Customer Reviews

Guitar Concerto (+1 Bonus Track)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album is truely an emotional ride through Michael Kamen's magnificent depth. It combines the sound of a very melodic electric guitar with an emotionally driven orchestral backup. I love how the themes develope and come full circle in the end. The first movement has all the dynamics you could wish to hear from such a combo, and revolves around a theme clearly taken straight from the composer's heart. The second movement starts slow with a melancholic repeating pattern for the basses and celli, then enters the electric guitar with such sad beauty, playing overtop the repeating pattern. The very slow crecendo leads to an ultimate high for emotional electricity pouring out of the guitar with the support of the full orchestra...all the way leading to the explosion of happiness in the final movement. Michael Kamen originally wrote this for Eric Clapton, and there are bootlegs of that recording from their 24 nights tour, but this is Hotei with a studio recording, and tons of perfected sounds and energy. I wish there were more albumns like this. This is guaranteed to blow you away if you enjoy good deep music. Edge of Darkness is a bonus that stands alone and is just as good.

When I first heard the clips of the First and Third movement in the Stars on Ice tour back in 1996, I fell in love with the songs. It brought tears to my eyes because the First movement was so sweet and soothing. This CD is so unique because it brings a whole new word to classical music. You can listen to the orchestra and the electric guitar brings a new age/modern life into the song. It is great. I give it all to Michael Kamen and Tomoyasu Hotei. I've waited since 1996 for this to exist for us to hear and it's worth it.

I had heard rumors that this CD existed for years. I checked & re-checked music stores time & again. Every visit, I would be told that the CD does not exist. It has to be imported from Japan (hence the steep price).

In this album, the great Michael Kamen demonstrates his impressive musical prowess. He is able to fuse elements of both the classical and rock genres into the concerto format. There are only a handful of people in the worldwho could pull something like this off (David Foster, perhaps Pete Townsend come to mind). Kamen puts on his display his mastery of the concerto form; the results are downright astounding.

Hotei is a well-equipped guitarist for this music. He has an almost David Gilmour-like lyrical quality in his guitar playing. The 2nd movement brings this ability to the forefront. He is the perfect match for a musical project such as this.

Fans of this album may also like to by Kamen's concerto for saxaphone (written for & performed by David Sanborn). This is an exciting, colorful and elegant album. The musicianship and performance quality are exquisite. Any fan of music would be remiss if he did not include it in his CD collection.

Unquestionably one of the best CD's I have ever purchased.

Powerful work by 2 extremely talented musicians. Highly recommended for those who really dig good music!

Michael Kamen's concerto for electric guitar, rock band and orchestra is definitely worth looking for. Some Kamen stuff can tend towards 'the cheesey' but this isn't, if Dvorak were alive you could imagin him writing something similar! To get really geeky though I'd argue that Hotei's rendition is not as good Eric Clapton's Albert Hall performance of this piece broadcast by the BBC in the late eighties.

The concerto is in three movements, with the real guitar fireworks in the third movement. If you are a competant guitar player yourself then there is a huge bonus (apart from the extra (though rather dull) Eric Clapton performed piece)- track five is the third movement WITHOUT the guitar part, and include with the CD is the sheet music of Hotri's playing of it. You'd have to be pretty good though!!!

All in all a really nice though not easy to get package, but you need to ask yoursely what you are willing to pay. I paid about £30 from a dealer in the US (which I thought was a fair price), at the moment (May '11) prices on the six copies available range from £27 - £81!

While I have been a fan of Michael Kamen's for years, I only recently learned of this work and, intrigued, found that it had been uploaded on YouTube. I was stunned, and I knew I had to make the purchase, even at the overinflated prices on the third-party market.

The genesis of this concerto goes back to Kamen's collaboration with Eric Clapton on the '80s British TV miniseries Edge of Darkness, during which Clapton commissioned this work. Clapton performed the concerto in a concert at Royal Albert Hall in the early '90s, but for whatever reason he wasn't available for this recording. Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei was chosen to fill in, but Hotei's obscurity in the West has thus doomed this album's availability to remain exclusive to Japan, and I believe it is also out-of-print.

This is a shame, because this is really an exciting piece. Kamen composed this concerto to flirt with the conventions of two supposedly opposing musical idioms -- symphonic repertoire and rock 'n roll, and, to its credit, there is never really a stretch where it comfortably fits into either category, keeping a unique synthesis that, IMHO, is quite beautiful. The closest comparison I can make would be the "American Symphony" cue that Kamen wrote several years later for the film Mr. Holland's Opus, although Kamen's work here reaches a level of sophistication that simply can't be achieved in a piece that is only five minutes in length.

The First Movement is by far the longest and with the broadest musical range, encompassing something of a spectral overview of what can be expected, weaving a musical journey through the soundscape with a nice resolution.

The Second Movement is slower and more introspective. This movement is perhaps the most "classical" in tone, with several of the runs sounding almost baroque (if not for the amplification).

The Third Movement is where Kamen really lets loose. This is probably the most "rock"-like section of the piece, but Kamen's melody and harmonies are infused with such a tremendous sense of joy and warmth... the word that springs to mind is "reunion," like receiving a hug from a long-parted friend. I've listened to this track on repeat over-and-over-again just to maintain that emotion.

Also featured is "Nuclear Train," a cue from the aforementioned Edge of Darkness that Kamen co-wrote with Clapton, although still performed by Hotei (this time backed by the Seattle Symphony). Honestly, it doesn't live up to the heights of the concerto, but it is still worth listening to with its driving pulse and minor-key bombast.

The final track is a solo-less version of the concerto's Third Movement, included on the album, I think, to allow interested parties to play along at home, but also because it is interesting to hear only the accompaniment and get a feel for how it interacts with the solo.

As I stated earlier, this album was a Japan-only release and I'm pretty sure it's OOP, so (as the above links no doubt demonstrate) purchasing a copy won't be cheap, but I think you will find it to be a rewarding purchase.