Surrounded On Sundays - 5.1/quad reviews and summaries

Heritage

Cover art by Travis Smith
Studio album by
Opeth
Released 14 September 2011
Recorded 31 January – 21 February 2011 March 2011
Studio
Genre Progressive rock[1] jazz rock[2] folk metal[3]
Length 56:47
Label Roadrunner
Producer Mikael Åkerfeldt

Heritage is the tenth studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. It was released on 14 September 2011 through Roadrunner Records.[6] The album was recorded in early 2011 at Atlantis Studios in Stockholm and produced by Mikael Åkerfeldt, engineered by Janne Hansson, and mixed by Steven Wilson (the first album since 2003 album Damnation which he worked together with the band, although he wasn't the producer anymore). It takes on a full-fledged progressive rock sound, something the band had wanted to do for some time. It is a stark contrast to the progressive metal and death metal sounds of their past albums.

A critical and commercial success, the album sold 19,000 units in the United States in its debut week, charting at number 19 on the Billboard 200. The album was their first since 2003's Damnation not to feature Åkerfeldt's signature death growls.[7]

• Mikael Åkerfeldt – guitar, Mellotron, grand piano, vocals, sound effects, mixing, engineering, production
• Fredrik Åkesson – guitar
• Per Wiberg – grand piano, Mellotron, Rhodes piano, Hammond B3
• Martín Méndez – bass guitar, upright bass
• Martin Axenrot – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

• Alex Acuña – percussion (track 7)
• Björn J:son Lindh – flute (track 7)
• Joakim Svalberg – grand piano (track 1)
• Charlie Dodd – sound effects (track 6)

Production

• Janne Hansson – engineering
• Steven Wilson – mixing, effects engineering, vocal engineering
• Peter Mew – mastering

Additional personnel

• Jasper Schuurmans – project coordinator
• Sandra Artigas – photography
• Travis Smith – art direction
• Monte Conner – A&R

1. "Heritage" (instrumental) 2:04
2. "The Devil's Orchard" 6:39
3. "I Feel the Dark" 6:37
4. "Slither" 3:59
5. "Nepenthe" 5:37
6. "Häxprocess" 6:57
7. "Famine" 8:31
8. "The Lines in My Hand" 3:48
9. "Folklore" 8:17
10. "Marrow of the Earth" (instrumental) 4:18
Total length: 56:47
-----------------------------------------------------------
I was asked if I would run through this one this week, and I am happy to. I have another new album to me in the wings, but one week won't hurt, if I don't get around to it today.

So Opeth is another band that I discovered due to surround mixes, and I do really like a couple of the albums. @riskylogic has gone through some of the growly stuff they did, for us, and as I am not into the growly thing, that works out really well.
The band altered its sound and approach to introduce melodies and more progressive elements and lean away from the death metal thing, and that's cool in my world, I have never understood the whole death thing ... although obviously if people like it, I am not going to knock it.... It is cool that everyone has something for them in the field of music ... in my opinion anyway.

I am guessing that this album is starting to get low on stock.

Amazon says it has one more copy at $28.49 https://www.amazon.com/Heritage-Opeth/dp/B005CM9DX6
Discogs has 8 copies it says from $6 but really it works out to about $20 with shipping Opeth - Heritage (CD, US, 2011) For Sale | Discogs

5.1 mix Steven Wilson
Mastering Peter Mew?

So lets see how this one comes together.

The audio is dts, 48khz. There is also a DD option.

Heritage
A melancholy piano opens us up in the front, with breathy, atmospheric sends to the field. Not super immersive as such, but nicely atmospheric.

The Devil's Orchard
We move into this track and it has a staccato more prog metal feel, with seventies instrument sounds.
Guitar and organ in the rears, drums up front.
Guitar comes in left rear, joined by one in right. Organ/synth comes in in right side.
The vocal is centre channel.
The synth comes in across the back.
This has the feel of stuff coming at you from all angles, and in certain sections it is like they changed positions...
It isn't jarring, or out of context. It is just difficult to translate.
The track has a sort of ominous feel about it.
There is plenty going on in the rears, and we are immersed.
A solo organ comes in up front, and this leads us to a different section.
Cymbals in the rears.
Unusual sound, but an interesting mix. Immersive, and balanced.

For the record, lyrically these guys do nothing for me. I don't subscribe to their particular leaning.
Musically pretty interesting

I Feel The Dark
Again we open with a gentle feel, acoustic guitars and vocals up front.
Bvox come in in the rears.
A long vocal note holds and slides into reverb into the rears.
Mellotron sort of fills the room.
A sort of maudlin mellow groove comes in.
Keys on the right side play a counter melody type thing.
We get a tone pulse up front, and a whispered vocal and then we get a heavier crunching interlude.
Immersive and effective.
We slide back to the mellow groove.
Mellotron alternates between front left and right for a short passage.
This mix has a kind of floating, sliding feel.
A bridge of sorts comes in, and the drums are on the left side.
Again an interesting mix, and an unusual arrangement.

Slither
Guitar front left, with a sort of rock/eastern feel.
We get an uptempo track with a guitar on the right side, and another on the left.
Organ on the right side. Then across the rears.
We get a pick scrape across the rears. Then a lead break in the rear, that sort of moves to the front.
Then we move to a Spanish guitar in the front left. Supplemented by another in the right rear, and this is the coda.

Nepenthe
We get some very quiet effects up front, and some sounds in the rears... bird noises, unless I am being infiltrated by sounds from the garden
The mix skews somewhat, with the music sliding to the left side, and the vocal the right.
The vocal kind of sits between the centre and right rear, creating an interesting effect.
We get some Gentle Giant- like keys and a short boisterous section. It breaks down for a while and reemerges as a slashing lead break. Then we mellow out again.
The mix here is rather unusual. Certainly not bad, just much less usual to most we'll hear.
Drums left rear, guitar left front, organ right side.
We return to the section with the unusual vocal mix, and it's done.
Interesting and immersive.

Haxprocess
We open sort of like mellow Crimson here. Straddling the line between melodic and abrasive.
Then again we move into something else.
A lot of atmospheric stuff on here.
Guitar left side. Mellotron sort of all round.
Then we burst into some folkish guitars in the rears.
Drums kick in up front.
Keys in the rears.
Again we have an unusual arrangement, and mix, but again, I think it is interesting and immersive.
We move into a sort of minimalist blues break, with the bass up front, and lead guitar, full of reverb and delay based in front but effects around us.
Then we fade with a piano arpeggio.
Interesting again.

