Search - Rachel Barton :: Storming the Citadel

Wow

Discophage | 10/20/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD is fantastic! Not only does this CD make you re-think your preconceptions about the metal genre, it makes you realize how EXCEPTIONAL some of modern music is. It also showcases some interesting comparitive pieces - it takes some guts to put Paganini and Metallica on the same CD - and it works beautifully."

One of my favorite CDs

Chapman Tucker | 02/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I may have to purchase a second copy of this CD as I will probably wear a hole through my copy of this one Any violinist who loves both classical and rock will fall passionately in love with this CD. Additionally this is one of my favorite versions of Paganini's 24 because of Rachel's ethereal sound. In the Passacaglia duo for violin and cello one would swear the violin and cello are having a very steamy affair. The Led Zepplin mix is mind blowing. Her first cut is a beautifulclassic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner done Rachel style, which should remind us all how fortunate we are to have such a virtuso from the United States. Rachel is not only a marvelous violinist but a wonderful muscian as well, as she seems to come up with marvelous ideas for her CDs and has such great love and respect for music, composers and a humble desire to share."

Not just entertaining crossover - entertaining contemporary

Discophage | France | 02/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"OK, so when Bach wrote, say, his Sonatas and Partitas for Violin or Cello Suites, he drew upon dance forms or popular music of his time, he metabolized them into his own language. Same with Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Bartok, Copland and whoever else you like. Even Berg and Schoenberg, in their most serious works, oftentimes elaborated on the Viennese Waltz. It's been a constant of Western "classical music" to elaborate with its own compositional techniques on some of the music parameters of those popular forms (melodic, rhythmic, harmonic). It is only in the 20th Century that the two have widely diverged, because of the parallel development of an increasingly informed and complex classical music that has estranged the wider public, and of all forms of popular music (folk, rock, pop), boosted by the explosion of the various modes of mechanical reproduction and circulation of sound and music (from radio to recordings). The only exception is Jazz, of course - a regular bedfellow of 20th century classical music, but a rapport, in my opinion, that has sired very few entirely convincing babes, probably because Jazz has too strong an imprint, making it difficult for classical musicians to really metabolize it into their own language, as opposed to just quoting it. One notable exception is Stravinsky, in his Ebony Concerto - pure Stravinsky.



So, picking your favorite rock songs - all the way "to grunge to classic metal to speed metal" says Rachel Barton (not that I would know) - and adapting them for the classical instrument par excellence is, in principle, nothing new. I am not familiar with the various styles and warhorses of rock music (not that I am in principle adverse to it; but the music has to be instrumentally inventive, or else really dirty and wild, like Pantera's, to attract me), but nobody used to the kind of World music championed by such groups as the Kronos Quartet or Balanescu Quartet is likely to be shocked. I find Barton's arrangements highly entertaining and very genuine to the instrument and the instrumental techniques developed in the course of the 20th Century. Some of these arrangements I find in fact much better than the originals (heard on U-Tube). She can't possibly emulate the decibel power of three electric guitars and drums playing full blast, but she compensates with her fine instrumental colors and her Bartokian energy at digging into the strings. The original AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" starts with a guitar solo that sounds directly inspired by Bach - pop-classical influence in reverse, so to speak; in Barton's arrangement and much faster tempo, that reference is unfortunately lost, but in favor of other appeals. In some she plays solo (Star Spangled Banner), in most she is joined by co-fiddler Edgar Gabriel and Cellist Brandon Vamos.



In her fine liner notes, Barton is not entirely explicit as to why she added to her rock program Paganini's 24th Caprice and Haendel's Passacaglia (in Harlvorsen's popular arrangement), just stating that "they seemed to fit well". One reason why they do perhaps is that you could easily fancy that some rock musician had written some ballad on those tunes, giving cue to those arrangers, Paganini and Haendel-Halvorsen, to adapt them for strings.



My only quibble is that, for ignoramuses like me, the rock groups or singers that have sung these songs should have been mentioned more clearly. Here, only the composers and lyricists are given, and that gives only a very indirect clue. Well, I did a bit of research on the net. Some of these groups I had never even heard of - sorry, rock fans! Oh, after all, I once met a young opera stage manager who had never heard of Vladimir Horowitz...



"Thunderstruck", "Back in Black": AC/DC

"Sunday Bloody Sunday": U2

"Cowboys from Hell": Pantera

"Blow Up the Outside World": Soundgarden

"Paranoid": Black Sabbath

"Fade to black": Metallica

"Heartbreaker", "Black Dog", Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin

"Symphony of Destruction": Megadeth

"All Apologies" and "Smells like Teen Spirit": Nirvana

"The Spirit of the Radio": Rush

"One": Metallica



I was directed to this disc after reviewing Barton's recent recording of Beethoven's and Franz Clément's Violin Concertos on Cédille Records (Beethoven, Clement: Violin Concertos). I looked at her discography, and this one seemed intriguing. For the anecdote, when this recording was made in 1997-8, she called herself Rachel Barton, and the disc's producer was a Greg Pine. Now she goes by the name of Rachel Barton Pine. Seems there's another case of bedfellowing here, and the progeny it generated is a highly entertaining one (I am refering to this disc, I know nothing about the rest).



TT 58:48"