Search - Japanese Traditional, Anonymous, James Galway :: The Enchanted Forest: Melodies of Japan

Not quite supreme quality

Stephen A. Haines | Ottawa, Ontario Canada | 02/11/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's unfair, i suppose, to rank one person's performance against another's, but having acquired this CD and Rampal's equivalent and nearly the same time makes it unavoidable. Galway is a wonderful flautist, but, as with some orchestra conductors, some genres are fit into better than others. When Galway plays Irish music, he's unexcelled. If he plays European classical, he's among the top performers. Here, in a Japanese environment, he seems a bit lost. Perhaps the mists slipping through the forested mountains of Japan have a quality unmatched by the oceanic fogs of Galway or Normandy. Something is lacking in these performances, a quality that Galway seems to be seeking without quite achieving it. Perhaps those who've never heard the Rampal Sakura are justified in their praise of this CD, but my ears can't grant the full five stars for this. If you have the opportunity to make the comparison, do so, and judge for yourself."

A posie placed on a political border

hirofantv | tomorrow | 05/18/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I don't DISLIKE this cd, but really it is a poor interpretation of Japanese flute music. It sounds more like an uninspired Enya clone than traditional Japanese music. No matter how many times I listened to it, it never could really interest me enough to be more of my life than another cd in my scrapped CD's pile."

Ick

Daniel G. Berk | 05/28/2001

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Smarmy new-age mush, noodly and squishy. It's too bad they used the synth--without that it might have been worth listening to. As is, it only seems useful as elevator music. Check out Rampal's exquisite, crisp, clean interpretations of Japanese flute music instead."