Famine
We open with a flute, which then merges into a sort wall of sound around us, and then breaks into a percussive section, with almost ambient tones floating around. This breaks into a lone piano.
A minimalist piano and vocal section takes the reins and then we have a rising guitar motif .
The beat comes in.
Organ right rear.
Some bvox in the rears.
Cymbals rears.
This minor frenzy gives way to electric piano and percussion, and the vocals come in again.
A beat breaks out, and then we move into some kind of seventies Sabbath meets Tull section.
Flute rears, organ on the right.
We mellow out again to some unusual jazz/blues.
Then the Sabbath/Tull thing comes back.
Some nice organ swirling and a wandering piano line take us out with some weird low mixed laughter.

The Lines Of My Hand
We open with some drums and an arpeggio with a vocal.
Then it all fills out.
A lead guitar comes in on the right side.
Keys left front.
Spanish guitar front right.
Cymbals rears.
An electric piano solo in front.
Then we burst into
Keys left side, guitar right rear.
Synth sound up front.
A drum break slaps around us.

Folklore
We open with a distant lone guitar that comes closer, the reverb disappearing.
Then we break into an interesting riff/melody broken up by the groove.
A strange vocal effect up front.
Again we have immersion and an interesting mix.
We break downtown another kind if semi-ambient thing. They are using lots of atmospheric sections, and then pushing into some rockish sections.
Now we move into a lead break type section, with a choir type sound front right.
The vocal sort of moves to the centre of the room via some effects.

Marrow Of The Earth
The acoustic guitars bring us in here.
One on the left side. Lead up front.
This is an instrumental as was the opener.
The is a nice melancholy feel to it, and the arrangement works well.
Again the immersion level is very good.
We move into a groove about halfway through and it has the feel of those psychotic possessed child type scenes in a horror movie thing going on.

I could see some people really loving this album. For me, it's ok, but I suppose it is covering a thematic kind of thing I am just not into, so be aware that that twists my perception of it somewhat.
The whole eerie, devil is in control theme, just doesn't really wash with me, and it makes it hard to get passed that in some respects.
Musically the album is really quite interesting, even if it is slightly schizophrenic to some degree. It almost feels like they were trying to encompass too much musical ground within each track. Certainly it is not bad at all, but it never really gets a groove, it kind of fluctuates between somewhat ornate little atmospheric sections and then bursts into something else.... and I guess for me, the real problem ends up being that once this has happened several times it becomes a little dull ... playing devil's advocate, I could see how someone else may hear this and think the exact opposite for the same reasons.
I would say a lot of thought has gone into the arrangements here, and perhaps too much thought, as it tends to come off a little disjointed, a little too frequently ... but then again, in its own way it is very effective in creating an uneasy type of atmosphere, that is more than likely what they were going for.
I'm doing my best to cover this, forgive me if it isn't making sense.
Mix-wise, I kind of feel the same way about it. It is unusual, and it seems to wander, in the same way the music does, which in many ways is a good thing, but it kind of leaves everything a little unfocused or something like that.
Certainly we have a surround mix, and it is immersive.
again playing devil's advocate I think Wilson has captured the wandering disquiet of the music quite well in the mix, as it seems a little wandering as well.

All in all, if you like your music a little on the demented, demonic kind of side of things, this album captures that well, and the mix follows in kind.
For me, it is a little uneven, and I end up somewhat waiting for it to finish, and hoping I manage to convey the album well, because I am not really getting into it.

So for me it's quite interesting for a time, but ultimately not something I will revisit often.... but having said that, I really could see it being something that some folks are going to absolutely love...
I hope that is useful to some degree.

 

First up from 2L is the Grammy Award winner from 2020: Lux by Nidaros Cathedral Girls' Choir & TrondheimSolistene, conducted by Anita Brevik.



This is one of the releases that contains Blu-Ray & SACD. Running time is just under 71 minutes. Prices will depend on how distribution works in your country, but I paid £21 which doesn't strike me as bad for the package given that it includes the disc in both formats. I listened to the album in stereo on streaming but this is my first audition in Atmos. There is also an Aura-3D layer ... which enabled me to discover that my setup doesn't decode the height channels in Aura-3D ...

Note: The liner notes include maps for the instrumental layout on each of the works. This is a real bonus.

The album was recorded at Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim, Norway between October 2017 and May 2018.

1) Hymn to Love, Composed by Ståle Kleiberg. The Text is Corinthians I 13 vv. 1-13 and it is sung in English in the current modern translation (“faith hope and love” rather than “faith hope and charity”).

This is a consonant piece that makes good use of choir and strings, providing a transcendent, radiant celebration of love without becoming banal along the way. All channels fire fairly evenly throughout although on my first surround listening I had no sense of where the sounds were located. I know now that the violas are front left and the cellos front right with the choir in front of me and all the violins behind me but until I found the supplied map I wasn't able to pick that out unassisted. Once I did know I could absolutely turn around and make sense of that. At that point I started standing up and walking around.

2) Requiem, Composed by Andrew Smith, featuring Trygve Seim on saxophones & Ståle Storløkken on church organ. No orchestra on this album-length (about 45 minutes) piece.

1. “Introitus”. Okay, so the saxophone is improvising: that was pretty clear when I first heard the work but is confirmed in the decent liner notes to this release. Due to the tiers of sound (organ, choir, saxophone) there is more of a sense of the church space than in the first piece.
2. “Precatio”. Organ and saxophone alone.
3. “Kyrie”. Unaccompanied choir, singing Medieval-type musical lines.
4. “Plorans ploravit”. A more harmonically dissonant movement, reminds me of Britten. Nice depth in the organ and there's a nice passage where isolated voices sing in canon with high organ over the top.
5. “Hymnum canentes martyrum”. Tenor(?) sax plays unaccompanied for three minutes at the start of this track, so if you like that sound with cavernous natural reverb then you're in luck. The hushed choir sings sweetly a hymn based on some pretty typical contemporary church harmonies: I feel that I recognise the hymn tune and this will regardless be very much in the mainstream of choral music if you go to church much. Suddenly there are overlapping choral voices that sound piped in from a distance (probably just controlled with the natural volume of the voices, but very skilfully done), which is a very nice effect that provides a backdrop for saxophone and organ. Back to the hymn melody.
6. “Vox in Rama”. Saxophone and organ again. More dissonance as their duet rises to a crescendo and the choir enters dramatically, unaccompanied. Natural reverb tails. Organ again and now the alto(?) sax plays mournful, Eastern lines over a pedal point in the organ and distant, high lines. Spectral.
7. “Dominus pascit me.” A rather “innocent” movement: consonant with the sense of a children's choir and the sax actually playing melodic lines at times rather than the jazzier lines that it has contributed so far. There's also a vocal soloist in this piece.
8. “Sanctus”. Back to the Medieval style lines for the choir, accompanied by organ, which swells to volume and is joined by the sax. Quite a soundfield!
9. “In paradisum”. All forces in play. The choral writing has bittersweet harmonies that I associate with contemporary church writing. About towards the end we get “amens” from the choir and then their voices become an indistinct pad for the organ and sax to end the work.

