'Round Midnight 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic
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- Release Date: 08/13/2002
- Sales Rank: 74,767
- Label: EMI CLASSICS
- UPC: 724355731920
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'Round Midnight
Editorial Reviews
At first glance, this might appear to be just another crossover album: the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic playing arrangements of Gershwin, Ellington, Monk, Mancini, and Glenn Miller, with a few spirituals thrown in for good measure. But look closer and you'll find that 'Round Midnight is more daring than its initial appearance suggests. The disc is centered around Robert Brookmeyer's Amerika 2002, In Memoriam, a darkly colored, jazz-inflected, two-movement work with solo trumpet (played by Till Brönner) inspired by the events of 9/11/2001. Even the Gershwin -- an arrangement of the Second Prelude (originally for piano solo) -- has an unusually profound resonance, as it was played by the ensemble on 9/12 to commemorate the previous day's tragedy. And vestiges of that can be heard here in the mournful, muted performance. Another surprise is Sergio Cárdenas's The Flower is a Key (A Rap for Mozart), an offbeat yet engagingly rhythmic homage to the great Wolfgang Amadeus in which the "rap" is intoned (and very effectively, too) by Sir Simon Rattle, the orchestra's music director. The other works on the disc are more conventional, but all the arrangements have been done with care, providing plenty of contrapuntal detail and unexpected harmonic twists. The sound quality captures the rich, woody tone of the Berlin cellos to perfection, and the end result is an unusually engaging disc that's a tribute to the Berliners' stylistic breadth and emotional probity. Andrew Farach-Colton, Barnes & Noble
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