Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Thijs Van Leer - Introspection 1

During his years of playing with Dutch progressive rock super group Focus, founding member, flutist Thijs Van Leer ventured into the realm on semi-classical music by joining Dutch producer arranger Rogier Van Otterloo. This LP was the first of a stream of productions they did together before van Otterloo's passing in 1988. The result was magical. The covers of classical musical pieces were done to perfection blending elements of pop music with the integrity of the masterpieces and viceversa, the original compositions sound as part of the same repertoire. Although corny at times and bordering on muzak (sometimes called "Elevator Music"), these beautiful and superb orchestral arrangements by Van Otterloo create a concept, which is attractive to any music lover, even the hard core fans of the group Focus. This production is available on CD coupled with their second rendition. The remastered version is no longer available on CD.
Track Listing:
1. Pavanne (Fauré Op. 50) (sampled above)
2. Rondo
3. Agnus Dei (from Mass in B minor JS Bach)
4. Focus I
5. Erbarme Dich (from St. Matthew Passion JS Bach)
6. Focus II
7. Introspection

Available at Amazon or at CD Universe

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for these. I got the double CD and did not know where one album began and the other ended.

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