The Light, Composed by Ståle Kleiberg. For organ (Petra Bjørkhaug) choir and strings.

Nice string writing to open this piece: very transparent and stirring with rising phrases echoed from one set of instruments to another ... has something of Vaughan Williams about it. Almost six minutes into a piece that runs fewer than ten the choir comes in and then the organ. As with Kleiberg's first piece, this is a very elevating music ... I could have wanted this piece to last longer and I feel disappointed when it subsides to a surprisingly low-key ending.

Overall ... well, be honest, is there anyone who objects to the sound of a girls' choir singing in a cathedral? If there is: get out of here I can't even look at you! The three pieces (always bearing in mind that I didn't buy this disc because I liked the composers) are all decent and capable of entertaining a wide audience: not just classical specialists although that helps. Importantly, they are not garbage, which is a legitimate fear with new music: not too “Classic FM”, not too “scares the horses”. I find the use of an improvised Jazz sax in a mainly classical work to be somewhat gimmicky but in terms of the sonics of the album it works well. I'm not sure how much I gained from the Atmos looking up at the organ loft though ... some of this has to be taken on faith.

I enjoyed my time with this fairly long album and will certainly listen to it more: not just in surround. Certainly any regular visitor to this thread should consider it though I don't want to mark it as absolutely essential until I have heard more from this label.

[Postscript: my Smyth Realiser doesn't play multichannel SACD (it reverts to stereo) ... except that for 2L discs apparently it does play multichannel. Riddle me that, format experts.]

 

Totally missed this thread, thanks for the link!

 

I'm not an Opeth specialist at all. Heritage was the first album I bought by them in the first flush of my enthusiasm for Steven Wilson and this album was billed as part of a trilogy with Storm Corrosion (which I love) and iirc Grace For Drowning (which I like a lot). I remember quite liking it but I haven't played it for a long time.

1. “Heritage”. Lovely neo-Classical piece mainly for piano.
2. “The Devil's Orchard”. Retro-prog. Wow this sounds odd after the best part of two hours listening to choral music! It has a very aged feel, and not just because of the vintage instrumentation. Four minutes in we get a nice use of Leslie revolving cabinet on the organ. The coda of the song beginning with vocals and drums goes into a guitar solo cut off by piano and filtered vocal.
3. “I Feel The Dark.” Spanish guitar opening with Åkerfeldt's voice naturally recorded and processed flute sounds before the band comes in. The silence in the middle sets up heavy riffs, then the acoustic guitars come back and we get some vibe sounds before heavier still from the electric guitar. This has some of the Storm Corrosion feel though it's obviously rockier. Acoustic guitar and processed flute at the end.
4. “Slither”. This is listed as a Dio tribute and for me it doesn't belong on this album although it's okay in its own right. (Inconsistency is a complaint that I have in general about Opeth.) If I wanted this sort of straight-ahead Metal I'd put on some Rainbow. Again, the appearance of Spanish guitar cheers things up notably, with second and third guitars in the rears. Good end to a mediocre song.
5. “Nepenthe”. Åkerfeldt has been reading from the Big Book Of Pretentious Song Titles again. I like the subtle, acoustic, almost Jazz instrumentation that opens this and the guitar sounds great. A Fender Rhodes(?) crosses left to right before ending in the middle for a guitar solo and some more inventive musical atmospherics. Big guitar solo, then bass guitar, then all sorts of instrumental loveliness with Åkerveldt singing behind and front right. Best song so far.
6. “Håxprocess”. Åkerfeldt's vocals, beautifully dry, takes turns with a keyboard behind the listening position. The sound of children's play (surely SW's idea) & lots of space. Spanish guitar enters more dramatically and is doubled into a more exciting section. Mellotron wash into a nice piece of electric guitar over window-rattling bass guitar. Distant piano.
7. “Famine”. Ambient sounds into manual percussion and the devil laughing behind my right ear. (I assume that's just on the recording ... right?) Soulful piano chords and very distant eBowed electric guitar. Åkerfeldt sings for a while, a rock guitar fades in from the left, then settles right and someone turns ugly reverb on for the vocals. More singing, bongo drums (not something you hear very often), great big prog riff with flute in the background. Killer tone on that Middle-Eastern electric guitar. Leslie again with an upright piano through a filter.
8. “The Lines In My Hand”. Urgent drumming, guitar fades in, there's what sounds like electric guitar through an octave pedal, electric guitar rear right, Spanish guitar middle. Mellotron flutes, what sounds like the chorus clicks things back into focus. Double-time drumming feel. Vocals very low in this mix.
9. “Folklore”. I remember liking this. Medieval introduction on electric guitar, then electric guitar left for the proggy. opening riff. Suddenly and acoustic guitar arpeggio in a large room cuts off the rest of the song. Piano riff in what sounds like a larger room. The drums kicks off then think better of it and fall silent for the distant bass. Then the whole band is in with Mellotron choral sounds filling out the mix. It really sounds like there should be strings on this. Good outro to this song.
10. “Marrow Of The Earth”. The other neo-Classical instrumental piece on the album provides a nice, meditative endpoint although the appearance of band turns it almost into the theme tune to a Continental art movie. The additional tracks are only in stereo, though “Pyre” is actually quite good.

There's a lot to notice on this album, which admittedly makes for an interesting listening session, but to be honest most of the tracks here are a dog's dinner with a whole load of ideas that just never come together into coherent songs. The sound of the album is also very odd: vintage, yes, but strangely veiled and often unsatisfactory.

On paper I feel that this should be a favourite of mine but it'll be a while before I spin this again. I could suggest that it's an album to skip.

 

Tacet produce true surround Classical recordings...they're very good indeed. TACET Musikproduktion - english

 

Since I have a huge collection of classical music (the boxes in the picture to the left are only a part of my holdings), including hundreds, perhaps thousands of surround recordings (haven't counted lately), I can point to some places to start. Generally speaking most modern classical surround recordings try to reproduce the concert hall, or church—can be quite spectacular—, but there are exceptions, especially among the early quad recordings done in the 1970s by most major companies, where they were more prone to experiment with placement of instruments surrounding the listener. Unfortunately the great majority of these early recordings have not been remastered for Sacd or Blu-ray, but there are exceptions: Dutton (known here mostly for their rock quads) have a number of classical quads by Columbia and RCA (click here). Similarly PentaTone has in addition to their own modern 5.0 recordings reissued quad recordings originally done by Philips or DG (click here). As zobalob just posted, one modern classical label that specializes in extreme surround recordings is Tacet (click here). One of the best modern labels doing more traditional surround recordings is Swedish label BIS, known for their sonic excellence. I get my surround recordings from them at their download cite eClassical (click here). They do not charge extra for surround, and one can get their daily deal for 50% off. I have gotten hundreds of excellent surround recordings that way for $5-8 each (they charge by the minute so the longer the disc the more expensive it gets).

