Dave Payn
Active Member
I picked this up cheaply (thank heavens!) a few weeks ago and it consists of two CDs, one called Music for a Millennium and the other called Music for a Millennium 2, the performers being the English Brass Consort and the organists Neil Taylor (disc 1) and Kevin Bowyer (disc 2) in two discs worth of patriotic English music
Now it's not that individually the brass play badly (though there are a few iffy moments) or the organist plays badly, but for whatever reason, there are several moments on disc 1 particularly, where the recording engineers should have just shouted 'whoa there, brass and organ are about a semitone out, can we do that again!'. Maybe there wasn't enough time, who knows, but the result is at times exceedingly painful to the ears.
Disc 2 is an improvement all round, thankfully, but disc 1 amazingly, was voted Record of the Year 1999 by Classic FM magazine!
p.s. Sorry to go all linguistic again, but I spell 'Millennium as it is shown on the disc cover. Isn't it spelt 'Milennium'? Not that it really matters.....
Sorry to post a thoroughly disparaging review but they can't all be award winners! (Hang on, what am I saying? This IS an award winner!)
Now it's not that individually the brass play badly (though there are a few iffy moments) or the organist plays badly, but for whatever reason, there are several moments on disc 1 particularly, where the recording engineers should have just shouted 'whoa there, brass and organ are about a semitone out, can we do that again!'. Maybe there wasn't enough time, who knows, but the result is at times exceedingly painful to the ears.
Disc 2 is an improvement all round, thankfully, but disc 1 amazingly, was voted Record of the Year 1999 by Classic FM magazine!
p.s. Sorry to go all linguistic again, but I spell 'Millennium as it is shown on the disc cover. Isn't it spelt 'Milennium'? Not that it really matters.....
Sorry to post a thoroughly disparaging review but they can't all be award winners! (Hang on, what am I saying? This IS an award winner!)