Steve Hackett & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - A Midsummer Night's Dream
This butiful guitar concerto was not what I expected from rock guitarist Hackett. Highly recommended.
Ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett steps into Anthony Phillips territory on this classical instrumental album inspired by the Shakespeare play, which grew into a CD-length suite recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The music is a hauntingly beautiful mix of Elizabethan, Romantic, and Modern influences, all of it highly melodic and very animated -- in contrast to most efforts in this vein by progressive rock musicians, the different sections don't loiter and never luxuriate in their own beauty, but move forward with well-defined and animated development and very, very careful gradations of texture. The orchestra never overwhelms Hackett's guitar, and it is never used to hide less-than-interesting composition, because there isn't any of the latter. In all, this could be the most serious and compelling of all of Hackett's solo ventures, and one that justifies the whole field of progressive rock, if it got him to this point, crossing swords with Felix Mendelssohn, et al. -Allmusic GuideTracks:
2. A Form In Wax
3. By Paved Fountain
4. Titania
5. Set Your Heart At Rest
6. Oberon
7. Within This Wood
8. In The Beached Margent Of The Sea
9. Between The Cold Moon & The Earth
10. Puck
11. Helena
12. Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth & Mustardseed
13. Mountains Turned Into Clouds
14. The Lunatic, The Lover & The Poet
15. Starlight
16. Lysander & Demetrius
17. Celebration
18. All Is Mended
320kbps:
http://rs771l33.rapidshare.com/files/51361868/SH1997.part1.rar
http://rs437l36.rapidshare.com/files/51368298/SH1997.part2.rar
Password: Phonograph
