Homer's Secret Iliad Kenneth Wood

An intricate, deliberately idiosyncratic record, assembled piece by piece, Boulders perfectly captures Roy Wood's peculiar genius, more so than anything else he recorded. All of his obsessions are here – classical music, psychedelia, pre-Beatles pop, pastoral folk ballads, absurdist humor, studio trickery, and good old-fashioned rock & roll – assembled in a gracefully eccentric fashion. Some listeners may find that eccentricity a little alienating, but it's the core of Wood's music. He wrote tuneful, accessible songs, but indulged his passions and weird ideas, so even the loveliest melodies and catchiest hooks are dressed in colorful, odd arrangements.

Mit seinem elaborierten, polyphonen Schaffen gilt der "Römisch Kayserliche Cammer-Organist" im Dienst des Habsburger-Kaisers Ferdinand III. in Wien als Schlüsselfigur der Musik im 17. Jahrhundert. Er ist der erste expressive Virtuose und Komponist für Tasteninstrumente, der Begründer eines idiomatischen deutschen Clavierstils. In allen Clavier-Gattungen seiner Zeit setzte der Frescobaldi-Schüler Froberger dabei Maßstäbe, komponierte Fantasien, Canzonen, Suiten, Ricercare und Capriccios für Orgel, Cembalo und Clavichord. Für Johann Sebastian Bach wurde das innovative Suitenwerk zum Vorbild. Vor allem seine Toccaten im sogenannten "stylus fantasticus" sorgten mit eruptiven Wechseln von rhapsodischen und fugierten Abschnitten für Furore.

The Art of Fugue or 'complete practical fugal work', as C. P. E. Bach described his father's giant contrapuntal achievement, is well represented in the current recording catalogue. The approaches to it vary considerably with performances on solo keyboard—harpsichord and organ—and mixed ensembles with markedly different shades of instrument colour. Varied too, is the sequence in which the performers play the fugal parts which comprise the whole. Some complete the final fugue, some do not; some find a place for all the pieces included in the posthumous original edition of 1751, others have given reasons for omitting those which seem not to play a directly relevant part in Bach's scheme. Kenneth Gilbert leads us down another fascinating path his performance on a solo harpsichord follows not the 1751 printed edition but Bach's own autograph material differing from the other both in content and layout.

Kenneth Gilbert's vital rhythmic sense and love of refinement are qualities which can be strongly felt throughout this set.