I think there’s a time I might have loved this and played
it to death, so maybe this is living proof that appreciation
of certain types of music is age-related. I would hate to think
I’ve become a crusty old Scrooge of a reviewer, but if you are
interested in what Nigel Kennedy is up to these days then we
have to agree that the only reason The Four Elements is
appearing on this side of the classical/jazz-rock-pop divide
is that it has been released on Sony Classical. This positioning
of such a release in the classical division of the market seems
designed to invite controversy, as does Kennedy’s eternal desire
to shake us all out of our dusty sleep with his genre-expanding
multi-faceted artistic road-show. This title harks back to Kennedy’s
big 1989 EMI hit recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
which divided opinion more than somewhat, as will this new release.
The Four Elements was originally conceived as a 21st
century response to Vivaldi. The scale and ambition of this
project reminds me a bit of 1970s concept albums like Camel’s
The Snow Goose and any number of ‘pomp-rock’ extravaganzas
by bands like Emerson Lake and Palmer, so there’s plenty of
‘retro-now’ pushing and pulling to get one’s teeth into here.
Kennedy has been working in Poland with some excellent jazz
musicians, and names from previous releases such as Shhh!
also appear in The Four Elements. There is plenty
of skilful playing here from innumerable band members, and Kennedy’s
electric violin is capable of both hard-rock distortion effects
and beautifully reflective moments such as his solo around six
minutes into Air. Eastern atmospheres crop up here and
there, standing in for the pastoral effects of The Four Seasons,
but as with the opening of the Overture they are perhaps
presented a little coyly, too soon taken over with drum-beats
rather than being allowed to develop organically. Heavy beats
are the flavour of Earth, not quite reaching the same
level of something like Peter Gabriel’s Digging in the Dirt,
but expressing kinship in terms of dualities of meaning. Not
printed in the lyrics, Nigel’s light-hearted mid-section, “the
earth is a magical space, made specifically for the human race
...” contradicts the central message of Earth being the “mother
of all and the source of every birth”, whose “creatures great
and small are all of equal worth.” In other words, dig too deep
and you’ll release a can of arrogant worms. The rock feel is
continued in Fire, which takes its up-tempo lead from
the Brown/Bruce/Clapton number “Sunshine of Your Love”, and
is great fun further on, with some Nymanesque progressions to
keep our content-hungry brains happy. The mixture of strings
with rock beats does tend to kick up a retro-disco feel with
this track, but Kennedy’s vocals are a greater distraction.
As with most of the numbers here, Fire is a few minutes
too long for its own good, but you can dry your hair of a morning
and spend the rest of the day with a stiff neck after head-banging
your way through breakfast. Nigel’s bleeped studio out-take
expletives at the conclusion are unamusing, but all part of
the naughty-boy ethos.
Water is a more gently moving number with some nice instrumental
textures and strangely compelling vocal arrangements. The Finale
is largely filled with wistful improvisatory noodling but
teases with harder hitting material, almost breaking out into
a carnival march or an anthem but remaining in a state of permanent
relapse and unrestricted jumping from one genre to the next
until we at long last reach the half-tempo anthem bit 14 minutes
in, and even this has to become a barn dance before we’re finally
allowed to escape.
The final Plucking Elemental - Encore is pretty embarrassing,
Nigel’s gravelly vocal taking us back to the world of a kind
of sub “the spirit of Alexei Sayle possesses Neil in The
Young Ones in an attempt to recreate something like The
Beatles’ Her Majesty and somewhat self-consciously deflating
the overblown pretension of the previous track but tripping
itself up by being over-produced”, kind of thing.
This is what one might term a ‘Marmite’ release – the chances
are you’ll either love it or hate it, with not much room for
in-between opinions. If you have an aversion to pop music it’s
probably best avoided, though as a ‘pop’ album it is very many
times better than much of the dross we are fed from that corner
of the market. The Four Seasons is a fascinating prospect,
and – alas – a missed opportunity. What it really needed was
a composer/producer willing to stand up to Nigel Kennedy’s artistically
self-extirpative instincts, and able to develop the strong material
and bin the weak. There are good things on this album,
but none of them are really allowed to flourish. Transitional
material lingers too long, with those repetitious building-blocks
too banal to create Hey Jude-esque staying power. As
a response to Vivaldi it makes little or no use of his material
as an inspiration, and I would have loved some of the frisson
you can find with those antique/modern juxtapositions that this
kind of treatment can bring about. I may be overly harsh, but
even with the good bits of the mixed blessing to provide encouragement
there is just too much faffing about to give this album the
kind of classic status to which it seems to aspire. This could
have been a memorable and monumental achievement, but unfortunately
we’re left not with Four Elements but Four Elephants:
our view not of the fascinating flapping of their unforgettable
ears, but the steaming produce of their lumbering rears.
Dominy Clements
Nigel Kennedy (violin) 
