Customer Reviews

If You Love Me

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Richard Galliano, the world's no. 1 accordian player, seems to be in a very productive period lately, as he is issuing several new albums in a relative short period of time, in different settings. This new album is right up there with the best of his impressive and increasingly substantial discography and a wonderful addition to it, as it unites the beautifully blending sounds of Mr Galliano's accordion with Mr Burton's vibraphone on a gorgeous set of tunes, half of which coming from their common late friend Astor Piazzolla, most of which were recorded by Astor Piazzolla together with Gary Burton on a live album some 20+ years ago.

Both living artists, who always put the melody first instead of showing their mere virtuosity, have already previously released tributes to Mr Piazzolla, but none of their individual tributes has reached the heights of this collaboration. The album's opener is certainly one of the album's highlights and is sure to send shivers down your spine and will surely not be the last this happens while listening to this album. Special mention deserve also the subtle rhythm tandem, consisting of two other masters of their art, George Mraz on bass and Clarence Penn on drums, who know how to support this music optimally. As Richard Galliano rightly notes in his liner notes, this album provokes "an intense emotion and profound feeling of Peace and Love", or as I would call it, this music soothes the soul. Therefore, my only criticism towads this album is that instead of "If You Love Me" it would have been more appropriate to name it "Hymn To Love", which would have been a literal translation of the French title song contained in this marvelous collection. Not to be missed.

I had heard a really good CD of accordions playing classical works... and was amazed. Then I heard an excerpt of this CD (the "sinfonia" track) which turned out to be, easily, the best track. It's not bad, but it didn't move me.