, untouchable, sacred. Until now.