 

Kaleidoscope


Studio album by
Transatlantic
Released January 27, 2014
Genre Progressive rock, neo-progressive rock
Length 75:48
40:59 (bonus disc)
116:42 (special edition)
Label Metal Blade
Radiant Records
Producer Transatlantic

Kaleidoscope is the fourth studio album by progressive rock band Transatlantic. It was released on January 27, 2014.[2][3][4]

• Neal Morse — keyboards, acoustic guitars, vocals
• Roine Stolt — electric guitars, vocals, percussion, additional keyboards
• Pete Trewavas — bass guitar, vocals
• Mike Portnoy — drums, vocals

Additional musicians

• Chris Carmichael — cello
• Rich Mouser — pedal steel guitar on "Beyond the Sun"
• Daniel Gildenlöw — special guest vocals on "Written in Your Heart"

Production

• Transatlantic — production
• Rich Mouser — mixing
• Jerry Guidroz — engineering

Other

• Thomas Ewerhard — design and layout
• Per Nordin — Transatlantic Ship
• Joey Pippin — band photos
• Jerry Guidroz — Kaleidoscope photos

1. "Into the Blue"
I. "Overture"
II. "The Dreamer and the Healer"
III. "A New Beginning"
IV. "Written in Your Heart"
V. "The Dreamer and the Healer (Reprise)[11]"
25:13
2. "Shine" 7:28
3. "Black As the Sky" 6:45
4. "Beyond the Sun" Morse 4:29
5. "Kaleidoscope"
I. "Overture"
II. "Ride the Lightning"
III. "Black Gold"
IV. "Walking the Road"
V. "Desolation Days"
VI. "Lemon Looking Glass"
VII. "Ride the Lightning (Reprise)"
31:53
Total length: 75:48
----------------------------------
After enjoying The Absolute Universe so much, I decided to hunt this one down. It was a very limited release I believe and it comes in one of those slimline book type releases ... earbook? idk, I am not up on all the fancy little terms ...

This was actually my first Transatlantic album, and I believe I thought I was getting the 5.1 when I bought it, but it was just a making of dvd, and that was a little annoying.
Since the introduction and enjoying this one so much, I ended up getting the first three albums, just on cd, and the Whirldwind and Live In Europe dvd's of the concert tours, and I enjoy both of those as well... up until the Absolute Truth album, I would say that Bridge Across Forever and Whirlwind were my favourite albums by the band, and this one has sat quietly and patiently awaiting my return.... So as I say after enjoying the Absolute Truth album and mix so much last week.... or whenever it was, I hunted this down... and I really need to stop that, or I am going to go broke lol.

This i what is on the actual artbook/earbook copy


Into The Blue 25:11
CD1-1.I Overture (Instrumental)
CD1-1.II The Dreamer And The Healer
CD1-1.III A New Beginning
CD1-1.IV Written In Your Heart
CD1-1.V The Dreamer And The Healer (Reprise)
CD1-2 Shine 7:26
CD1-3 Black As The Sky 6:43
CD1-4 Beyond The Sun 4:29
Kaleidoscope
CD1-5.I Overture (Instrumental) 31:53
CD1-5.II Ride The Lightning
CD1-5.III Black Gold
CD1-5.IV Walking The Road
CD1-5.V Desolation Days
CD1-5.VI Lemon Looking Glass (Instrumental)
CD1-5.VII Ride The Lightning (Reprise)

Bonus CD
CD2-1 And You And IWritten-By – Bill Bruford, Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Steve Howe 10:45
CD2-2 Can't Get It Out Of My HeadWritten-By – Jeff Lynne 4:46
CD2-3 ConquistadorWritten-By – Gary Brooker, Keith Reid 4:13
CD2-4 Goodbye Yellow Brick RoadWritten-By – Bernie Taupin, Elton John 3:20
CD2-5 Tin SoldierWritten-By – Ronnie Lane, Steve Marriott 3:21
CD2-6 SylviaWritten-By – Thijs van Leer 3:49
CD2-7 IndisciplineWritten-By – Adrian Belew, Bill Bruford, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin 4:45
CD2-8 Nights In White SatinWritten-By – Justin Hayward 6:13

Bonus DVD (5.1 Mix Of Disc 1)
Into The Blue 25:11
DVD1-1.I Overture (Instrumental)
DVD1-1.II The Dreamer And The Healer
DVD1-1.III A New Beginning
DVD1-1.IV Written In Your Heart
DVD1-1.V The Dreamer And The Healer (Reprise)
DVD1-2 Shine 7:26
DVD1-3 Black As The Sky 6:43
DVD1-4 Beyond The Sun 4:29
Kaleidoscope 31:53
DVD1-5.I Overture (Instrumental)
DVD1-5.II Ride The Lightning
DVD1-5.III Black Gold
DVD1-5.IV Walking The Road
DVD1-5.V Desolation Days
DVD1-5.VI Lemon Looking Glass (Instrumental)
DVD1-5.VII Ride The Lightning (Reprise)

Bonus DVD
DVD2-1 The Making Of Kaleidoscope 86:28
DVD2-2 "Shine" Video Clip 7:28
DVD2-3 Prog Awards (Behind The Scenes) 5:57

So it does have quite a bit in there for the interested party.

Discogs has this going from about $67 TransAtlantic – Kaleidoscope (2014, CD)
Analogic Mc says they have it in stock for $90 TransAtlantic ‎– Kaleidoscope EU Deluxe Ltd. Artbook 2 CDs/ 2 DVDs
Inside Out has no link, so I assume it is out of stock for them.
Amazon Germany has it from about 100 Euros https://www.amazon.de/Kaleidoscope-Limited-Deluxe-Artbook-Transatlantic/dp/B00GZAHGTW
Adipocere records has it in stock with a warning last copies tag 53 euros TRANSATLANTIC - Kaleidoscope - 2-CD + 2-DVD Artbook - Adipocere Shop

There are likely more, but that is few to check out, just google Transatlantic Kaleidoscope artbook, if you want to look further.

5.1 mix - Rich Mouser

So although I have heard this album, it has been quite a while since I listened to it, with my selections tending to be Bridge Across Forever and Whirlwind. So I am very interested what this sounds like to me now, after so long, and of course being the first time to here it in 5.1 is interesting in itself.

The audio is dts 48khz or DD
On the screen we have the Kaleidoscope images of the spaceship as a flower, rotating into each other... I reckon trippers would love it just for that.

