Description:
Seven: A Suite for Orchestra is the first classical solo album by keyboardist Tony Banks. It was released by Naxos Records in 2004. The suite is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Mike Dixon. Banks plays piano on "Spring Tide", "The Ram" and "The Spirit of Gravity." It was his sixth studio album (and eighth album overall).
Track listing
"Spring Tide"
"Black Down"
"The Gateway"
"The Ram"
"Earthlight"
"Neap Tide"
"The Spirit of Gravity"
NAXOS Press release (from the former Official Genesis
Seven: A Suite for Orchestra is the first classical solo album by keyboardist Tony Banks. It was released by Naxos Records in 2004. The suite is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Mike Dixon. Banks plays piano on "Spring Tide", "The Ram" and "The Spirit of Gravity." It was his sixth studio album (and eighth album overall).
Track listing
"Spring Tide"
"Black Down"
"The Gateway"
"The Ram"
"Earthlight"
"Neap Tide"
"The Spirit of Gravity"
NAXOS Press release (from the former Official Genesis website)
Tuesday, 2nd March 2004
NAXOS PRESS RELEASE
SEVEN
An Orchestral Revelation
Tony Banks, keyboard player from Genesis releases classical album on Naxos
On 29 March 2004 Naxos is delighted to announce the release of Seven (A Suite for Orchestra), written by Tony Banks, keyboard player for the progressive rock band Genesis.
Seven was recorded in the Summer of 2002 at Air Lyndhurst, a huge Victorian studio complex in Hampstead. It is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Mike Dixon (also known as the musical supervisor of the hugely successful hit musical ‘We will rock you’). Simon Hale worked alongside Tony Banks as musical arranger and Nick Davis (who worked on the last two Genesis albums) took on the task of engineer/producer par excellence.
The idea of writing classical music for an orchestra, not something Banks is associated with, had been in his mind since he wrote the music soundtrack for the film ‘The Wicked Lady’ back in the early eighties. Of the seven pieces in the suite, five were written specifically for the project, but the other two were earlier ideas.
The piece opens with ‘Spring Tide’, one of three pieces to use the piano and the one in which it features most prominently. This is followed by the nostalgic ‘Black Down’, the piece which really started the Seven project. ‘The Gateway’ was written twenty years ago as a possible film theme that was never used. ‘The Ram’ follows next and is a rhythmic upbeat piece which is followed by the theme and variations piece ‘Earthlight’. ‘Neap Tide’ is the other older piece, a version of which was originally recorded for the album Strictly Inc. Finally the Suite closes with ‘The Spirit of Gravity’, which travels through different musical ideas before ended up where it began.
From a recent interview on his musical mentors, Banks confessed that his influences on the early music of Genesis – Ravel and Rachmaninov – are not so evident in Seven. It is the great English composers of the first part of the twentieth century: Elgar, and more particularly Vaughan Williams who were the influences for his writing. This can be seen most clearly in the second piece on the disc ‘Black Down’, a piece that closely reflects the elegiac pastoral mood that characterized much of the English music of this time. It develops slowly over a deceptively simple theme, stated and re-stated, gently twisting and turning the melody until the piece resolves and the parts fall into place.
Banks greatly enjoyed working with the LPO and has made it clear that he is not a fan of computerised music for classical composition, preferring real instruments and real people to shape his works. This enthusiasm and genuine enjoyment of the music in Seven is evident in the playing from the LPO and we all are confident that the work will be an enormous success.
... (more)
(less)
Manufacturer: Naxos
Release date: 29 March 2004
EAN: 0747313246625 UPC: 747313246625
My tags:
Add tags
Login
