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Site review by Geohominid February 10, 2008
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
There is rather a dearth of good folk/traditional music on SACD, and as I'm fond of Irish, Scottish and Scandinavian folk music, I thought I would give this album a try.
My first warning came when I revealed the packaging. A great amount of effort has been expended in producing this neat hard-back booklet, which includes a thin card slipcase for the disc. The front cover has a cut-out arch which looks onto a hazy painting of fairies and elves surrounding a young woman with a lamp. "Strolling Through the Tunes" is a fanciful commentary on the tracks, fully loaded with artwork of Victorian and early C20th magic forest-related paintings and drawings. Some little girls would probably love it. I thought at first it was tongue-in-cheek, but there is a Bibliography which includes Barbara G. Walker's "The Women's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects" and "The Woman's Encyclopaedia of Myth and Secrets", so it must be serious.
Anne Roos is quite well-known for taking part in a revival of the Celtic Harp and for playing at weddings in California as well as on cruise ships, etc; several of her previous CDs of so-called Celtic music have been for weddings. Personally I rather cavil at the generalised lumping of Irish, Scottish, Cornish and Breton traditions into the amorphous Celtic blob; it does nothing to indicate their vital differences. All the music on this disc is arranged by Anne for the harp, with the addition of various other instruments including harmonium, flute, recorder, whistle, cittern, guitar, viola and Hardanger fiddle with drums, in various combinations. She tells us "Here, we'll reveal the forest's secrets. In this recording of traditional and original music, we illuminate the seldom seen and heard, as if shining a shaft of light into the heart of the forest…" Hmmm.
Track Listing
Considine's Grove
Epping Forest
King of the Fairies
The Fairy Child & The Fairy Queen
A Bruxa--The Witch
Craigieburn Wood
Artemisia
Bourrée de la Luciole--Dance of the Firefly
Trollspolska
Roslin Castle & The Woods of Kilmurry
Bottom's Dream,
The Golden Castle
Bears Bear Dance & The Dancing Bear
Robin is to the Greenwood Gone--Bonny Sweet Robin or Robin Hood
Three Old English Tunes--Gamble Gold, Abbots Bromley Horn Dance & The Green Man
Virgin Forest
The Forest Nymph--Song of the Woods & The Tree in the Woods
The Gold Ring.
Most of the pieces are traditional, but Dorothy A. Hawkinson (who plays the Hardanger fiddle) contributed four of her own tunes, including a 'slow waltz' which is certainly the slowest waltz I have ever heard. None of them are particularly memorable, particularly in these performances, which all have a generalised prettyness, somewhat four-square rhythms, little dynamic shading and virtually no vitality. The simple tunes seem to repeat over and over again. Californian very laid-back is the best description of the bland performance style. The Irish jigs have a slowish and fey 'plinky-plink' character, and the Norwegian trolls are not terrifying or even humorous, but stolid and lumpish. Even the percussion, sparingly used, is very polite. At times the tempi drag so much it is hard not to fall asleep!
Many times when the Hardanger fiddle plays with the harp, there are serious disagreements about pitching, and some patches are painful to hear. The recorder is also sometimes pitched at odds with the harp, and has a odd thin wheezy sound.
Engineering is fine, but the SACD layer sound is not easily differentiated from the CD layer. Some attempt has been made to put instruments in the surround channels, especially the hand-drums, but a great deal more creativity here might have lifted these reverential performances somewhat. The elaborate packaging seems to me to be better than the SACD's contents.
A great disappointment, and a disc I wished I had avoided. If you want to hear some 'celtic' music with real fire and passion, then try Mackenzie & William Jackson: Notes From A Hebridean Island, Mackenzie & William Jackson: Notes From A Hebridean Island.
Not recommended unless you are already an Anne Roos devotee. Perhaps valuable for New Age weddings with an SACD player.
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Copyright © 2008 John Miller and SA-CD.net
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Sonics (MC):