Into The Blue
We open with a nice keys and guitar swell, and it feeds out around us really well.
Pads/synths etc in the rears.
A cello? Up front.
Then we burst into the full band.
We have this full warm surround mix here.
Then we burst into this kind of rising in pitch and intensity riff. Guitar left side.
Organ slide runs across the back.
Another riling with the riff thing.
This time an air raid siren type sound slides across the back.
We get a bit of swirly across the back again.
Then we move into this dirty groove.
Some keys take a lead, then the guitar takes a lead.
Another riff/melody section with mellotron? in the rears.
Cymbals rears and sides.
Synths and effected guitar in rears, synth melody line up front.
We move into a song section.
Organ across rears.
Guitar sort of sits left front with reaches into the side.
Cymbal swells in the sides.
Chimes left sides towards rears.
Nice balance between the instruments, bass is audible and in position up front.
Solid mix of the drums.
Keys and guitars come and go as required, and move through various textures.
After a good interlude with the ballad, we move into the dirty rock groove again, and we get an organ lead across the rears.
We move into a bass and drum groove with sfx around us... and an effected voice up front.
We move into a sort of Pepper-ish section that adds some nice musical colouring.
Then a revised version of the dirty groove.
The mix and arrangement is really excellent.
A lead guitar up front with effects feeds to rears.
A bell rings in the left.
Synth pad holding court across the rears.
Stolt really is a nice guitarist.
The intensity builds up, and time signature alters slightly.
We have this building and churning dynamic section and the soundfield is really very full, then an explosion of sound and the first notice of any sub.
We move into the dreamy kind of section.
Keys and pads all around us, and an urgent, but delicate vocal.
Guitar bits pop in through the rears, one slides across the back.
Acoustics come in either side, and a sort of ballad type song comes in.
A flute takes the middle of the room.
The dynamic lifts and we get a fairly solid rock section.
Really nice use of melodic shifts. The use of the dynamics here seems very focused too.
The soundfield is full, engaging and balanced, and it seems Mouser is a mixer with possibilities.
We move into a layered riff type section.
Guitar up front, doubled either side rears.
Keys all about the place as well.
Some string sounds come in the rears.
We move into a sort of out-chorus section that sounds like we are being led to a resolve just before the 24 min. point Stolt uses a Brian May style technique well.
I think this track works very well.
The mix is very immersive, balanced and engaging, and I think the arrangement works very well to keep the track interesting over that period of time.

Shine
Shine comes in really nicely with a sort of sitarish twang across the rears.
Nicely spread acoustic in the front.
Then we open with the vocal and acoustic through the centre, feeding the guitar into the stereo speakers, and gradually the sound spreads out, as layers come in and the sounds spreads.
A sort of melancholy moderate tempo ballad... probably with commercial potential.
Organ across the rears.
Bvox come in the rears.
Lead guitar sort of floats around a little across the middle.
A key change after the bridge leads to a lead break proper, slightly to the right, feeding an effect send to the right rear.
Another guitar comes in and we move to a crescendo that drops out to leave the acoustics and keys with the vocal.
We get a reflective long fade out
Again really nice immersion and arrangement.

Black As The Sky
A full sounding keys section opens up with again a full sounding surround mix.
This is a more uptempo type track.
We move to a chorus with really nicely balanced vocals coming from front and both rears.
Organs and keys in the rears.
After another verse and chorus we return to the melody led intro.
We move into a section that spreads the drums all around us and the bass pummelling along in front... and then a sort of variation on a Genesis type riff and sound up front.
We get some crisp power guitars in either side rears, as we move into a pretty straight rock section that leans more to a Purple kind of feel.
A vocal on the left a guitar on the right.
Organ across the rears.
Back into a full sounding chorus.
Another really nice arrangement, and another very solid mix, immersive and balanced.

Beyond The Sun
We open with string like textures, floating around the room. Some guitar swells.
A reflective vocal up front.
The swooping and swelling backing is excellent.
This is a much shorter track, with a mellow, melancholy.
The surround mix is extremely effective in giving the track a very reflective dreamlike nature.
Again immersive, balanced and effective, and the track works as a sweet, pleasant interlude.

Kaleidoscope
So we move to the big one.
The title track coming in at about the length of the average 50's or 60's album at about 32 minutes.
It opens with a sort of overturish type feel, but quickly moves into a melodic pattern, then revises the staccato opening.
Then we get some slap piano in between some straight rock riffs.
A wide drum mix.
Layers of guitars and keys fill the whole field.
After about three minutes we move into this sort of triumphant sounding chordal section.
Organ kind of dancing all around us.
Then we move into the vocal section, based on that chord pattern.
We break into a synth that kind of swirl swamps the room.
Then it's a kind of chorus section.
Guitar right rear.
Keys left rear.
Bvox in rears.
This section is a sort of joyous uptempo section and it breaks to a more reflective instrumental section with a halftime feel.
Keys rears.
Lead guitar sort of just in front of the front.
We then break into an atmospheric section, as we must be a little tired after riding all that lightening
Pads across rears, volume swells up front.
Then we smoothly transition into the next section, which starts dramatically, then straightens up for the majority of the verse, but builds this dramatic section at the end of each section.
Through a couple of verses and the very good crescendo section, and we snap into this kind if cocktail lounge in space section keys left just to the side, and guitar opposite.
Then we break into a lead up front.
This moves into a building section and cuts back to the dramatic build section.
Then we move into this relaxed dreamy section, that has that sort of maj7 kind of sound and feel.
I'm sold on the vocal here, but it's ok.
We have guitar parts all around.
Then we move into a keyboard led vocal section.
We move up towards the 17 minute mark and "to find myself" fades on a delay, and we move into a piano and cello section.
Cello right side, piano front.
Then the phrase repeats with the guitar mimicking the cello.
We have strings, or synth strings in the side filling out the soundfield.
We raise key and intensity and the guitar moves into some melodic variations and we blend onto an acoustic guitar section.
Guitar and vocal in the front.
Keys and cymbals come in in the rear.
An acoustic comes on on the left side.
Then we get a cool octave melody break.
The drums come in.
We move onto a carillon like arpeggio with sfx in the rears, then break into a more rock section and some squelching type synth. There are lots of cool surround effects in this section.
Around the 23 - 24 minute mark.
Moving towards the 25 minute mark we get a pretty cool synth effect zooming around.
We have moved into a breakdown that has some very effective surround set ups.
Guitars either side, and alternating sides.
Organ growling across the back.
A synth comes through with some swirling.
Then we get a guitar right rear playing a descending chord pattern.
Then we have an urgent sounding kind of thing happening,
Synth left rear
Organ right rear.
We get a set up, and then a reprise of an earlier section, done in a steady moderate focused tempo. With a deliberate feel.
Then we move into winding down to the end.
The play out is a cool melodic passage that slowly fades us out to the end.

