This is a combination of modernist classical music with dubious jazz influences, not my favourite cocktail but intriguing nonetheless. Marsalis places huge demands on the players in his seven movement String Quartet that pools influences from Schoenberg, Shostakovitch but sounds curiously like Goodman gone mad! There are seven movements in all, each contain some sort of descriptive title but the occasional downright banality of the music definitely takes us nowhere in particular. I cannot but complement the Orion String Quartet for its passionate commitment to such weirdly unstimulating notes. Not to say that Marsalis' experiments don't have some wisdom, but to this listener at least were distinctly cold mostly! The 'Fiddler's Tale' is slightly better although the echoes of the famous film music bearing the same name are never far away. 'Anatevkha' and all those famous tunes are re-worked in jazz like fashion, not always to the improvement of the music (or so I thought). There are some virtuoso contributions from Marsalis himself, and I'm not doubting his sensational technique in ay way, indeed it is consistently nothing short of amazing all the time. 'Swinging into the 21st' continues to provoke and create wide gaffes of opinions and although I didn't exactly warm to fiddlers or balls, the music is something new and original, that's saying something. Reviewer Gerald Fenech Performance: Sound:	Reviewer Gerald Fenech Performance: Sound: Reviews from previous months Reviews carry sales links but you can also purchase from:
			Return to Index