Classic Kennedy

Antonio Vivaldi (Artist), Jules Massenet (Artist), English Traditional (Artist), Johannes Brahms (Artist), Fryderyk Chopin (Artist), Erik Satie (Artist), George Gershwin (Artist), Johann Sebastian Bach (Artist), Vittorio Monti (Artist), George Frideric Handel (Artist), Charles Gounod (Artist), Claude Debussy (Artist), Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Artist), William Kroll (Artist), Pablo de Sarasate (Artist), Joni Mitchell (Artist), English Chamber Orchestra (Artist), Nigel Kennedy (Artist), Osian Ellis (Artist), London Voices (Artist), John Anderson (Artist), David Thomas (Artist), Harold Lester (Artist), Andrew Crowley (Artist), Charles Tunnell (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 1, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B000026D4B
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,146 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #47 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Languages > Russian
  • #79 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Vocal Non-Opera > Songs & Lieder > Folk Songs

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Just in case you thought Nigel Kennedy--fresh from his Hendrix tribute album--had left the classical music repertoire for good, think again. On Classic Kennedy, the fiddler is situated with the English Chamber Orchestra in a program that spans from Bach to Satie. (Yes, you also get a Joni Mitchell tune; "Scarborough Fair"; and the fiddler's own forgettable "Melody in the Wind," too.) The sequencing is a bit disjointed--the summer storm from The Four Seasons is followed by Massenet's blissful "Meditation" from Thaïs--and Kennedy's performances range from good to fair. The English Chamber Orchestra does an admirable job on these diverse works (it deserves a lot of credit here), but it'll be up to the listener to decide whether he or she wants to hear "Air on the G String" followed by Kennedy's version of "Danny Boy." As with most Kennedy discs, you'll either love it or hate it. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A matter of taste, April 7, 2000

By 

F. Behrens "Frank Behrens" (Keene, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Kennedy (Audio CD)

As one commentator has put it, you will either love or hate <Classical Nigel> on EMI (56890-2), spotlighting that cross-over badboy of music, Nigel Kennedy and his violin. My estimate falls somewhat between the emotions: amused tolerance. If Streisand wants to do German Lieder, that is her privilege; and no one is surprised when it comes out lousy. If Kiri Te Kanawa wants to do Cole Porter, you might argue that her style is simply not that required for "Anything Goes," all the while being influenced by how you feel about her as an opera superstar. Kennedy, however, stimulates more violent reactions from his fans and from his detractors, as witness the other reviews on this site.

Here we have 20 cuts of violin music ranging from Vivaldi to Joni Mitchell and the modest soloist himself. The order is not at all carefully thought out and if you hit the random play button the results will be much the same (except for the Kennedy work which he carefully put at the end). Then again, any program that has the hauntingly beautiful Gershwin "Prelude No. 2," the Debussy "Girl With the Flaxen Hair," and the traditional "Scarborough Fair" is not to be despised as long as the melodies are not wrenched out of all recognition. Here they are given respectful treatment and the other 17 pieces are either on the mark stylistically or very far off it but enjoyable on their own terms.

The English Chamber Orchestra gives the soloist fine support, although the sudden vocal for the Scarborough cut is intrusive but eerie enough to be interesting.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Concept, A Failed Production, September 7, 2002

By 

DavidFromCT (Norwich, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic Kennedy (Audio CD)

A while back I had heard about a British violin soloist named Nigel Kennedy, who was working on transcribing songs by Jimi Hendrix for the violin. I had altogether forgotten his name until my friend lent me a copy of Kennedy's 1999 release 'Classical Kennedy', and when I saw the pictures of him with his Morrisey haircut, stubbly facial hair, and his leather jacket, I recognized this controversial figure, the so-called "Bad Boy" of classical music.

'Classical Kennedy' is an exploration of the violin not as the solo voice of a gargantuan half-hour concerto but, rather, the lead voice in a three to five-minute song, and it explores this concept from Bach to Joni Mitchell. Right away this poses a serious undertaking- it is difficult to achieve continuity in a classical album that practically spans the history of Western art music. However, this conflict is partly resolved by the consistency of the tracks' lengths.

Kennedy has a distinct sound, and his little "trick" is that he sometimes plays really hard and really fast. He occasionally draws an elegant and pure tone that listeners expect from a great soloist, but he also has the tendency to turn a beautiful phrase into a crude and apathetic statement. These days the idea of a violinist who isn't utterly predictable, and is willing to take liberties with the repertoire, is a pleasant muse, but Nigel Kennedy is certainly not the ideal solution.

Kennedy's gimmick becomes his fatal flaw- in classical music, the notes speak for themselves. He makes Bach and Brahms sound hoarse and nasal. Ask any professional violinist and they'll tell you that, though there isn't one exact way to play any piece, there are limits on what one should do with a phrase, and that rule is implicit through understanding the composition. It's a hard truth to face, and perhaps only a trained musician fully understands this phenomenon. Either way, there needs to be an intimacy between the performer and the listener. All in all, Kennedy's technique caves in on itself. He plays as if taking great liberties at every turn were in itself a good thing. He cuts off a note that should sing, his sense of tempo is awkward at best- he seems to be driven by self-indulgent whims rather than musical passion.

There are points in the album where I think that his approach does utter disservice to the piece. For example, his interpretation of Massenet's 'Meditations' simply does not compare to Itzhak Perlman's flawless, dramatic performance on 'A La Carte'. Kennedy's Chopin 'Nocturne in C#' (which really sounds better with just a piano) doesn't at all capture the emotion and power of Sarah Chang's performance on 'Sweet Sorrow'. I'm not saying that every single track on this album is a loser. But where he fails miserably in some regards is that his playing strays into avant-garde quirks, and it becomes somewhat ignorant to the music in the piece. Ivry Gitlis quoted in the DVD 'The Art of Violin' that 'of course it's an insult to music when somebody says 'that's the benchmark performance' or 'that's how it's supposed to be played''. But in a lot of classical works, the personality and individuality of the performer lay in the subtleties of the performance, not in urinating on the very things that made the piece wonderful and then hoping that the listener will somehow connect with it.

Nigel Kennedy, from a technical standpoint, is a musician to be envied, but I am certainly not one of his defenders. I am a violinist, and I have a life-long love and respect for some of these compositions. When I see these works become so utterly removed from the things that made them great in the first place, I become disappointed and depressed- but not because 'Classic Kennedy' has somehow offended me. Rather, these days it seems that classical record labels, big-shot corporate management, and major symphony orchestras, seem to think that a soloist with a clever gimmick is a cure for a disease effecting a dying genre. But classical music has upheld itself through discipline, conservation, and passion. In a lot of the pieces on this album, Kennedy abandons those values, and unfortunately the result is music that is surprisingly un-musical.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classical for a varied mood, April 2, 2000

By 

Joel Wicker (Phoenix, Arizona) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Kennedy (Audio CD)

I have two frames of mind when I listen to Classical. I want to either listen to something soothing and not have it as my primary focus or have something that stands out and keeps my attention. For me, this cd falls into the latter category. This cd is by far my favorite Nigel cd and gets a lot of heavy rotation.

As a matter of fact, I'm purchasing a second copy for a friend of mine. She recently started listening to classical and isn't sure where to start. I think this cd fits that need perfectly.