Wakeman, Rick

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 1975 / 1990
When Yes broke up the first time in 1975, interestingly enough all the former members of the band came out with solo or duo albums. All of them produced their albums at about the same time and all of them combined an orchestra with their works.
Each title of this album focuses on one of the characters of the King Arthur legend - except for the final title entitled "The Final Battle". Wakeman captures his interpretation of the character in each title. For example, 'Merlin the Magician' has some very whimsical parts to it sounding like a player piano playing in a old US Western movie.
Wakeman has the English Chamber Chorus supplying vocals in each title - sometimes producing a very dramatic effect. Rick plays a variety of keyboards: grand piano, mellotron, synthesizer, electric organ, lyritron. Trumpets from the orchestra in 'The Final Batlle' reminds on wakeman's syntesizer towards the end of the yes song 'Heart of the Sunrise'.

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 1999
This is continuation of Rick`s new age (or new world) ambient music saga: "Aspirant Sunrise", "Apirant Sunset" and "Aspirant Sunshadows". You would hear relaxing melodic instrumental pieces, music landscapes. Music here is like flowing of the river or cold sea breeze in hot summer day.
Rick plays his favourite electronic keyboards (Korg, Kurzweil, Roland) in meditative mood. So the sound of the record traditional for Rick`s albums (it isn`t such a repetitive techno loops). In our crazy depressive agressive world the music by Rick is a kind of a cure from this depression.
Some people think of new age, ambient music as of low genre... Too simple, "everybody could play like this", music for elevators etc. By the way, sometimes in elevators you could hear light classical music (Vivaldi, Mozart etc.). Not a bad company for new age ambient musicians.
Wakeman got formal education and he could compose sophisticated music for symphonic orchestras. Rick once said, that book by Russian composer of the XIX century Rimskiy-Korsakov about the principles of orchesration for a long time was his favourite reading. You could believe that Wakeman could write music of highest quality in each genre. To landscapes by Rick you could return many times and each time you would find there something new.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 1973 / 1990
Wakeman produces six long tracks that have a cohesion that does hold up. Trained for a time at the RCM, Wakeman absored lessons on structure along with a lot of beer. The focus of each song is based on thematic material that Wakeman explores as any classical composer might do, but with the instrumentation and rythym of jazzish rock. Take Jane Seymour (not Dr. Quinn) for example. The piece starts out with a church organ playing a Bachish modal theme. A harpischord answers the organ in counterpoint, and them finally a Minimoog enters, doubling the organ's new thematic material, now in an ominous minor theme. Occasional drums add tension to the piece, but the organ keeps returning to the main theme and its variations.
It has not aged in nearly 30 years and can still be listened to almost as if for the first time. When it was first released it broke barriers of inventiveness and originality, both in terms of genre and of sound. Rick's playing sounds good on any keyboard, but with this album you are taken through the best of all the keyboards available back in 1973 (and, frankly, they are still the best). A masterpiece.

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 2009
Live at Hampton Court Palace.
In spring 2009, the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne, Rick Wakeman finally fulfilled a long held dream to perform his famous album "The Six Wives Of Henry VIII" at Hampton Court Palace. It was the first time he had ever performed the album in its entirety. Joining Rick for the performance were the English Rock Ensemble, the Orchestra Europa conducted by Guy Protheroe and the English Chamber Choir. The show made the most of its stunning setting with spectacular lighting and staging. Only two never-to-be-repeated performances were possible and this CD perfectly captures this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 2010
This is a strange triple-CD compendium of Rick Wakeman's work, representing solo and group repertory from across his career. It isn't quite what it would lead one to think it was -- a compilation of his work from established recordings in his output; rather, it is apparently assembled from live performances, although there's no audience sound or talk between the songs (you can usually tell by the timbre of the drums, if nothing else); and the songs are not always listed in correct order, in addition to the fact that some are not listed at all; so in that regard, it reminds one of any number of early-'70s bootleg live albums, on which the producers couldn't be bothered to check the real titles of the songs performed, or break a medley down into its component songs. That said, it should also be stated that this is not a bootleg, though it is sort of "gray market." On the plus side, the selection of material includes music from virtually every corner of Wakeman's post-1970 career, even "Starship Trooper," which he really inherited from Tony Kaye on joining Yes; and speaking of Yes, one major surprise here is "Revealing Science of God" from what was reportedly Wakeman's least favorite classic Yes album, Tales from Topographic Oceans. And if you like Wakeman's playing, there's a lot to love in this set. We get fresh interpretations of early works such as "Catherine Howard" and "Catherine of Aragon" from The Six Wives of Henry VIII, plus bracing renditions of "The Myths and Legends of King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (sans orchestra) -- except on this last, the other musicians (all uncredited) are mostly not quite up to Wakeman's standard, but he is so much of the show that it hardly makes a difference, and even the absence of Jon Anderson on the Yes repertory vocals can be forgiven -- it's not like they've done "Revealing Science of God" in too many shows since the mid-'70s. And then there are the covers of repertory well outside of Wakeman's own orbit, including a synthesizer-driven "Paint It Black," which are as unexpected as anything else here -- the latter may not add much to the original, but it is great fun, and perhaps that's the real beauty of this collection, that it harkens back to a time when prog rock was as much fun as it was serious. Oh, and the notes are very thorough, even though they tell us nothing of the origins of these recordings.

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 1996
A nice tinkly little ambient Wakeman album in the mode of the "aspirant" trilogy where the tracks end properly on a final note.

Artist: Rick Wakeman
P: 1976 / 1999
This is a new interpretation of his music and tracks he composed back in 1976 for the olympic wintergames score.

Artist: V/A
P: 1992
This is a compilation series of the best tracks of Synthesizer music from the beginning of the 90s.

Here the last copy!

Artist: V/A
P: 1993
This is a compilation series of the best tracks of Synthesizer music from the beginning of the 90s.

Here the last copy!