Search - Ferrante & Teicher :: Denizens of the Deep

Fascinating first-ever release of F&Ts first-ever recordings

hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 08/19/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ferrante & Teicher's forty-year career (they retired from active performing in 1989) encompassed thousands of performances, hundreds of recordings, and entrenched their romantic, technically impressive twin-piano arrangements of popular movie themes as standards on the charts. Their mainstream fame also eclipsed their earlier work as Julliard graduates who'd initially followed in the footsteps of experimentalists like John Cage.The on-going lounge music revival has resurrected interest in their earlier, treated-piano recordings, and with this release, their earliest recorded work finally sees the light of day. Initially recorded in 1950, this first-ever recording project for Ferrante & Teicher was scrapped when a booking agent came along with a 233-concert tour. The tapes languished in the vaults for fifty years, only be discovered recently by their manager. Intrigued by this echo from their past, F&T unpacked the tools they used to 'treat' pianos (special hammers, objects to wedge between the strings, etc.), re-entered the studio, and completed their initial vision.The resulting 25-minutes are at turns eerie ("Underwater Expectations"), romantic, menacing ("Whiptailed Stingrays" "Barracudas on the Chase"), epic ("Loch Ness Monster Stomp"), restful ("Manatees & Dolphins") and amazingly evocative of the undersea world they set out to capture in music. Their inventiveness in working with their pianos, whether muting the strings to gain percussive effects or strumming them by hand for autoharp-like effects, is quite impressive - especially considering the mid-50s origins.The fidelity is what you might expect from fifty-year-old tapes. It's perfectly enjoyable, but there's a clarity lacking from the straight-ahead piano segments, and a bit of tape hiss. The 25-minute length is reflective of what they were able to record before heading out the door to stardom, and though short, provides an enticing window into their earliest explorations. The self-containment of this work, not only are their pianos the only instruments, but they composed all of the music, sets it apart from their later recordings. Even their previously released treated-piano work (including the in-print "Blast Off" and the retitled "Easy Listening Favorites" reissue of "Heavenly Sounds in Hi-Fi"), relied heavily on popular songs penned by others.This recording may be the purest-ever expression of Ferrante & Teicher's own musicality, and serves as both a fine introduction to their piano manipulations, and a brilliant capstone to their career."

Deeply entertaining music; swimmingly done!

Lee Hartsfeld | Central Ohio, United States | 02/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Aquatic-themed masterstrokes from 1950 that are even more fun than the great piano duo's first recordings (1952) for Joe Davis, MGM, and Columbia. These Debussy- and Ravel-esque miniatures float along with the greatest of sonic ease, teeming with brilliant, evocative detail. F&T manager Scott W. Smith has pooled these short works together in a superbly seamless mix that keeps one's mind off of the CD's short overall running time (25.53). I was so bubbly after my first aural plunge, you could have fished me into thinking my dip in the deep was much longer--hours; days, even. Ferrante and Teicher swim brilliantly and flawlessly across their duo keyboards, as they always do. But one wonders how they managed such a feat in bulky underwater gear. In fact, how did they get the microphones down there?A treasure like this only surfaces once in a great whale, er, while. So, reel it in while you can!"

What a find!

Lee Ann,music lover | Middletown, OH USA | 10/23/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an incredible CD,and I am so pleased that it has been reissued on CD. I have been a fan of Ferrante and Teicher for years,but had never run across this paricular recording until just recently for my library's collection. NOW I HAVE TO BUY IT FOR MY OWN! It is an amazing recording. One can just visualize the sea creatures! Thank you Ferrante & Teicher!"