Rating: 2/5
Review:
Not for me
I'm afraid I don't think this is very good. It's well played and unobjectionable, but it
doesn't seem to me to add up to much.
The programme is a mixture of reworked gamba pieces by great
composers for the instrument like Marais, Sainte-Colombe and Hume, and more
modern pieces (several composed by Santana himself), played on two amplified
violas da gamba and electric guitar. In
principle, this sounds fine to me – modern interpretations can be very insightful
and enjoyable, I have the greatest respect for Hille Perl's work and I have a
lot of her discs which I play regularly and with great pleasure. I have also enjoyed Lee Santana's recordings
in the past, so I was hoping for something really good here.
What I actually got was a rather unconvincing mish-mash of
styles which didn't really do much for any of the music presented here. Much of the character seems to have been
leeched out of the early works and, I'm sorry to say, the contemporary pieces don't
seem to have much character in the first place.
All of it just sounds to me like the sort of thing you'd hear in the
background in a slightly over-earnest wholefood café; unchallenging wallpaper
which thinks it's more profound than it really is.
I'm sorry to be so critical of musicians whom I respect, but
this just doesn't work for me at all.
Others may find more in it than
do, but I really can't recommend it.
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