Literature

Gentle Giant had a great interest in Rabelais' "Gargantua and Pantagruel". the songs "Pantagruel's Nativity" and "The Advent of Panurge" both refer to that novel, and even the band's name was inspired by it.

let's not forget that the "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll inspired both the band Bruford (the song "Fainting in Coils" starts with a quotation from "Alice in Wonderland") and Chick Corea (the album "The Mad Hatter")

when one speaks of prog and literature one must not forget Bo Hansson's "Lord of the Rings"

verslibre wrote: Didn't realize you were a TD fan, BaldJean. I need to pay more attention!   Tyger consists of four Blake poems adapted to song (vocals by Jocelyn B. Smith): "Tyger," "London." "The Fly" and "The Smile."   Upon release, Tyger was quite the left turn for TD. It was only their second studio album with Paul Haslinger, who filled the void left by Johannes Schmoelling. The band's only other album with vocals was 1978's Cyclone. (And then two more songs would show up on the Shy People soundtrack, released later in '87!)   Of course, I liked Tyger upon first listen. It's just that good. The CD also featured instrumental bonus tracks left off the LP/cassette versions.

and I am a fan of literature. I read all those novels and poems, though I did not understand "Finnegans Wake". but no-one does


Edited by BaldJean - February 01 2018 at 13:46

Didn't realize you were a TD fan, BaldJean. I need to pay more attention!

moshkito wrote: Hi, I did not enjoy Rick's doing when this came out. It felt cartoonish for my tastes and simplified to try and make it important, and worse ... fit on the length of a LP ... about 40 minutes or so ... which meant ... trim the heck out of the story for it to fit. This, might not have been an issue TODAY, and Rick probably could release a COMPLETE version of the whole thing at about 60 to 80 minutes, and it would sound way better and complete to my tastes ... it just felt like a Cliff Notes version of it, and I quit on it quickly. Probably better, although also limited to the LP sizes, were David Bedford's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner", and then later "The Odyssey" ... which should have been listed here, but they were more "classical" pieces with voice narrating than a full blown "opera" or work that was more cohesive than just a quick read. But to me, these are interesting, but things like "The Snow Goose" is much better, and more "centered" on its subject/themes to make it much tighter and better. Would have loved to hear/find the one time that supposedly Spike Milligan did the reading for Camel on this ... if it was true. No one was as good about telling stories as he was ... and he left us with many albums and books of these stories!

Well, Rick did re-record Journey a few years ago, with better production and a few new songs. Still, I think it lost a bit of the edge of the original release, and Ricks keyboards were stronger and more interesting... the new recording sort of gave way to focus more on the orchestra.

Peter Hammill actually did another piece of literature in collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, "The Music of Erich Zann" (based on a story by H. P. Lovecraft). the music was composed and played by the Kronos Quartet, Peter Hammill read the story (there were other narrators on other occassions the Kronos Quartet played this piece of music). they performed this three times at the Barbican. anyone who is curios about this can listen to it here:

https://archive.org/details/PapersForTheBorderEpisode8

Peter Hammill for me. the 1999 version, not the 1990 one. the two versions are very different; the 1999 version is for example completely without drums, and there are many other changes in arrangement too. here an excerpt, the beginning of the second act:



and here one of my favorite passages, the duet between Madeleine Usher and Montresor



the line-up of the album is this:

Roderick Usher - Peter Hammill
Montresor - Andy Bell
the Chorus (in the sense of the Elizabethan theater) - Sarah-Jane Morris
Madeleine Usher - Lene Lovich
the Herbalist - Herbert Grönemeyer
the Voices of the House - Peter Hammill (in a chorus with himself)

Peter Hammill plays keyboards and guitars (and in the 1990 version drums and percussion too); Stuart Gordon adds some violin in the 1999 version



Edited by BaldJean - January 31 2018 at 01:34

verslibre wrote: I love those Wakeman and Wayne albums, but as a Poe fan, I can't vote without first revisiting the one by Hammill. I concur we need an "All of the above" option!