Pythagoras And Dante Do Battle With Oldfield (Music Of The Spheres - Mike Oldfield)

Name: spencer_hawken

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Product:	Music Of The Spheres - Mike Oldfield
Date:	07/05/08 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A classical album I can enjoy

Disadvantages: Area's are a bit repetative, influences of Tubular Bells felt frequently

It's a big year for Mike Oldfield, releasing his first album in three years and in doing so storming into the number one spot of the classical albums list for several weeks, then achieving the number 9 spot in the popular album chart a few weeks later. Later on this year he regains the rights to the original Tubular Bells with views to rescoring the piece; But for now The Music Of The Spheres is his focus, and it's doing phenomenally well with a highly unexpected audience.

Like so many recording artists Mike Oldfield became addicted to too many things he should not have, most of the 80's and 90's being a drug hazed blur, emerging from the back end of the 90's Mike found himself spiritually lifted, a deeper person if you like; or as I prefer a fake epiphany. Whether or not it's true is not for me to say, but having researched buddies, Hinduism, the works of Dante, and the studies of many Greek profits; Oldfield emerged reborn, and having spent 10 odd years making music that only the most diehard Oldfield fans could possibly enjoy Oldfield emerged in Ibiza of all places storming the night spots with his dance music, some hardcore dance enthusiasts claimed to have been part of something amazing. Off the cusp of this Oldfield released Tubular Bells III, a more clubby, funky, re-imagining if you like of the original Tubular Bells, this time however his music was not for unique cliques of people, this was music for the masses.

Ten years on from Tubular Bells III, Oldfield returns with something a bit deep and thoughtful, with his classical offering The Music Of The Spheres, inspired by ancient theories about the movements of celestial bodies, the sun, the moon, and the planets as a musical offering. Try to stay with me here, this music factually is not something you can here, it is in fact a harmonic mathematical concept. Referring to this as Musica The Music Of Spheres were divided up into three concepts Musica Instrumentalis, Musica Universalis, and Musica Humana. It is said that the best example of this Music Of The Spheres can be found in Dante's Divine Comedy a poem (of sorts) divided up into three sections Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. That is of course allegedly until now.

Rather like the three portions of the inspired piece, and Dante's writings Mike Oldfields Music Of The Spheres was meant to be a three part piece, however the album only contains two portions, with a third missing.

Part One

Harbinger
Animus
Silouette
Shabda
The Tempest
Harbinger (Reprise)
On My Heart

You would need to be fairly naive to not draw comparisons from Tubular Bells in the opening track Harbinger, it literally follows the beat and is like a twisted and contorted version of Part One (Tubular Bells), many may be more familiar with this as the music from The Exorcist, listening to Harbinger it's almost like the same piece of music as bells being played backwards rather than forwards, then mixed in with some new material in an emphasis to advise you not to make the same comparisons as I. Dante makes a lot of reference to Hell in his writing, and from a further literary sense, as well as from a celluloid one its rumoured that music played backwards can effectively conjure up the devil, is this Oldfield intention? It's almost as if he is exorcising 35 years of anger waving Tubular Bells in the face of Virgin records saying "I'm getting my music back, in the meantime I'm sticking this to you!" It might come as a surprise after my badgering of Oldfield to this point to discover that I found Harbinger to be a rewarding piece, it's very filmic like it belongs at the opening of a big budget blockbuster movie, you can almost hear the fighting of good over evil, but with Evil having a winning part in this epic battle.

I'd not like to say that the first part drags, but I have to admit it's all rather similar sounding, but them it is Part One these are all theoretically components of the same thing, and this is felt in the frequent littering of Harbinger throughout the other scores. It's all fairly orchestral until a choir force their entry to the piece at Shabda entering Tempest; Shabda interestingly a Hindu reference, again drawing Oldfield back to his new spiritual self. As Harbinger returns for a final death blow, larger, more impressive and relentless in its assault on your ears, there is a wake in this aforementioned battle of good over evil, like being in the eye of a storm. On My Heart features the vocals of New Zealander Hayley Westerna, and while I initially dismissed this offering I have since grown to appreciate it. On My Heart to some degree echoes a secondary thought I had in my mind, and that was that this big filmic offering would be rather difficult to identify from that of David Arnolds, in fact something about the score tells me it might well fit in with Danny Cannon's 1993 movie The Young Americans about gang warfare in a new and changing London. Back to Westerna and this beautiful score symbolises for me the acceptable face of classical music, its melodic, haunting and supremely beautiful, the singer tells the listener of her hopes and prayers, and as she puts it in a Sphere. It's here too that you notice the involvement of classical legend Karl Jenkins, the man responsible for the Miriam Stockley hit Ademius (best known as one of the two Cheltenham & Gloucester adverts), Jenkins was deeply involved in The Music Of The Spheres under the strict guidance of Oldfield who felt he was not classically trained quite enough, but eager to perform in any capacity. I have a suspicion this collaboration is the cause of the many delays in Music Of The Spheres, but I'll go into this more later.

Part Two

Aurora
Prophecy
On My Heart (Reprise)
Harmonia Mundi
The Other Side
Empyrean
Musica Universalis

The second part of the album is darker, and more classically inspired. Westerna returns for a darker more sinister follow up to On My Heart, and if you take into account my theorised battle of good over evil you really get the impression that Evil is dominating at this point, Westerna is strained almost like she is uttering her last breath, her death cry.
There is a quickening of the pace from Harmonia Mundi, lots of string instruments all forming part of a slow building crescendo that comes to an abrupt end at the climax of Empyrean. Then as if out of the blue Musica Universalis takes us into Indiana Jones territory, I can see Indiana making his way through that market from Raiders Of The Lost Ark searching for Marion lost in a wicker basket, you can feel the heat beating down in the music, you can taste the heat in your mouth and smell that burning sensation of structures sweltering in the sun. For four minutes Musica Universalis repetitively gives us the same few beats, and while being repetitive you clearly don't mind. But it's that final 2 minutes and 24 seconds that swing the piece round, boom if this was a movie, these were the closing credits, about 45 seconds to the end you get that moment of a movie where the screen has faded to black where either the biggest name in the movie, or the movie's title appears, its loud its meaty and it rocks you to the centre of your being, if ever there was an example of music you can feel then this is it.
And what of this battle of good over evil, well in a piece so clearly tilted in the direction of Hell it's only just that on this outing evil wins the day, but what of that third instalment maybe good will prevail in a final assault on the senses.

I enjoyed The Music Of The Spheres, I felt like I could at last say there was a classical album I could enjoy, because up to this point to me as someone alien to the concept it all sounds very much the same to me. This was my classical album written especially for me, or that's how it seems.

The Music Of The Spheres was delayed by almost 18 months with a sinisterly planned Halloween launch in 2006, instead it took until March 2008 to hit stores, initially intended as a digital product designed to be incorporated on certain music systems and for download only, it soon became apparent that CD was the best way to go, although iTunes quickly offered the album, and an exclusive download only track Spheres incorporating new elements with a merging of Harbinger and Shabda. No real reason for the delay was made clear, but creative and personal issues were two of the rumoured issues being waved around during 2007.

Music Of The Spheres (not to be confused with the Ian Brown album) is available from play.com priced £8.95. Or from iTunes with additional music, videos, and a detailed booklet (electronic form) discussing the concepts of the piece.

In a recent online survey, it was found that of over 4000 votes cast, over 53% were from purchasers between 18-28.

Summary: A filmic sounding album that tells is story through its compositions.