So, I do like this, but I think the title track is a little overlong, and not as successful as the guys normally are with this kind of thing. If I was rating it without the title track, and that would still leave just under 45 mins of music, I would say that this is on par with the other Transatlantic albums. With the title track, from my perspective getting a little lost in the middle there, it knocks it down a few pegs, and probably explains why I don't return to this album too frequently.
Taking all that in mind, and now having listened closely enough to really pay attention to what's going on with the album, I could happily listen to the first four songs and be satisfied with the listen....

Now bearing all that in mind again... many folks may absolutely love the last track, so there is always that.

Mix-wise, I think it is satisfying. I think it is a worthwhile mix that does all the things one would expect, and like I say, if I had stopped before the final mega-epic, I would probably have been extremely satisfied with this album.
So I think this is definitely worth the purchase, particularly if you love the band, but I am not as enamoured with this album as I am the new album... and again, it is mainly the final track just not quite working for me.

I would really love us to get Bridge Across Forever and Whirlwind mixed in 5.1, I think they would be rather awesome.

 

This sounds really interesting to me, and 1 Cor 1-13 is a favourite passage of mine too, so that always helps.
It is on the, wait til I have money again list

 

I think that sums it up for me too. Glad I'm not alone in that. It's like they just tried to do too much ....

 

Thanks for the link mate. I may need to have a wander through there, some time soon. Cheers

 

Audiens by Schola Cantorum



This is another 2L recording, only currently available on 5.0 multichannel SACD. The choir on all tracks is Schola Cantorum; confusingly, there are several ensembles with that name but this one is the music students' choir at the University of Oslo and is conducted throughout by Tone Bianca Dahl. The music was recorded between June 2008 and January 2009 at Ris Church, Norway.

I probably wouldn't have bought this right now but for the fact I could pick up a copy for less than £5. The price will likely be higher elsewhere: Amazon.co.uk currently has a few copies for around £14 delivered. Unlike later 2L releases, which come in a jewel case, this is just a digipak and there is no sound map in the liner notes which are otherwise quite helpful.

Eric Whitacre: Leonardo Dreams Of His Flying Machine. Whitacre is a very popular contemporary choral composer and this piece is apparently well known, but not by me. It's is “an exotic blend of old and new”, balancing some broadly present-day flourishes with some Madrigal pastiche. Some ear-catching moments include a minimalist moment about six minutes and the accompaniment of small bells, tambourine and a drum towards the end. The very end is the sound of wind conjured up by mouth sounds. I think that most listeners would enjoy this piece which provides a welcoming gateway to the album.

Torbjørn Dyrud: Snart kysser hun sin venn i rosenhagen. A cheerful opening, with something of the sound of a celebratory Christmas hymn (although it isn't). For the most part this work has rolling waves of warm sound.

Bjørn Morten Christophersen: A Just-Finishing Candle. A suitably nocturnal opening, quite dramatic in character. The atmosphere of this piece - based on a text by Rumi - is quite serious, narrowing to two singers at certain moments.

Morten Lauridsen: Se Per Haverbi, Oime. This quiet, intense love song, based on a Monteverdi madrigal text, is solemn but quite simple and accessible. Quite “beautiful” in fact.

Bjørn Morten Christophersen: Audiens - Det er ikke alltid like lett å være pave

1. “Jeg har mitt egert land”. For Audiens Schola Cantorum are joined by a vocal sextet (Nordic Voices) who provide a significant additional layer of voices, including soloists where needed. The piece as a whole is technically adventurous and set to a surreal text by Groh Dahle (no, me either!). This first part (under a minute) opening & closing with choral ‘special effects’.
2. “Det lukter fugl”. The choir provides backdrops of sound while the sextet contribute playful little phrases distributed among them. There are longer lines towards the end.
3. “Egentlig, hvis paven kunne velge”. Soloists begin the piece with precise but almost cautious lines. Declamatory lines for male voice.
4. “Det er ikke alltid like lett å være pave”. Has a scherzo feel.
5. “Stadig oftere går paven ut til hunden”. Echoing syllables, spoken word and intoning. Long sustained notes. Audiens is puzzling overall but beautifully executed. It lacks both shape and a decisive ending.

Bjørn Morten Christophersen: Etablisementets vært. Song on a short comical Munch text: feels ... pointless.

Eric Whitacre: Water Night. This begins slow, hushed & yearning with open harmonies although the atmosphere is interrupted by louder passages in the higher range. If you know the choral pieces from Riverdance this has sort of that feel.

Karin Rehnqvist: Bara do går över markerna. This has the feel of an Eastern European folksong.

Bjørn Morten Christophersen: Gjenfødelsen. The choir is joined here by Are Sandbakken on viola. This piece has a louder, dissonant start but the viola writing feels Romantic so I wouldn't describe it exactly as avant garde. The choir sings in places and speaks in places. About four minutes in things become more restrained. The lurid text was apparently written by Edvard Munch.

This is a nice mixed programme though I think you'd need to be at least somewhat of a devotee of unaccompanied choir to get the most out of it. While the viola provides some welcome contrast on the final track, that is also the least accessible piece on the album. The surround is balanced evenly across all five channels but it feels like the choir is an a semi-circle in front of the listener so you are not going to get a lot out of turning around on this disc. The acoustic of the church is very nice when you hear the reverb tails but the album has an intimate feel ... unlike Lux which generally has the more massive sound. I found at 56 minutes the album felt meandering, largely because of the lack of an obvious focus in terms of a major work (the title work is the longest but itself rather fragmentary).

 

I had the same experience, disappointing SACD and BDs of orchestral music that does not give very much except atmosphere at the back (but gives you quite a start when the applause at the end all comes from the rear speakers!).

I bought some string quartets (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky) to see if they gave a good spread to the instruments, but here again not too enthralling. I am going to give the TACET discs a try to see if they have cracked it.

If you're a Wagner enthusiast (as am I) then the Naxos Blu Ray Audios of the Jaap Van Zweden Ring Cycle are about the best pure audio surround experience I have had from that genre of music. The washes of orchestral sound set against the singers at the front are very nice indeed. Mind you to do it justice it's surrounded on Thursday to Sundays.

 

Bach: Six Brandenburg Concertos

I've heard a lot about Tacet “Real” Surround Sound over the years but never bought one, largely because they tend to focus on mainstream repertoire which I have well covered anyway. Just for fun I bought the Brandenburg Concertos because you can't have too much Bach and it has very good running length for the money: 94 minutes in fact, which seems generous. Five different performance configurations are used across this disc, giving the multichannel devotee the opportunity to hear different approaches.



This disc is performed by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra led by Benjamin Hudson, who I think also takes lead parts on string instruments. No separate conductor is credited, which is not unusual for chamber music. The recording was made in 2000, seemingly at the village church in Gönningen. The disc is readily available and I paid £18 (so you don't have to!)

