DAVID JEPHCOTT (b.1949): Adagio for Strings, The Blue Nile, The Prairie Whistler (whistler) (all arr. Jim Clements [b.c.1983]), The Ludlow Air, The Phantoms' Waltz (arr. Paul Whittall [b.1949]), Glencoe (arr. Piers Tattersall [b.1985]), The Egyptian Suite (arr. Ian Stephens [b.c.1974]), The Refugees' Lament (arr. Gavin Higgins [b.1983]), Plain Sailing (arr. Louis Johnson [b.1980] and James Wishart [b.1956]).
Catalogue Number: 10N094
Label: Nimbus
Reference: NI 6140
Format: CD
Price: $18.98
Description: The composer here is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and inventor of the "bead drive" (you can find its description in its U.S. patent filing by Googling the term). The notes tell us that he "uses modern music technology" to compose (probably computer software, huh?) and employs composers and arrangers to orchestrate the music. This 65-minute disc contains works which run a narrow gamut from "light music" to pseudo-film score-type things (The Egyptian Suite is imaginatively orchestrated by Stephens and one can almost see the discovery of the tomb and the bad things that happen to its plunderers on the mind's wide-screen); ditto for the 22-minute seascape of Plain Sailing (of course there's a storm!!). The use of a human whistler in The Prairie Whistler gives this short piece a Morricone Italian western vibe. Light music collectors should love it. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Clark Rundell.