Music for the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Duo GIOVIVO
Featuring: Fabian Bloch and Muriel Zeiter
GENUIN Recordings: CD GEN 24884
This delightful, if slightly surreal CD couldn’t have been any more festively filling if it came stuffed into a turkey wearing its own set of sleigh bells.
18 inventive tracks combine to make an advent calendar of musical liqueurs, mixed by the performers (alongside composer Daniel Hall) to tickle the tastebuds; some as traditional as dry sherry, others as fizzy as Babycham and a few that seem to have put a jagerbomb in the eggnog.
Festive insouciance
It is very deliberate however and quite splendidly delivered (as were the earlier releases, ‘Rather Romantic’ and ‘Serendipity’); euphonium star Fabian Bloch (as well as performing on bass trumpet, alphorn, wunderhorn and piano) and the superb pianist Muriel Zeiter (transverse flute and violin) performing both with elegant seriousness and festive insouciance.
The charming ‘Drei Nusse fur Aschenbrodel’ (‘Three Wishes for Cinderella’) followed by the icy gallop of ‘Petersburger Schlittenfahrt’ (‘St Petersburg Sleigh Ride’) and the boogie-woogie take on ‘Joy to the World’ sets the eclectic blind taster-session along.
The charming ‘Drei Nusse fur Aschenbrodel’ (‘Three Wishes for Cinderella’) followed by the icy gallop of ‘Petersburger Schlittenfahrt’ (‘St Petersburg Sleigh Ride’) and the boogie-woogie take on ‘Joy to the World’ sets the eclectic blind taster-session along.
Lyrical warmth
The lyrical warmth of ‘Cantique de Noel’ takes its place next to a trio of carols that have been mixed with Daniel Hall’s ‘Willy Wonker’ flavourings; a samba ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, a soft ragtime stride ‘O Tannenbaum’ and a jazzy garland fling ‘Deck the Halls’ that would make your living room look as if was decorated by Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen.
a samba ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, a soft ragtime stride ‘O Tannenbaum’ and a jazzy garland fling ‘Deck the Halls’ that would make your living room look as if was decorated by Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen.
Max Reger’s sleepy ‘Maria Wiegenlied’ and ‘Lullaby for Jael’ snugly cradle young dreams whilst the adults join ‘Good King Wenceslas’ (who seems to have Elton John gathering firewood for him) and Mrs Mills on the joanna for an old East End boozer take on ‘Ihr Kinderlein kommet’ (‘Oh Come, Little Children’) and ‘Jingle Bells’.
‘Der Winter’ has Fabian Bloch slip-sliding around on the icy streets of Venice like Vivaldi on banana-skin skates doing his Christmas shopping, before the more serious explorations come in Daniel Hall’s ‘Apricity’.
Nina Simone
The curious sound of the alphorn playing a Nina Simone sounding ‘Amazing Grace’ is followed by a Jethro Tull flute lead on ‘Adeste Fideles’, before tradition is restored with ‘Ave Maria’.
A stocking full of unexpected delights ends with a quick dip under the boardwalk for a good ‘ol southern take on ‘Silent Night’, as if Santa has just finished his night’s work in a Louisiana backwater moonshine joint, blissfully knackered and full of festive cheer.
Iwan Fox
To purchase: https://giovivo.ch/produkt/joyfully/
Play list:
1. Drei Nusse fur Aschenbrodel (Karel Svoboda arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
2. Petersburger Schlittenfahrt Op. 57 (Richard Eilenberg arr. Zeiter)
3. Joy to the World (Lowell Mason arr. Daniel Hall)
4. Cantique de Noel (Adolphe Adam arr. Zeiter)
5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Trad arr. Daniel Hall)
6. O Tannenbaum (Melchior Franck arr. Daniel Hall)
7. Deck the Halls (Trad arr. Daniel Hall)
8. No. 52: Maria Wiegenlied Op. 76 (Max Reger trans. Bloch)
9. Good King Wenceslas (Thomas Helmore arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
10. Ihr Kinderlein kommet (Johan Schulz arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
11. Jungle Bells (James Lord Pierpont arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
12. Lullaby for Jael (Johannes Brahms arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
13. Der Winter (Antonio Vivaldi arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
14. Apricity (Daniel Hall)
15. Amazing Grace (Trad. arr. Zeiter)
16. Adeste Fideles (Trad. arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
17. Ave Maria (Franz Schubert arr. Wilhelm, trans. Bloch)
18. Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht (Franz Gruber arr. Zeiter & Bloch)