Although this disc claims to be 5.1 it is actually 4.0.

Concerto I in F major. According to the liner notes, the orchestra for this concerto only is in front with ambience in the rears so ... what's the point of that then? Sure enough there's notably less in the rears than in the stereo fronts. The recording is a little “soft” with the horns sounding distant and the strings lacking edge: I feel quite far back in the nave of the church. The performance is pleasantly tasteful but far from gripping. The best part is probably a louder section for Brass towards the end of the Menuet.

Concerto II in F major. According to the notes, the orchestra is all around with viola FL, Flute FR, Oboe RL, Trumpet RR. This led to a game of “hunt the oboe” which I couldn't really locate in space. Basically the rears are encoded as sides so I'm not going to get anything as dramatic from this recording as intended.

Concerto III in G major. Violins to the left of them, Cellos to the right, straight at the Violas rode the six hundred. The notes don't even mention the poor continuo, though it's front right. Given the side/rear limitations of this disc this is quite a sensible configuration and the violins have a lot of presence in the left. The racing cellos sound good during the second movement but the violas are really not bringing much to the party.

Concerto IV in G Major. In front of you we have Flute/Violin/Flute with the orchestra in the rears so that, as the notes tell me, you are seated between the orchestra and the soloists. The consequence is that you have a good sense of the soloists and a rather compromised appreciation of the orchestra. The violin again fares very well, being nicely discriminated from the orchestral violins over my shoulder. The flute is very pretty in the Andante (although the flute parts should probably have been taken by recorders). Wikipedia tells me that the recorders are sometimes played off-stage, which would have been a nice effect for surround.

Concerto V in D Major. In front of you we have Violin/Harpsichord/Flute with orchestra in the rears. The flute and violin duet very well in the first movement but I would have preferred the harpsichord louder, which would have been easily achieved had Tacet given us the centre channel that they advertised.

Concerto VI in B Flat Major. One viola is in front, one (allegedly) behind. The other instruments (including the two viols which are the other concertante instrument here) are left and right. Again, I felt that I was always hunting for the second viola (which in any case I suspect is moved to the front in the second movement) making the entire channeling concept moot. The string sound is quite good in this final concerto though I couldn't really distinguish viols from the cellos, which is quite odd (since the sound is usually markedly different.) There are no “viola de gamba” credited on the disc’s personnel, which makes me fear that - despite specifically referring to them in the notes - they just handed off the part to cellos; if true, that's just incredibly irritating.​

I'm quite disappointed with this disc. The performances are ordinary and the recording inferior to a good stereo recording. The sonics are really quite unremarkable and the hall ambience lacking. If the hallmark of multichannel recordings is to have more information (usually in the form of instrumental detail) this is a failure. On the plus side it's fairly unfatiguing ... I really wasn't expecting to listen to the entire disc in a single session. Also, the problem that I had in auditioning this disc with the rears encoded as sides would not matter anywhere near as much in most setups.

Still, avoid. On the basis of this I honestly feel little urgency to explore Tacet further.

 

Many thanks for the warning, I was about to plunge for this one


I have no idea why it's £24 on SACD but only £16 on Blu Ray Audio on Amazon. I'd have preferred SACD but in light of your review I will wait a while...!

 

It may of course be very much better than the Bach (or your mileage may vary on the Bach) but while I don't mind “taking one for the team” every now and again I think I'll leave it for someone else to do that for this particular label.

I was interested by your mention of the Naxos Wagner, which I don't own. I have the LePage Met Ring on Blu-Ray which I think has excellent sound and visuals.

 

Cool. I will certainly give that a try. Cheers

 

Well, scratch the Kronos Plays Holmgreen SACD too. Its uses the center channel a bit, but the rears hardly at all. OTOH, I got around to playing one of the classical DV quads I bought almost a year ago and it's a decent ambient mix. I'll review it on Sunday - I even have a movie to go with it.

 

I think you are being a little unfair with your casual dismissal of Tacet's productions based on their very first and fairly experimental foray into the world of Surround, recorded and issued back in 2000. I have the DVDA edition from that time and in my copy at least there is no claim made whatsoever that the disc is 5.1, it's possible that this has been amended for the Blu Ray or SACD edition but I doubt it.

Here below is what they say now about that relatively old recording, more recent recordings use very different methods and all the other ones I own have discrete 5.1 mixes. You could not have chosen a less representative example of their products to review if you had tried......
"This was and still is the first multi-channel recording in TACET Real Surround Sound, recorded in the year 2000. Shortly prior to the construction of the microphones, the idea arose of selecting a special arrangement for each one of the six Brandenburg Concertos in accordance with the respective score. This principle became the cornerstone of Real Surround Sound. The primitive 8-track card (from today's perspective) in the PC forced us to acoustically realise the six different, novel mixes with a stereo mixing console right when the recording was made. Today, however, a recording PC houses an entire factory with which almost each detail can be processed afterwards. In the adjoining room in the church where the recording took place, we set up a party tent and placed a carpet over it in order to be able to evaluate the multi-channel sound despite the excess reverberation of the sacristy. Thus began TACET's exciting journey of discovery into a new, so far unknown world. The recording was immediately convincing. "The musical experience is being elevated here to a level previously thought to be impossible. This is the high end in the year 2001", as the commentary on it by Stereoplay concluded."

 

“You doubt it”, eh? So you doubt what I'm actually telling you to be the case based on no evidence other than your supposition that Tacet wouldn't mislabel a disc?


If Tacet have got better since this disc, that's helpful information both for me and others in this thread but I didn't see anything about this disc featuring the follies of an experimental system at the point of sale and as far as I can see all you're saying is that this disc is indeed pretty ropey but I shouldn't hold that against them. I judged them on the basis of the disc in front of me, which I'm certainly entitled to do.

 

Thanks, you're correct, they have indeed altered the description for the Blu-Ray disc and I apologise, the recording does not use the centre channel at all so as you say it's effectively a Quad release, not 5.1. To label it as 5.1 is misleading, yes.

The rest of my reply still stands however, it's an unfortunate choice of one disc only to judge the company on, it having been their first surround release, twenty years old at this point. Tbh I find the different approaches to each of the six concertos eccentric and the performances pretty ordinary IMO, it's not my favourite Tacet release at all. It appears too that there's an authoring error on the more recent Blu-Ray version that isn't present on the DVDA that I have; in the first concerto the front right and rear right are apparently swapped on the Blu-Ray, if you're not hearing this then perhaps they've fixed it since it was pointed out to them a few years ago. See this page on the the QuadQuad forum for a discussion of the Brandenburg disc, from post 142 down... The Tacet Thread (Reviews/Latest News & Releases/General Discussion) and for a general discussion of Tacet the thread starts here The Tacet Thread (Reviews/Latest News & Releases/General Discussion)

 

I have this disc, not the SACD version but the DVDA that was released in 2001. The instrument placings are as follows...left front - 1st violin, centre - viola, right front -2nd violin, right rear - 1st violoncello, left rear - 2nd violoncello. Hope that's useful :>)

 

Two Whiteacre compositions is enough for my interest. You should be aware, Water Night is one of those he used for his "virtual choir": easily viewable on YouTube, involving a sea of voices from all over the world, singing their own parts at home while watching his pre-sent conducting video, then mixed together for the "virtual performance". I'm particularly enamored of Nordic choral productions though as it is.

