Release Date: 06 January 2002
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313501021
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: The Beatles Go Baroque
Description
Beatles Go BaroquePeter Breiner and His Chamber OrchestraOur response to music may all too often be conditioned by a nostalgic mood - or in this particular case by a mode. Whether one is a fan or not, there is an undeniably modal (most frequently minor key) simplicity and a plaintive, distinctly old-fashioned clarity about McCartney's music. Denounced by the critics including, not least, on occasions, the sardonic Lennon himself as "muzak", it remains surprisingly resilient to the kind of clinical embellishment that a baroque treatment entails. And whereas home truths about the heroes of one's youth may sound iconoclastic, it will quickly be admitted that these well-known tunes suffer not at all from being rescheduled ?á la Bach or ?á la Vivaldi. Re-arrayed in classical garb they are made to sound even more nostalgic, almost improved by some "time-honoured" process of alchemy. As with Mozart, however unlikely the disguise, they emerge indestructible; like a fresh hearing of some neglected Delius these favourite songs, shorn of their words, still have the power to transport us "over the hills and far away".Beatle, Go Baroque is an anachronistic Magical Mystery Tour through the well-thumbed pages of the Lennon and McCartney songbook. Concerto Grosso No 1, in the style of Georg Frideric Hundel, finds it's predictable, if aptly chosen Overture (Track 1) in She Loves You. Recorded by the Fab Four in July 1963, the A side of their fourth single soon became a proud anthem of Swingin' 60s pop-art and the decidedly non-?¡belligerent war-cry of a generation given over to flower-power spontaneity, psychedelia, acid and yeah yeah music. The alternation of various individual instruments in concert with full ensemble justifies the subtitles of this and the other Concerti Grossi.A backwards-in-time revamp of the Loveable Mopheads' last Parlophone single (recorded 3rd and 6th February 1968), Lady Madonna (Track 2) continues in the same concertante vein, followed immediately by the contrasting Fool on the Hill (Track 3), a cantabile threnody for strings introducing solo cello notably slower in pace than its original which, along with the jaunty, autobiographical Penny Lane (Track 5) first appeared in the United States in 1967 (Great Britain in 1976) on the Magical Mystery Tour double-EP. Track 4, Honey Pie (from the Beatles double-album of November 1968) also begins allegro concertante, with first then second violin prominently featured. Lead violin is even more effectively employed in Concerto Grosso No. 2, in the style of Antonio Vivaldi in which violins predominate. Solo violin is used to state the themes of Girl (Track 7 - a much admired number from Rubber Soul, issued in the UK December 1965 and in the USA in 1987) and I Lave Her (Track 8) - a kind of barcarolle, this brings a moment of tender respite from the essentially tough theme of A Hard Day's Night (July 1964) whose revised title song becomes the overture (Track 6). Obliquely inspired by John's two qu
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
