Search - Thijs Van Leer :: Introspection & Introspection 2

Muzak, I'm afraid, but good flute-playing

Gavin Wilson | 07/20/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"99% of prospective buyers will come to this album via Thijs Van Leer's contributions to Focus. Here Van Leer plays only flute. There is no piano, no organ, nor even any yodeling.The setting is very largely classical -- Bach, Faure, Handel Granados etc. Even the renditions of 'Focus II' and 'Focus III' are made to sound as if they were Baroque originals. The orchestration by Rogier van Otterloo dominates throughout. The female voice that la-la's on various tracks dates the recording firmly to the 70s. There is no other description for this style of music than 'muzak'. There is zero rock content, nor anything that could be called progressive.The packaging is dismal, in terms of information. It doesn't even tell you what year the two albums were originally recorded.I've also recently bought two early CDs by Jan Akkerman (the other music genius in Focus) -- 'Profile' and 'Tabernakel' -- and I would recommend them more strongly."

Classical classic with progressive rock

12/28/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Thijs van Leer, who was at the time of this album's release the flautist-keyboardist-vocalist with the Dutch band Focus, turns in a spectacular performance on this disc. My only nit to pick with it is that a few of the original songs are somewhat unimaginative and seem forced in their musical development, but the performances on the classical standards more than makes up for that. These performances are my personal standard for works such as the Pavane and Bist du bei Mir. I haven't heard the CD recording yet, but based on the LP, you won't regret having this album."