 

I think it's a sensible course, myself. Many fans of the genre have their reasons for preferring one version over another, but obviously it's the more mainstream titles that will get the most interest from somebody who hasn't tried a label before.

As for myself, I don't have a large collection of classical titles, and mostly the mainstream ones with few exceptions. But, the one thing that would get me to choose a new surround title, is more likely to be a work I am already familiar with in a more conventional form, whether it's my own personal desire to own it, or to share with other listener friends. Classical fans are more selective, and at the same time more stodgy, than many other musical fans to my knowledge. Maybe it's because, there are so many different options for the same work by different artists/ensembles/conductors, and in most cases there's too many of them to consider to really make an educated choice (like there's too many brands of chips on the shelf at the grocery).

You just can't afford every single version of Tristan und Isolde, to really come to a reasonable conclusion which is your favorite, y'know?

 

Yes, that couldn't be the case on my copy because the rear channels, as I said, are clearly lower level. (Unless they switched the channels and re-balanced them which would be strange.) By the way, no need to apologise over calling me out on the labelling of the disc as 5.1: I'm sure that I'm wrong about many things I post and it was a rare treat to be able to provide proof so readily! Also I very much don't want to drive you out of the thread since you actually have some information about classical surround that is much needed here.

I've got a pretty big classical collection - not by the standards of a classical specialist but certainly by the standards of generalist listener - and something has to be right in my wheelhouse for me to get multiple versions of it: Mahler, Shostakovich, Wagner. I think personally that I would rather get a surround recording of a work that suits surround whether or not I like the work. That's one reason why I'm so interested in Stockhausen in surround. It's not that I especially like Stockhausen but boy does his work benefit from surround.

Tacet's current catalogue of Blu-Rays is pretty small and is mainly Haydn: I've already bought as much Haydn as I'm likely to in my life. Other than that there's some Mozart, Ravel, Vivaldi, Schubert. The set that would tempt me is the Beethoven symphonies, otherwise there's not much there for me anyway. Their SACD catalogue is larger, at 38 discs, but mainly Mozart and SACD is problematic for me. And there are some interesting DVD-As, including the Beethoven String Quartets.

If I were picking a popular composer for surround recording I think it would be Arvo Pärt: his Te Deum or St. John Passion.

 

Kleiberg: Mass For Modern Man

This is another 2L disc, and one with quite a pedigree since it was nominated for three Grammies: Best Immersive Album, Best Engineered Album (Classical) and Producer of the Year (Classical). The jewel case contains both SACD and Blu-Ray with Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D. It's a recent release so should be readily available ... I paid £22 for it.

There is only one (68 minute) work on this disc, composed by Ståle Kleiberg who is a big favourite with this label and of course wrote two of the pieces on Lux. Performers are the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Choir conducted by Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Mari Eriksmoen (Soprano) and Johannes Weisser (Baritone). It was recorded in Olvshallen, Trondheim (which is a modern concert venue although this is not a live recording) in August 2016. There is a plan (and photographs) of the recording configuration, which shows that the forces are arranged in three rings around the listener with the conductor creating a gap on the circumference directly behind. The orchestra is very strings-heavy so there are string players on the inner and outer rings with the choir providing the middle ring. Woodwind is dotted around and the soloists are in front of the listener. It seems like a very sensible configuration to me, providing a spacious cocoon of sound out of all proportion to the rather huddled way that the musicians were actually sitting.

1. Kyrie Eleison. The orchestra begins in the tragic mode that will define the work: I'm reminded of the start of Tippett's Child Of Our Time. There's some use of canon in the choir at the start.
2. Loss of a Homeland - The Refugee. This is an orchestral song for Baritone and the first of three songs with texts specially written by Jessica Gordon. I was concerned that these texts might lead to the work overall being pretentious and emotive, but actually they are quite good (albeit written in “Biblicalese”) and the composer never loses touch with the musicality. This song is something like a more consonant version of Britten's vocal writing in the War Requiem.
3. Gloria. The choir begins in a rising canon which the orchestra picks up later.
4. Loss of a Child. A duet for Soprano & Baritone who sing together pretty much throughout. 2L describe Kleiberg's music as “neo-romantic” and this is a good example of that with a constant outpouring of melody: it's emotional without being histrionic.
5. Credo. Begins with “Kleibergian” undulations and becomes soaring with, at one point, arabesques in the high strings that come back towards the end of the movement. At a couple of points the chorus cuts off so that we can admire the reverb tails (although the recording is not at all unpleasantly reverberant on this disc).
6. Loss of Faith and Hope for the Future. The strings race a little to introduce this song for Soprano and harp is used prominently from time to time. On the line “My thoughts are poison” we get a certain amount of drama in the orchestra but it quickly subsides and the troubled melody line resumes.
7. Sanctus. There are brief flute arabesques on this (I think a deliberate echo of the strings on the Credo). The piece climaxes in very sweet, lush vocal harmonies before more ambivalent, quiet voices at the end.
8. Agnus Dei. Cinematic strings over the rolling choral lines. There are hints of the plainchant dies irae in the theme but they never quite turn into that. There is no climax at the end of the piece: it just subsides into a sort of wearied contemplation.

I haven't laboured my listening notes here because it boils down to this: the piece is slow, consonant, melodic throughout with a preponderance of strings and very little sense of the orchestra as something in itself rather than an accompaniment to the almost constant singing. It's also surprisingly balanced: every section is similar in length & weight. Although the piece is an oratorio the soloists are never given the typical role of singing at the front of the choir: there isn't even a tutti at the end.

I really like this disc. I listened to it through for a second time directly after hearing it for the first time and wrote my notes on my third audition. In terms of a recording it is impeccable although admittedly Kleiberg's orchestration is not detailed enough to take full advantage of that. The work, however, is very much to my taste ... which just goes to show what a bourgeois consumer of cheap sentiment I am! The entire piece is just unstintingly moving and “beautiful” throughout: hard to imagine skipping a track. This could well be a good purchase for someone who wants the sound of choral-orchestral music but finds its idioms a big off-putting.

On the other hand, I could also imagine a classical purist finding the piece quite irritating.